This thesis is a study of the four long romances, The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun, with emphasis upon Hawthorne's use of symbolism as a means of presenting the basic moral and spiritual truths of human life. The first chapter explains the nature of symbolism and the reasons why Hawthorne used it so extensively. In each of the last four chapters, the symbolism in a single romance is considered for the purpose of discovering the manner and effectiveness of its use in exemplifying the central theme of that particular story. Although Hawthorne's short stories are extremely rich in symbolism, it was not possible to include them in the present study.

It is the purpose of this paper to demonstrate the nature of Thoreau's use of organic imagery by tracing recurrent symbols that represent key concepts and provide unity and coherence throughout Walden. By charting the patterns of imagery in Walden, one can observe Thoreau's movement from an initially pessimistic view of man's present state to one of transcendental optimism and hope for freedom in the future.

This study presents an alternative approach to the novels of Franz Kafka through demonstrating that the Kafkan protagonist may be conceptualized in terms of mythic archetypes: the knight errant and the pharmakos. These complementary yet contending personalities animate the Kafkan victim-hero and account for his paradoxical nature. The widely varying fates of Karl Rossmann, Joseph K., and K. are foreshadowed and partially explained by their simultaneous kinship and uniqueness. The Kafka protagonist, like the hero of quest-romance, is engaged in a quest which symbolizes man's yearning to transcend sterile human existence.

Only The Body Remembers is a collection of poems, lyric essays, and short stories that explore several subjects, including love (both romantic and familial), loss, grief, sexuality, identity, and obsession. The primary thematic thread that binds this collection together is somatic memory -- the way the body records experiences, and the strong emotional charge these recorded experiences carry. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This study is an examination of ocular imagery in the secular poetry of T.S. Eliot. As a symbol, eyes begin as a metonym for the panoptic vision of society. In the earliest poems, Michel Foucault's conceptions of discipline illuminate the acerbic paranoia attached to ocular imagery and its source in the culture of turn-of-the-century Boston. Towards 1919, the image of eyes becomes an objective correlative for the figure of Dante's Beatrice who represents both earthly and divine love. The loss of sight by the various speakers in both - "Gerontion" and The Waste Land is then the loss of connection to both the earthly woman and God. Finally, in The Hollow Men, the tenor and vehicle merge completely so the eyes themselves become the object of desire. / by Joshua RIchards. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

The thesis proposed for my M.F.A. in creative writing is a collection of conceptual American short stories written in a variety of forms that properly suit their respective subjects. Like a handful of miscellaneous wild seeds scattered over a tilled garden, the goal of the project is to represent the wild asymmetry of Nature via a collection of unlikely companions. For this reason, the conceptual form of each story often takes root in scientific or symbolic representations of Nature (i.e. sine and cosine curves, the yin-yang, etc.). The plot of loose soil holding these collective experiments together is their earthy thematic focus-namely, the way in which Nature has been systematically backgrounded by western ideology. On occasion, a story's conceptual focus may stray from these ecofeminist principles, but only for the purpose of leveling a more critical or satirical eye upon common American ideologies. / by Cory Daniel Zimmerman. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2008. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Out of the Ever After and Other Stories is a collection of language-driven stories set in different parts of the world and thematically linked, comprising realist narratives and magical realism. The trope that unifies this collection is that of the journey. The characters go on journeys, whether real or metaphorical. Many are lost at the beginning, but they find themselves in the end; others remain lost, but have a better understanding of their condition in the world. Although diverse in nationality, cultural background and gender, the characters in the eight stories share the need to find a lasting identity and a home-place to return to, whether physically or psychologically. The collection alternates magical and realist plots, male and female narrators, points of view, and diverse settings to create variety and a multicultural, hybrid and hyphenated experience. Some stories experiment with language; others have a more traditional mood, akin to fairytales. / by Claudia Amadori-Segree. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, FL : 2008 Mode of access: World Wide Web.

This is a study of the polysemous language in John Milton's Paradise Lost. Unlike some of his seventeenth-century contemporaries, Milton did not harbor a mistrust of highly symbolic and interpretable language, and the fact that he did not has deep repercussions in Milton's great epic. I examine the porous and mutable nature of Edenic language, and how it challenges the idea of prelapsarian language as devoid of polysemous gloss. Prior to the Fall, Adam and Eve's perfect acquisition of knowledge is not undermined by the symbolism of language. Nevertheless, Satan cleverly exploits the polysemy of Edenic language in order to effectuate Adam and Eve's transgression. Ultimately, Milton's Paradise Lost departs from common seventeenth-century theories about language and knowledge. Milton's view is unique in that it retains a positive view of symbolic language and suggests that postlapsarian humanity is bereft of divine guidance and left to struggle for knowledge through experience. / by Suzanne Harrawood. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

I am living in a world of strangers. Growing up, I was told to never talk to them. As an adult, I have grown self-centered, spending my days filtering the external into my own internal truths. In doing so, a boundary has been set between my brain and everything beyond it. For different reasons I have stayed quiet over the years, and formed opinions of strangers by means of observation; but now, finally, I am reaching out. I am going to places I would not normally go to, slowing down enough to notice, and trying something different. I am trying to talk to strangers, trying to get them to open up to me in a world where a lot of us have curled the focus inward. I am trying to explore, trying to overcome, approach, dig deeper, and above all, learn something that makes each one of us familiar. / Kelly Ann Gregorio. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011.

Wool and Water is a creative work of 36 poems. This collection examines the relationship between the silent and vocal, between the pastoral and urban. By reconfiguring and retelling the fairy tales and nursery rhymes, this collection seeks to challenge the status quo through trickster-like diction. Themes that are prevalent include: alienation, nourishment, anonymity, and the female body. From the concrete to the lyric, Wool and Water relies upon the process of questioning patriarchal guises. These poems intersect in order to rectify the past and make amends with the present. The female voices that drive these poems are multi-generational. / by Kira Frederick. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.