2019 Spring English Senior Honors Theses (MU)
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The items in this collection are the 2019 spring semester Senior English Honors Theses.
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Item Mutilation, dismemberment, and martyrdom : the female body fragmented : [introduction](University of Missouri, College of Arts and Science., 2019) Schoessling, Kelly; Lewis, TrudyItem Unraveling the Femme Fatale : Auteur Theory and Christopher Nolan's work(University of Missouri, College of Arts and Sciences, 2019) Hamilton, Caitlin; Glick, Elisa"Auteur Theory, a term coined in the 1940s to recognize a filmmakers or directors unique thematic style has remained prevalent and has helped distinguish Auteur artists such as Christopher Nolan from his contemporary colleagues. Initially coined to differentiate thematic styles from one another, Auteur Theory has now become a medium to accredit varying thematic styles as works of art. In the article, No Start, No End, by David Andrews, Auteur Theory is attributed to classifying cinematic techniques as artwork. 'Within the cinema, the Auteur Theory has been given credit for helping to consecrate film as one of the sanctified arts.' Two corollaries of this new production centrality, were, first, the assumption that a personal vision could be traced across the curve of an auteur's oeuvre and, secondly, the belief that the best directors generally make the best films. (40). While Auteur Theory may not be as pertinent in today's climate, in the case of Christopher Nolan, it is important to recognize his identity as an Auteur artist in order to understand how his uniform techniques work to portray his goal of exposing underlying meanings and character motives, particularly through his use of the femme fatale."--Page 1.Item After the final page : food transformation narratives and the call to individual action(University of Missouri, College of Arts and Sciences, 2019) Pagliaro, Ashlyn; Chang, ElizabethIn this paper I examine and define the concept of transformation literature through three different books engaging in a conversation with food politics, and the intersection of ethics and morality. The first of the three books is Michael Pollan's, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, which asks us to consider what it means to eat in full consciousness. The second book taking part in the conversation of transformative works is Barbara Kingsolver's, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, which is an account filled with information centered around eating in the most sustainable way possible, mainly through cutting out the toxic petroleum emissions and waste caused by industrial farming and the shipment of goods. The final book joining in the discussion is Tovar Cerulli's, The Mindful Carnivore: A Vegetarian's Hunt for Sustenance. This book is able to offer a well-rounded voice into the conversation of transformation narrative, opening up on his deeply personal journey from hunter to vegan and back to hunter again. In this essay I will to look at how certain literary works such as these, pressures the reader to take immediate action more than others and the affects of such pressure through analyzing context outside of the novel. I also explore the contradictions in trying to understand how to take action given by text, which is an inactive source of material. Finally, this essay will explore how transformation narratives speak to the individual by attempting to harness each reader's unique power, creating mass change.Item Write my way out : the power of words against erasure in Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Julia Alvarez's How the García Girls Lost Their Accents(University of Missouri, College of Arts and Sciences, 2019) Cutolo-Ring, Alessandra; Harper, RachelSince the days of the conquistadors, erasure has been an inherent facet of Dominican identities. Similarly, the pressures of immigrants to blend into United States culture and stifle their "otherness" only added to the silencing of Dominican-American identities when many were forced to flee the island nation under the despotic rule of Rafael Trujillo in the mid-twentieth century. In their novels, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, Junot Díaz and Julia Alvarez, respectively, explore the important roles that language has in both the stifling of identity and the overcoming of generations worth of forced silence. In this thesis, I explore how each author explores the importance of storytelling in reestablishing the presence of Dominican identities. Alvarez's García Girls is told from a firstgeneration immigrant perspective and struggles to understand how two languages and national identities can coexist peacefully within a singular host. Her main character, Yolanda, faces pressures to conform from both external and internal sources. A generation removed, Díaz's Oscar is not so much struggling to balance two opposing identities, but is instead trying to establish an identity amidst a generations-long legacy of violence and silenced voices. Just as Díaz's characters benefit from and improve on the the efforts of the previous generation, so too does Díaz benefit from the efforts of authors like García. Novels like García Girls crafted a space in the American literary canon for later generations of authors to build upon. Both authors structure their novels in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the obstacles that stand in the way of Dominican-Americans carving out a place for themselves. In García Girls, this is achieved through a reverse-chronological structure. Díaz takes the non-chronological structure a step further by vacillating between past and present. While the novels differ in terms of structure and theme, each emphasizes the same idea: the only way to understand the present is to understand the past.Item The framework of fantastical heroes(University of Missouri, College of Arts and Sciences, 2019) Massey, Anna; Morgan, Speer