Browsing by Author "Carmine Prioli, Committee Member"

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Art and Sexual Repression: Miles Coverdale and The Blithedale Romance
(2003-04-08) Beaudoin, Maria Elaine; Allen Stein, Committee Chair; Anne Baker, Committee Member; Carmine Prioli, Committee Member
Throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne's body of work, including his short stories and novels, there is a strong connection between artistic production and repressed sexual longing or genuine love for another person. Most of Hawthorne's artists repress their desires for another person because of social circumstances or the lack of courage to express them, and therefore, they channel those emotions through their artistic efforts. Not only do those artists who are sexually repressed use their art as an outlet, but Hawthorne shows that they are also those artists who produce the greatest and most long-lasting work. The artists who are able to find long-lasting love can create only minor or ephemeral art. Hawthorne's third novel, The Blithedale Romance, most fully explores the relationship between the creation of art and the expression of sexuality by the artist. This novel, with Miles Coverdale as Hawthorne's only first-person narrator, provides the most extensive portrait of a self-isolated, sexually repressed artist, which is arguably a thinly veiled portrait of Hawthorne himself. Because Coverdale remains a bachelor without ever finding an outlet for his passions, he creates a genuinely significant work of art: a fictional account of his experiences at Blithedale, The Blithedale Romance.
D.H. Lawrence and the Challenge of Class Consciousness: Original Freedom and the Self
(2007-03-06) Nuckols, Mitzi D; Carmine Prioli, Committee Member; Jon Thompson, Committee Chair; Tom Lisk, Committee Member
The purpose of this analysis is to explore D.H. Lawrence's obsession with the oppression of class systems. He saw class as a depraved institution that robs the individual of originality. In both The Ladybird and "Daughters of the Vicar" Lawrence exposes the inherent self-consciousness and class-consciousness of the social order. His fiction presents the oppression that haunt members of class systems. The goal of my thesis is to evaluate his characters at varying levels of this consciousness, while exploring what it is that promulgates the consciousness. According to Lawrence, human beings deny their genuine nature in order to belong to a group, which inevitably forces them to live in a hyperconscious awareness of themselves and their place in the class system. Additionally, this thesis analyzes Lawrence's concept of the ideal individual who transcends consciousness and exists in an unselfconscious state. For Lawrence, this ideal individual possesses the capacity to lead most admirably.
The (De)Evolution of the Irish Anti-hero from Oisin's Fabled Isle to McDonagh's Lonesome West
(2007-12-10) Turney, Aaron Daves; Jon Thompson, Committee Member; Carmine Prioli, Committee Member; Mary Helen Thuente, Committee Chair
General Thesis: There is a constant, observable conflict in 20th century Irish drama between traditional pagan Irish values and those imported first by Christian missionaries and later by English invaders. Often, dramatic works of this period portray a single character confronting those forces that represent modernity. The character's heroism usually remains obscured by modern standards because he appears in the form of a tramp, an outcast, or even a violent criminal. But the motif is clear: characters such as these are heroic in the traditional Irish sense because they stand as resistors to foreign values that threaten their culture. In the contexts of the plots these characters are not stock heroes, but instead are anti-heroes alienated by events and circumstances and judged by modern standards. Such works do contain clearly defined heroes⁄heroines who operate according to accepted modern values. The rebellious, shocking, or violent behavior of the anti-hero or anti-heroine is put in juxtaposition. The project begins with an analysis of the Oisin and St. Patrick legend as the cornerstone emblem of the tug-of-war between Irish tradition and foreign modernity, highlighting the divergence in both the language and the values of those characters. The motif established with the Oisin and St. Patrick tale (the motif in which the invasion of the imported god with foreign values threatens preexisting Irish values recurs in Irish drama throughout the 20th century. My intention is to show that the characters, such as Oisin, who can not fit the mold of modernity, also must not. In their inability to adapt, they stand as misfits in their own time, but also as preservers of an Irish tradition that predates colonialism and only s in the fringes of modern Irish society. And there is your anti-hero: not always palatable to the audience (who may be caught up in the immediacy of dramatic events), but always true to dreaming and mythmaking as well as rebellious in behavior, language, verse, or song. The political intensity of the 20th century is portrayed in generated works of drama that often are reducible to that same heroic⁄anti-heroic motif. My project will follow a (flexible) chronology of works that will show the (de)evolution of this anti-hero motif beginning with Oisin, followed by characters of J.M. Synge, Sean O'Casey, Brendan Behan, and finally Martin McDonagh. My intended focus is on the anti-hero's life in a relative vacuum, with a specific focus on dialectical expressions, rebellious, even violent behavior, and a general propensity to misunderstand, if not ignore altogether, modern conventions. To clarify, the term "(de)evolution" is appropriate because the characters, as the century progresses, become increasingly antisocial in their sentiments and behavior.
An Intonational Analysis of Mexican American English in Comparison to Anglo American English
(2007-07-26) Ericson, Holly Anne; Erik R. Thomas, Committee Chair; Walt Wolfram, Committee Member; Carmine Prioli, Committee Member
Until recently, intonational aspects of Mexican American English have received little to no attention. The research that has been conducted (Fought 2003; Penfield and Ornstein-Galicia 1985; Metcalf 1972) is a good start, but needs more precision and rigor. There is a need to describe this prosodic feature in more accurate terms than line drawings accompanied by a narrow number scale (Metcalf 1972). In 1992 Beckman and Hirschberg proposed their solution to this gap with the ToBI Annotation Conventions, which is the current model used for measuring intonation. This thesis uses ToBI conventions in conjunction with Praat spectrograms to compare the intonation of Mexican American English to Anglo American English. Results indicate that speakers of these two groups do typically differ in intonational patterns, most noticeably in final contours and pitch accents. These intonational differences contribute to the distinctness of each variety, which can cause misunderstandings in communication (e.g.: MAE declarative mistaken for interrogative). The results of this study contribute to the understanding of Mexican American English and to the comparative examination of intonation based on natural conversation.
It's Greek to Me: The Politics and Shape of Greek-American Identity
(2007-04-18) Boukourakis, Angela; Walt A. Wolfram, Committee Member; Carmine Prioli, Committee Member; Sheila Smith McKoy, Committee Chair
The purpose of this thesis is to examine how native Greeks and first-generation Greek-Americans identify or disidentify with "Greek-ness," "American-ness," or both in their struggle to achieve an ultimate, successful balance of a third "space," one that expresses their Greek-American identity. In order to come to certain conclusions regarding the formation of Greek-American identity, I examine Greek-American life from a historical overview that spans as early as the first Greek-American communities of the early 1900's, to Greek-Americans of present-day society. I look at how Greek-Americans perform "Greek-ness," "American-ness," or "Greek-American-ness," through language choice and the altering of traditional gender roles, in an attempt to achieve the third "space" of "Greek-American-ness." I discuss their use of Greek and English languages in the first chapter of the thesis from a qualitative, sociolinguistics study I conducted in spring 2003. In addition I examine females' and males' altering of traditional gender roles, and their implications, in several Greek-American texts, including Helen Papanikolas's novel, The Time of the Little Blackbird, and her story collection, The Apple Falls from the Apple Tree, Nia Vardalos's film, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Nick Gage's memoir, A Place for Us, and Eleni N. Gage's memoir, North of Ithaka: A Journey Home through a Family's Extraordinary Past, for the purposes of this thesis. These texts most effectively illustrate the altering of traditional gender roles and the affects of interethnic marriage. I found that the definitions of Greeks and Greek-Americans have always been ambiguous. Furthermore, Greek-American identity continues to be so in contemporary America, as a result of white, American socio-historical and socio-cultural constructs of race and ethnicity. Other findings include the fact that American-born and Greek-born Greek-Americans consider themselves different from other Americans, as well as from the Greeks who live in Greece. Both groups express their "Greek-American-ness" through language choice, altering of traditional gender roles, and lifestyle patterns characteristic of American life. Both males and females successfully achieve the third "space" of Greek-American identity in contemporary America. However, from a historical perspective, males assimilated more easily, and more often, than females. In addition, it took females much longer than the males to achieve this third "space," because of Greek traditional gender roles, which automatically allowed males more freedom for self-definition than the females, as a result of Greek patriarchal society in which these original roles were constructed. Finally, contemporary Greek-Americans are assimilating more than ever before, since influx of Greek migration patterns has significantly slowed down, from the last working class group who came in the early 1980's. This is probably the last group of first-generation Greek-Americans, so assimilation will become even more prevalent amidst later generations with the passing of time, unless Greek-Americans find ways to preserve their history and culture. This is why it is important to unearth Greek-American immigrant literature currently out of print, and to continue to write about the Greek-American experience, so future generations have a way to connect to their cultural origins and embrace the history that sets them apart as distinctively Greek-American.
Julian of Norwich's Concept of the Human Soul
(2007-07-26) Mills, Luke William; Charlotte Gross, Committee Chair; Carmine Prioli, Committee Member; John Wall, Committee Member
This thesis is an examination and discussion of Julian of Norwich's concept of a two-tiered human soul. Julian believes that the soul of the Christian has a higher, substantial part joined to the divine substance and a lower, sensual part joined to the human body but separate from God until joined to the substantial part by the redeeming work of Christ. Although Julian is writing within a mystical tradition heavily influenced by St. Augustine, her concept of the soul is a striking departure from the Augustinian concept of the soul as an undivided substance at a great ontological distance from God. I argue that Julian's concept is the result of her contemplation of sin, which inspires her to find a solution to the problem of God's judgment of the sinful soul. Her solution to this problem is a concept of the soul with a "godly will" unblemished by sin and therefore perfectly loved by God.
One Hundred Years of Stuff: A Biographical Sketch of Louise S. Hartin
(2006-12-08) Rhame, Mary Elizabeth; Carmine Prioli, Committee Member; Lucinda MacKethan, Committee Member; Elaine Orr, Committee Chair
While a student in the Master's of English program at North Carolina State University, I have developed a particular fondness for the telling of one's American experience through memoir. Books such as Eudora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings, Richard Wright's Black Boy, and Virginia Holman's Saving Patty Hearst, coupled with my own fascination with recent American history, oral history, the struggle for civil rights for various groups, and research, inspired me to begin my own creative nonfiction essays with my great-grandmother, the late Louise S. Hartin, as my central character. Oral history has always been important in my family. We tell and retell stories, some of them rather extraordinary, some of family members who have passed on and some about those of us who are still around. I've always been a writer, and in the past decade a journalist. For those of us who describe ourselves this way, I think it is our responsibility to listen to the stories of others and preserve them. I consider it my personal responsibility to make official recordation of family stories involving my great-grandmother. I will use my thesis as a vehicle to combine a conglomeration of materials found through research, family stories, and personal interviews into one narrative with Louise Hartin at its center. Chapter Outline Below is a list of proposed chapters with a brief explanation of each. Chapter One This chapter will serve to introduce the reader to Louise, my central character. I will introduce her by describing her experience waiting out Hurricane Hugo alone in her home, and the attention she commanded the morning after the storm. I also begin establishing my own credibility as the author and as Louise's great-granddaughter. Chapter Two Here I describe in detail the house in which Louise lived over sixty years, and all the changes that occurred in the neighborhood surrounding the house. I begin to give the reader a sense of the town, Sumter. I talk about our relationship and what we did when we were together. I further introduce Louise as a character, and include her setting: Sumter, South Carolina, and more specifically, the house she occupied for more than half her life. Chapter Three The focus of this chapter is Louise's church, Trinity United Methodist Church. I detail its importance in her life and describe the scene where she went to it as firefighters were extinguishing the blaze that gutted the sanctuary. I use her to tell the story of the church's rebuilding. Chapter Four I give historical context to Sumter in the 1960s by describing pertinent historical events in the region. I discuss South Carolina politics and Senator Strom Thurmond. I discuss the segregated social system that went through major changes during the Civil Rights Movement. Chapter Five Here I show how Sumter integrated the town. First, the hospital. Second, the military base. And, third, the public schools. Chapter Six Here are profiles of Dorothy and Alice, Louise's maids for about forty years. I ponder the life of a black domestic worker. Chapter Seven This chapter profiles Efred, Louise's yard man. Chapter Eight This chapter details two specific civil rights strides in Sumter, lunch counter and church sit-ins. Chapter Nine Finally, I discuss her death, the circumstances leading up to it, and my place in it all. Epilogue A wrap-up of all that has appeared before, and I use it as a place for me to record my final thoughts about Louise's life and/or the project.
Wyatt's "My Mother's Maids" and the Perils of Ignorance
(2007-07-10) Brock, Kevin Michael; Carmine Prioli, Committee Member; Brian Blackley, Committee Member; M. Thomas Hester, Committee Chair
Sir Thomas Wyatt's epistolary satire, "My mother's maids," is often overlooked by critics, purportedly because of the superiority of the poet's other two verse satires; and too often dismissed as little more than a straightforward retelling of the "country mouse" fable in Horace's Satire 2.6. However, Wyatt's version does not merely endorse Horace's view of the superiority of the simple country life over that of the city and court. Indeed, his poem focuses attention on the inherent violence that characterizes the outside world regardless of the setting. In fact, Wyatt's poem is better read as a satire of its Horatian "source," genre, and central theme about the peace and contentment that can be supposedly found in the country. For Wyatt, exerting any effort to find peace outside of oneself is not only a chimera but a search that may inevitably end in tragedy. This inward focus is reflected beyond this satire in his lyric poems, where Wyatt's criticisms of his fellow courtiers for lacking such a focus grow more ambiguous, veiled by careful use of narrative personae. Wyatt ultimately argues that the only way to survive in the court is through a Stoic philosophy, turning inward and trusting only in oneself and the certainty of appearance as appearance rather than possessing faith in others or the outside world.