Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Garhwal. / In Hindi. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis theorizes the conceptual grid upon which discussions of sexuality are based in India's Great Epic, the Mahabharata . The Mahabharata contains complex multilevel taxonomies of sexuality, framed within hierarchies of religious experience. The thesis isolates two categories of religious experience: pravr&dotbelow;tti dharma ("involvement in the world"), and nivr&dotbelow;tti dharma ("renunciation of the world"). Within nivr&dotbelow;tti dharma, discourses on sexuality are inalienable from discourses on the body, and on asceticism. Within pravr&dotbelow;tti dharma, discourses on sexuality are anchored by parallel discourses on the dharmas of caste and stage of life (varn&dotbelow;asrama dharma), as well as on the dharmas based on sex and familial hierarchy. These subcategories are identified and the place of sexuality within them is drawn in detail.

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This thesis explored the nature of change in women's roles as reflected in British and American fiction from the turn of the century to date. The characters of women detectives were evaluated for how they functioned as active agents toward a solution to a given problem.This evaluation was based on three diagnostic points: 1) what rationale was offered to justify the characters as problem solvers; 2) what connections didthe characters hold with formal institutions of authority; and 3) what institutional skills, knowledge, training, etc. did the characters employ.This study revealed that the characters, though placed in an active role, operated from a strictly traditional orientation. Their motivations, "raison d'etre" and connections with formal institutions of authority were based on affective relationships, particularly those of a familial or romantic nature. The characters relied on intuition rather than skill or knowledge.

This thesis studies the ways in which female characters in Chaucer's poetry use language. Differences between feminine and masculine discourse in the Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde are examined, along with factors shaping the poetic articulation of the feminine in the Middle Ages. Part I sets out the background material which provides the context for the close readings of Parts II and III. Since the framework within which Chaucer's female characters speak is poetic, the first chapter is concerned with contemporary views about how poetic meaning is produced: what is the status of the author? How does the author read - and rewrite - his or her sources? Which rhetorical conventions govern literary representation, and how is the literary text justified? Part I also considers why rhetoric should be an issue as regards women in the Middle Ages, and what modes of signifying are available to women in social, spiritual and literary contexts. Perspectives on appropriate female behaviour and discourse are gained through an examination of the rhetorical traction, works of devotional and didactic instruction, and the conventions of fin'amor. Parts II and III present a close reading of Chaucer's poetry. The readings are informed by the perspectives outlined in Part I, and by modern literary theories, and involve some assessment of the applicability of recent theory to Chaucer's poetry. The Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde are both seen as vitally concerned with poetic practice and theory, and with the poetic representation of female characters. The poet's representation of the heroines in the course of the Legend provides a critique of the conception of poetry articulated by the god of Love in the Prologue. The hermeneutical and representational difficulties that the poet of the Troilus experiences with his poem are intimately linked with his treatment of Criseyde. The thesis considers the intersection between poetics and the poetic representation of the feminine.

In an interdisciplinary study, I argue that narrative fiction centred around old women, through its appeal to readers' imaginations, can challenge the ageism which currently governs how old women are scripted and depicted. / Chapter one situates media broadcasts amidst other discourses, such as academic theory, medical language, gerontology, and popular feminism, which confront---or avoid confronting---old women. To counter common, negative cultural depictions, chapter two examines Margaret Lock and Simone de Beauvoir's engagements with narratives of aging. I combine de Beauvoir's constructivist La Vieillesse and midlife fiction with Jean-Paul Sartre's What is Literature?, Martha Nussbaum's Poetic Justice, and Mieke Bal's Narratology to articulate how narrative fiction can compel what I call a committed reader to reimagine social possibilities for old women. / Chapter three foregrounds old age as a new category of analysis for Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel, sifting through her metaphors of decrepitude to set up a model for studying three potential, late life, female social roles. / Chapter four connects Joan Barfoot's Duet for Three with Hiromi Goto's Chorus of Mushrooms, which both depart from the previous age-as-decrepitude convention, to propose that the role of grandmother offers old women opportunities to give freely and benefit from non-possessive love, in a family context. In chapter five, I examine how gerontological nursing textbooks theorize institutional care to illuminate how Edna Alford's A Sleep Full of Dreams and Shani Mootoo's Cereus Blooms at Night facilitate an intergenerational bond within nursing homes. Caregivers' communicative strategies in each text exemplify how readers' imaginative engagement could begin to counter negative cultural attitudes. In chapter six, I explore how female friendship, as depicted in Barfoot's Charlotte and Claudia Keeping in Touch and Cynthia Scott's The Company of Strangers, offers old women an interdependence which enables the self sufficiency they often (are considered to) lack, eschewing a old age versus youth binary opposition. / I conclude that narrative fiction provides opportunities to shift cultural meanings of the conventionally negative term old, so that committed reading can transform imagined possibilities and lead to new perceptions of old women.

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Thesis--Columbia University. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [235]-242) and index.

Thesis--Johns Hopkins University, 1927. / Bibliography: p. [167]-172.