Browsing by Author "Dr. Laura Severin, Committee Member"

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Thrice Renewed: Inversions of Triangulated Desire in Charlotte Bronte's Villette and Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White
(2005-04-26) Cline, Carrie Beth; Dr. Laura Severin, Committee Member; Dr. Barbara Baines, Committee Member; Dr. Leila May, Committee Chair
Although Victorian society developed and adhered to rigid ideologies regarding sexuality and gender roles, Victorian novels, like Charlotte Brontë's Villette and Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White illustrate how women may attain power within a patriarchal culture. This thesis uses and significantly revises the theories of triangulated desire developed by René Girard, author of Deceit, Desire, and the Novel and Eve Sedgwick, author of Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire to demonstrate how this empowerment may occur, for the triangulated relationships within Villette and The Woman in White disrupt conventional structures of relationships and desire seen in Victorian society. Furthermore, this study analyzes how the feminine gaze enables women to bond within triangulated relationships. Chapter I discusses how Villette's Lucy covertly connects with Polly and Ginevra while superficially vying for masculine attentions. Similarly, Chapter II addresses how Laura Fairlie of The Woman in White outwardly contends for male attention while attaching herself to Anne Catherick and Marian Halcombe. The Conclusion following these chapters assesses the imperative cultural work performed by novels as they challenge Victorian conventions by depicting triangulated relations that subordinate the masculine and privilege the feminine.
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.
Women of Mystery and Romance: Tracing a Feminist Rewriting of the Detective Genre
(2007-03-22) Emerson, Kristin Amanda; Dr. Leila May, Committee Chair; Dr. Mary Helen Thuente, Committee Member; Dr. Laura Severin, Committee Member
Many critics find that female characters in detective fiction are never entirely successful as either women or detectives. They argue that authors find it impossible to portray women properly in both roles—one persona always eclipses the other. The conflict is generally attributed to the traditionally "masculine" and conventional nature of the detective genre. This study proposes that the recent combination of detective fiction with the conventionally "feminine" genre of romance fiction offers hope for a feminist rewriting of the detective genre. A set of guidelines to subtly re-script detective fiction's conventions is derived from suggestions by several critics, and is heavily influenced by typical elements of romance fiction. The usefulness of this framework in identifying the characteristics of more empowered and fully developed female detectives is tested by a close reading of three representative works from various points in the history of detective fiction. The three works, which include Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, Carolyn Keene's Nancy Drew series, and Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, each incorporate a combination of romance and detective fiction and feature a female investigator. The framework proves useful in assessing the achievements and failures in the characterization of female detectives in these novels. It also offers guidelines that could be considered by authors of future detective works to re-script the most conservative elements of the detective fiction genre so that they no longer prevent the emergence of successful, empowered female detectives.