This thesis examines the relationship between Samuel Clemens and his mother, Jane Lampton Clemens. It is apparent that Samuel was strongly influenced by his mother in his personality, appearance, and beliefs; but of greater importance is the influence she exerted on the literary creations of Mark Twain.

As an historio-sociological novel The Octopus is important because it synthesizes several features of late nineteenth century America, especially naturalism and the political preponderance of the Southern Pacific railroad. An analysis of this novel provides a better understanding of its features and adds a dimension to the perspective of history.

This study of renunciation and self-realization examines four of Henry James's novels which have been selected for the centrality of this theme. Following James's failure as a dramatist, in the novels of the major phase, from 1897 on, the theme of renunciation becomes primary as James's work achieves psychological and stylistic maturity. In addition Henry James's letters, notebooks, and prefaces will be used to indicate his attitudes concerning renunciation.

This thesis examines the fiction of the Columbian author Gabriel García Márquez, and focuses on hyperbole as a fundamental characteristic of Márquez's fiction. There is special interest in three aspects of his work: setting, people, and themes.

This comic romantic novel engages the question of how the Christianity of the southern, fundamentalist world of the Texas bible belt, finding its primary cultural assumptions about human existence challenged by the more confusing elements of a modern sensibility, a sensibility over-laden with strange-attractors, mechanistic psychologies, relativistic physics and ethics, evolutionary premises, newly proclaimed rights and freedoms, a deterioration in cultural political naivete, and the advent of an increasingly incomprehensible set of technologies, can survive. The "central" character is a young, slightly deformed man raised by his ostensibly "Christian" grandparents who, through a rather odd set of legal circumstances and physical events, not only become wealthy, but somewhat powerful in their immediate community. He finds himself involved with a young woman, raised in an equally "Christian" household, but, as is true of any romantic plot, the relationship between the two is destined, by virtue of circumstance and the meddling of other characters, to struggle and mishap. In the end, the text, in its own fashion, asserts that the Christian impulse can survive the modern era by virtue of one of its central tenets: faith, in the Christian world, is very much the same as life itself, a process of waiting and expecting. Its greatest threat, rather than something intrinsic to the modern period, is perhaps that of the dogmatism and misunderstanding of the characters who most loudly proclaim it to others.

Thesis (PhD. (English Studies)) --University of Limpopo, 2002. / The purpose of this study is to investigate colonialism in the novels of Nadine Gordimer and Anita Desai. A further purpose is to introduce these two major writers to a wider audience, thereby illuminating not only their work but also the artistic, social and moral assumptions on which it rests. A comparative study of the novels of Gordimer and Desai shows how these writers, from socially and culturally different countries, reflect and explore colonialism. By locating this phenomenon of world history in Post-Colonial Literary Studies the project calls for a discussion of the various critical models of post-colonial writing. In consequence, the study moves beyond the dichotomy of east-west and centre-periphery to a reading of Gordimer's and Desai's novels at several levels, with a particular focus on India's special experience of colonialism - both at home and abroad -and Gordimer's status as a white South African. From this perspective evolves the notion that Desai and Gordimer reveal through their texts patterns of similarity and difference in their respective colonial encounters. If we were to search for a writer from Africa whose being and writing have been directly involved with issues pertaining to the historical phenomena of colonialism and race struggle over an extended period, then Gordimer must be the ideal candidate. She is a writer deeply bound up with the multiple phases and consequences of South African apartheid. Also, she is someone who tries to go beyond history to depict the conscience of the age by writing about the human condition in times of terror and fear. A contemporary analysis of the human condition is a concern that Gordimer and Desai share as writers of fiction. The agony of a post­ colonial India that tries to liberate itself from the dialectic of history is reflected in Desai's novels in the framework of "difference on equal terms". This places her in the "second generation" of lndo-English writers who write from the hybridised and syncretic view of the modern world that celebrates cultural cross-pollination. A special achievement of Gordimer and Desai is to succeed in powerfully portraying female characters in a rapidly changing world, though each writer explores the place of women in society from her own cultural perspective. Writers are transmitters of their cultures. A study of this kind, I hope, will help to stimulate interest and enjoyment in the reading of South African and Indian literature and thus strengthen the literary bond of understanding between the two countries.

Thesis (M.A.) --University of Limpopo, 2011 / This study is to conduct a detailed study of milieu in a number of Xitsonga novels in I Vutomi by Lubis CM and Xona hi Xihi? by DR Maluleke. This study also emphasizes on how the characters are depicted in rural areas and urban places. Lubisi and Maluleke are able to enlighten the community about the importance of establishing the distinct relationship between space and time. The first chapter is a general introduction that outlines and provides background of the study. Milieu as well as its manifestation in I Vutomi and Xona hi Xihi? is discussed in the second chapter. The third chapter deals with characterization. In the fourth chapter, the main theme of the novels is critically examined. The fifth chapter is a brief overview of the first four chapters. It also summarizes the findings of the research and provides recommendations.

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The child in many Canadian novels in French and in English serves to symbolize the nation or to make a claim to it. These connections are derived from Romantic theories. Quebec novels are less likely to end with the child moving into the city with optimism because of the long-standing tradition of "novels of the soil."

Šiame darbe kalbama apie istorijos interpretavimą S.T.Kondroto ir M.Ivaškevičiaus romanuose. Kartu aptariami supratimo, kas yra istorija klausimai, analizuojamas S.T.Kondroto ir M.Ivaškevičiaus santykis su literatūrine istorijos interpretavimo tradicija. / This work contains the review of interpretations in the novels of M. Ivaškevičius and S. T. Kondrotas. There is an attempt to split an attention equally on both of the writers, so the main style of composition is base don collision. The main aim of the whole study is to review the following of the tradition of literal interpretation of history and the exact relation of M. Ivaškevičius and S. T. Kondrotas with it. I prefer to attend on the reception of the creation of those‘s writers and the and the interpretation of history in overall Lithuanian literature. The history itself, the relations of literature and history are also discussed along with the main theme. There‘s no passibility to avoid the mentioning of the fact, that the conditions of this work had to be related to living in post-communistic society, wchich itself has several reflections of the present at the same time and different sight of views at an axact episode of natural history. At the end of the study there‘s the summary, containing a state, that the novels of both M. Ivaškevičius and S. T. Kondrotas confront with a traditional interpretation of history: S. T. Kondrotas found his own way to use an international style as fluently as allegoric and archetypical together with mystical elements under conditions of lithuanian style of living, never excluding the fact, that the reality of the time he lived had it‘s own influense in mystifying the history of this own country. He interpreted the reality that had a... [to full text]