English Senior Honors Theses (MU)
https://hdl.handle.net/10355/10680
2024-03-29T01:10:34ZAfter the final page : food transformation narratives and the call to individual action
https://hdl.handle.net/10355/68564
After the final page : food transformation narratives and the call to individual action
Pagliaro, Ashlyn
In 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.
2019-01-01T00:00:00ZAll quiet on the disillusioned front : the effects of World War II on American literature
https://hdl.handle.net/10355/63147
All quiet on the disillusioned front : the effects of World War II on American literature
Oliver, Rebecca
World War II created a noticeable cultural shift across the globe, the effects of which are still being felt today. What needs to be addressed is that an entire ocean separated one of the major contributors to the war—the United States—from the vast majority of the physical carnage. Soldiers had to go overseas, and citizens who remained at home were left with little more than propaganda and their own imaginations as means of interacting with the war. As a result, the United States had a remarkably different post-war experience than several European countries, and with a particularly different post-war cultural psychology. Because of social and geographical factors, the trauma inflicted on the United States by World War II had more of an underlying effect on the collective American conscious than had appeared in European countries, which manifested in some of the great literary works of the time.
2018-01-01T00:00:00ZBats in the high culture belfry : presentations of madness in Euripidean and Shakespearean tragedy
https://hdl.handle.net/10355/63239
Bats in the high culture belfry : presentations of madness in Euripidean and Shakespearean tragedy
Harmon, J.D.
Crazy is a word that is taken lightly and tossed around in everyday conversation. You call a parent breaking out in screaming fits over a youth soccer game crazy. You call the elderly woman single-handedly causing a standstill in traffic crazy. These examples of real-world crazy are endless, and everyone who has spent time being human has plenty of firsthand stories involving the craziness of people. However, this is not the crazy I’m interested in. What I’m interested in is the more real implication of the word, being reserved for the truly afflicted individuals on a psychological level, what we might refer to as mental illness or madness. More specifically, I am interested in the presentation of madness in two periods in time we have decidedly deemed important in regards to the advancement of knowledge and artistic expression. I’ve chosen to look at the presentation of madness in theater in Ancient Greece and the English Renaissance. These time periods stand out in the timeline of humanity because of the levels of high thinking and inspiration that are derived from them. When looking at these periods, I wanted to choose a champion from each period. Someone who was respected in their times and history books, and rely on specific works of these champions to analyze how they present madness. For this, I have chosen two of the most influential and important playwrights in all of history, with Euripides representing Ancient Greece, and William Shakespeare to stand in for the English Renaissance. When looking at these two poets in tandem, although coming from wildly different times and cultures, their presentation of madness in their tragedies shows remarkable parallels. Having vastly different primary religions and knowledge of science, these two playwrights had every opportunity to be worlds apart in their depictions of madness, but the nature of humans seems to be too dominant to be diluted by differing societies. In this analysis, I will pair Euripides's Heracles with Shakespeare's Othello to show these similarities in the madness and mindset of the tragic hero in both plays. I will also pair Euripides's Orestes with Shakespeare's Hamlet to show that the form of madness these two princes are afflicted by are similar situations and mental illnesses despite the contradictory worlds and cultures they live in.
2018-01-01T00:00:00ZBecoming majestic : theater and the paradox of individuality in the House of the Seven Gables
https://hdl.handle.net/10355/63238
Becoming majestic : theater and the paradox of individuality in the House of the Seven Gables
McLain, Autumn
Most of the criticism on the writings of Hawthorne focus on his family, religion, and class. Each of these themes has a direct connection to Hawthorne's life: his ancestors were involved in the Salem Witch Trials, something which Hawthorne felt extremely guilty about. These ancestors used religion to defend their decisions and persecution of the “witches” of Salem which lead Hawthorne to see religion as a dangerous and confusing force in society. He also felt conflicted about the status which he inherited from his ancestors. All of this makes the themes of family, religion, and class very attractive and powerful; when interpreting Hawthorne's work, they are hard to see past. However, Hawthorne's work is more complicated than that; as Hawthorne himself said, “"When romances do really teach anything, or produce any effective operation, it is usually through a far more subtile process than the ostensible one" (viii). I intend to interpret one of these subtle processes in Hawthorne's novel, The House of the Seven Gables . I will attempt to move beyond the more common and well documented themes by focusing on the 11th chapter, “The Arched Window”. In this chapter, Hawthorne's thoughts are more condensed and spoken straight at us rather than through his characters and plots. Through an examination of “The Arched 2 McLain Window” we can find the key to those subtle processes taking place not only in that chapter but in the rest of the book, as well. In “The Arched Window”, Hawthorne makes a change in form in order to put the focus squarely on his main argument: the relationship between the individual and humanity. While the relationship between the individual and their familial guilt as it is shown in Hawthorne's works has been examined extensively, the relationship between the individual and humanity has been neglected, much like “The Arched Window” itself. I will be using an examination of this chapter to show the methods and motives behind Hawthorne's establishment of the theatrical stage and the exploration of the paradox of the individual which he enacts upon it.
2018-01-01T00:00:00Z