2015 Spring English Senior Honors Theses (MU)
Permanent URI for this collection
The items in this collection are the 2015 spring semester Senior English Honors Theses. Click on one of the browse buttons above for a complete listing of the works.
Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Maiden vs. monarch : the roles of Elizabeth I in contemporary depictions(University of Missouri, College of Arts and Sciences, 2017) Ruether, Samantha; Kerwin, WilliamPeople have been creating popular culture depictions of historical figures since forever. We, as a species, love telling stories, especially stories about people whose legacies have lasted for centuries. We create narratives centered on bygone people because we long for the past and enjoy delving into time periods we are not physically able to experience. When building these narratives, creators often manage to reflect their own time and culture in some way whether intentionally or not. They adhere to genre conventions and aim to please specific audiences. One historical figure whose story has been told and retold is Elizabeth I, the Queen of England from 1558 to 1603. Modern depictions of Elizabeth are used in part to simply tell the story of Elizabeth, but they are also used to reflect the wants and needs of specific modern audiences. Each pop culture version of Elizabeth is different and serves a different purpose. In this thesis, I analyze four different pop culture adaptations of the life of Elizabeth I and discuss how the creators of the works chose to present Elizabeth. The creators of each work had to choose which parts of Elizabeth's life they wanted to depict in order to create an overall image. The Elizabeth of each depiction reflects the creators' individual interpretations of her story, and each Elizabeth embodies a different role. Although each work is telling the story of the same woman, they all have very different ways of using Elizabeth as a character. In this thesis, I explore different adaptations and what they are trying to portray through the character of Elizabeth. Each piece I watched or read targets a different audience and falls into a different genre. In this paper I will discuss five Elizabeths: the actual Elizabeth I, the Elizabeth of Philippa Gregory's The Virgin's Lover (2004), the Elizabeth of the CW network's television show Reign (2013-2017), the Elizabeth of Shekhar Kapur's film Elizabeth (1998), and the Elizabeth of the British Broadcasting Corporation's The Virgin Queen (2005).Item Fearing the unknown : mental health in current day America(University of Missouri, College of Arts and Sciences, 2017) Bunte, Nicole; Konkle, MaureenThroughout American history, the issue of mental health has ebbed and flowed with importance and acceptance. Even though there is a consistent record of mental illness in history, stigma toward those with mental illnesses seems to also be a constant throughout history. Records of insanity, mental asylums and institutions, developing psychology, government ordinances and more permeate American history and help give a foundation in which to assess the progression of society's attitudes toward mental health. In addition to searching through this history, one can also observe these changes of the depiction of mental illness in literature to help us understand why we view mental illness in specific ways. Due to its continual eminence, it is a curious fact that mental illness is often ignored, not understood or discriminated against. This introduction precedes a fictional story about those afflicted with mental illness, ways in which they are treated and ways in which some negative symptoms are attributed to mental disorders, but actually stem from other characteristics. The story will delve into how current culture addresses specific mental illnesses and stigmas associated with them. Moreover, this introduction will delve into the evolution of mental illness and will try to uncover the reasons why society views mental illness in certain ways. Through this search and analysis of history, literature and other theories, it becomes evident that while many Americans accept and help those who have mental illness today, there still exists a sense of discrimination against these individuals that stems from an intense fear of the unknown.Item The Imitation Phenomenon(University of Missouri, College of Arts and Sciences, 2015) Plackis, Elena; Hearne, Joanna M."The Imitation Phenomenon" analyzes the theme of conformity in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (1894) and animated adaptation produced by Walt Disney Productions in 1967. By examining Disney's reinterpretation of the metaphor of conformity through film, variations of the same story create differing perspectives on the condition of mankind internally and externally. The internal condition of man pertains to evolutionary progression and regression while the external condition pertains to man's relational interaction with foreign cultures. Disney redefines Kipling's Jungle Book, a culmination of British and Indian culture, through the interpretation of an American film company, accentuating the stark cultural differences in a work concerning the way in which cultures interact. As Kipling's work relates conformity to colonialism, multiculturalism, and Lamarckism, Disney reinterprets The Jungle Book to relate conformity to racism, assimilation, and atavism. Kipling's Mowgli narrative emphasizes the motif of language as a law in itself, through which Mowgli is able to exploit and manipulate animals. In this, Kipling depicts dialectic and linguistic conformity as a quintessential form of colonialist power. Disney's work contrasts this by depicting linguistic conformity as a process of assimilation that abandons the identity of the conformist, particularly with the musical compositions "Bear Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You. Through the lyrics and performance of these songs, Disney associates Mowgli with atavistic regression while King Louie evokes references to blackface minstrelsy. The comparison of Disney and Kipling's works incites analyses of the theme of conformity as it affects cultural relations and human advancement, informing the condition of humanity.Item War, trauma, and literature: World War I veterans and the expression of “shell-shock” in literature(University of Missouri, College of Arts and Sciences, 2015) Lewis, Alexandra; Chang, Elizabeth HopeItem Pull Me Out to Sea(University of Missouri, College of Arts and Sciences, 2015) Robb, Shannon; Lewis, Trudy (Trudy L.)
- «
- 1 (current)
- 2
- 3
- »