Browsing by Author "Dr. Barbara Bennett, Committee Chair"

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The Carnivalesque Laughter of Flannery O'Connor
(2006-04-28) Cook, Jonathan Neil; Dr. Barbara Bennett, Committee Chair
Critics often point out the incongruity between Flannery O'Connor's grotesque humor and her self-proclaimed Christian purpose. This paper uses Mikhail Bakhtin's conception of the carnivalesque to argue that O'Connor's use of grotesque humor is essential to her purpose. Both O'Connor and Bakhtin distrust all-encompassing ideologies that claim to authoritatively categorize and explain existence. In the carnivalesque laughter created by the grotesque realism of Rabelais, Bakhtin finds a way to undermine worldviews that claim ultimate authority. Similarly, O'Connor uses concrete and grotesque, but humorous images to displace her readers' expectations and undermine their natural desire to explain existence at the expense of mystery. By opening her readers up to mystery, O'Connor prepares them to see the world, and the people in it, as they truly are: complex, flawed, and beautiful.
In the Shadow of the Vamp: Representations of Female Violence and Aggression in Joyce Carol Oates's Fiction
(2005-07-27) Weissberg, Sarah Buker; Dr. Barbara Bennett, Committee Chair; Dr. Sheila Smith McKoy, Committee Member; Dr. Jon Thompson, Committee Member
Recently, feminist scholars have become interested in demystifying female initiated aggression and violence and in examining how women experience, express, and understand their own aggression. This study considers how author Joyce Carol Oates has contributed to that particular line of inquiry by publishing four specific short stories: 'The Vampire,' 'Lover,' 'Gun Love,' and 'Secret, Silent.' Chapter 1 of this thesis defines the archetype of the Lethal Woman, an archetype which embodies negative cultural conceptions of female violence and aggression. This chapter identifies Lethal Women figures from folklore, fiction, and film throughout the ages and then examines 'The Vampire,' a story in which Oates exposes the sexism and androcentric motives behind the ongoing creation and reinforcement of the Lethal Woman archetype. Chapter 2 focuses on the stories 'Lover,' 'Gun Love,' and 'Secret, Silent' and discusses how in these works, Oates explores the psychological impulses behind female initiated violence, passive aggression, and other subversive methods utilized by women for handling their aggression. This second chapter also contrasts Oates's depictions of female violence/aggression against depictions of female violence/aggression in the contemporary popular media and concludes that Oates's stories offer a refreshingly realistic alternative to historical and contemporary Lethal Woman narratives.
The Literary Merit of Young Adult Novels: Are They as Good as the Classics?
(2006-04-17) Hair, Melanie Sue; Dr. Barbara Bennett, Committee Chair; Dr. Mary Helen Thuente, Committee Member; Dr. Cris Crissman, Committee Member; Dr. Jason Miller, Committee Member
Teaching young adult literature in secondary English classrooms is a controversial topic, and much of the controversy stems from the idea that some educators believe that young adult novels are an inferior genre and do not contain the same amount of depth and merit that traditional classics possess. While young adult literature has made its way into the secondary English curriculum, it is typically only used for lower academic level students, reluctant readers, or for independent reading assignments. Rarely is young adult literature used for advanced students or for whole-class reading units. The purpose of this project is to show that young adult literature does possess many of the same qualities that traditional classics, typically considered 'great' literature, possess. The first chapter lays the groundwork for the rest of the thesis. The focus will be to describe why teaching young adult literature is such a controversial topic, to define the characteristics of 'great' literature, and to describe why young adult literature should be included in the English curriculum. The next three chapters analyze four young adult novels, The Giver by Lois Lowry, Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Buried Onions by Gary Soto, and The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros to show that the novels are of high literary quality. The last chapter concludes the analysis by discussing how the novels analyzed in the previous chapters exhibit the characteristics of 'great' literature and how they could serve as a bridge to the traditional classics.
A Southern Daugher's Search for Selfhood: Finding Identity Through Writing Memoir as Seen in Mary Karr's The Liars' Club & Patricia Foster's All the Lost Girls
(2004-04-19) Bishop, Stephanie Antoinette; Dr. Leila May, Committee Member; Dr. Lucinda MacKethan, Committee Member; Dr. Barbara Bennett, Committee Chair
The genre of memoir serves as an avenue for self-discovery. Particularly, Southern women have used this literary form as a mode for realization about the true nature of a daughter's relationship to her mother and her own selfhood. Mary Karr in her memoir The Liars' Club and Patricia Foster in her memoir all the lost girls explore their intense bond with their mothers as a way to recognize their need to protect their mothers. After the recognition of the desire to keep their mothers safe, these women then understand that in order to find their own identities, they must separate from their mothers and differentiate themselves. In their third and final step on the road to true selfhood, Karr and Foster work through the guilt they feel for not affirming and validating the roles their mothers have chosen to play in their own lives. By doing so, these daughters are able to live lives free of guilt and to nurture their own beings outside of their roles as daughter.
Women Behind the Wheel: Anne Tyler and Jill McCorkle's Female Heroes and Their Quest for Self-Discovery.
(2004-12-01) Mahaffey, Erin Rose; Dr. Barbara Bennett, Committee Chair; Dr. Laura Severin, Committee Member; Dr. Deborah Hooker, Committee Member
This thesis examines the influence the car has on the female heroes' quest for self-discovery. The car is a form of escape for the female characters that Anne Tyler and Jill McCorkle create in their works Ladder of Years, Earthly Possessions, Crash Diet, and Ferris Beach. Through the availability of the car they are able to move away from the angel in the home stereotype and toward seeing themselves as individuals who are neither angel not devil but realistically somewhere in between. While the women studied, Delia, Charlotte, Sandra, and Kate may not know their destination, they know that they must find themselves, spiritually, sexually, and personally. Tyler and McCorkle give their female characters the option to find themselves. It is through analysis of their escape, and heroic quest for self-discovery with the car that we are able to learn a great deal and women's cultural oppression and the strides that society, including Anne Tyler and Jill McCorkle, is making in the progression toward female equality.