Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'British character'
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1
Varian, Brian. "The course and character of late-Victorian British exports." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2017. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3603/.
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In this dissertation, I examine the inter-temporal variation (course) and the composition (character) of late-Victorian British exports. The first substantive chapter focuses specifically on Anglo-American trade, which was the largest bilateral flow of trade during the first era of globalization, and finds that tariffs were the sole inter-temporal determinant of Anglo-American trade costs. The determinacy of tariffs for Anglo-American trade costs only becomes apparent when the tariff variable incorporates a measure of the bilateral American tariff toward Britain, which I purposely reconstruct. I conclude that Anglo-American trade represents a major qualification to any emerging consensus that foreign tariffs were of minor significance to the trade of late nineteenth-century Britain. The next chapter reassesses the empirical validity of the Ford thesis, which argued that a short-term causal relationship between British ex ante lending and British merchandise exports operated in the late nineteenth century. Using more recent data on bilateral British lending, I find evidence of a ‘lending-export loop’, with British ex ante lending preceding merchandise exports by a period of two years. A case study of New Zealand, which had an extraordinarily high share of Britain in its imports, reveals that the relationship was conditional upon the lending being allocated to social overhead capital. In the final substantive chapter, I construct indicators of revealed comparative advantage for British manufacturing industries for the years 1880, 1890, and 1900. In contrast with previous research, I argue that the manufacturing comparative advantages of late-Victorian Britain rested in the relatively labour non-intensive industries, and this finding remains robust even after controlling for human capital intensity. Furthermore, the manufacturing comparative advantages were neutral with respect to material intensity. While the share of inter-industry (Heckscher-Ohlin) trade in Britain’s total manufacturing trade declined throughout the late-Victorian era, it still accounted for the majority of Britain’s manufacturing trade in the 1890s.
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Wilson, Chris. "Margaret Rutherford, Alastair Sim, eccentricity and the British character actor." Thesis, Sheffield Hallam University, 2005. http://shura.shu.ac.uk/17393/.
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The thesis is in the form of four sections, with an introduction and conclusion. The text should be used in conjunction with the annotated filmography. The introduction includes my initial impressions of Margaret Rutherford and Alastair Sim's work, and its significance for British cinema as a whole. In order to determine their enduring appeal, the first section, 'Biographical Perspectives', uses the actors' respective biographies to combine their very distinct identities, anchor them in the time in which they lived, and indicate their value and importance to the industry. The second chapter explores the complex relationship between the British cinema and the theatre, especially as it is revealed in the work of both actors. There follows a survey which addresses notions around Britishness and eccentricity, and their interconnections, their representation in Sim and Rutherford's films, and recent debates about what these attributes constitute now. The fourth part engages in a broader discussion of the art of character acting and the specific contribution made by the screen appearances of the two stars. If the introduction and subsequent chapters attempt to bring Sim and Rutherford together, the conclusion presents the contrasts between them. However, their continuing fascination is very much revealed through the interaction of their life and work and especially the influence of their respective spouses. The relationship between their stage and cinematic output informs some of their best work in both media, although their Britishness and eccentricity can, at different times, be both an asset and a limitation. Ultimately, Sim and Rutherford are defined as flexible and diverse character actors, although a synthesis of their various aspects - cinematic, theatrical, eccentric, British, character actors - offers a more complete designation of their individuality. Above all, they exemplify the primacy of performance in British cinema. Future research might concentrate on their theatre work or reactions to them by their fellow actors, and could also usefully incorporate the largely unrecognised legacy of so many other character players.
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Janssen, Joanne Nystrom. "Character of memorization: quotation and identity in nineteenth-century British literature." Diss., University of Iowa, 2010. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/687.
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In nineteenth-century Britain, the average person's mind was an anthology containing snatches of poetry, Latin verb conjugations, Bible verses, folk songs, miscellaneous facts, and the catechism. Because secular and religious education emphasized learning by rote, students' minds were stocked with information and quotations that originated in other texts, which is reflected in characters who repeat those bits and pieces in the period's literature. My dissertation investigates concepts of personal and national identity in Victorian literature and culture, particularly through the understudied phenomenon of rote memory. George Eliot's Maggie Tulliver, for example, quotes Thomas à Kempis's Imitation of Christ to console herself in the face of tragedy, and Lewis Carroll's Alice attempts to recite didactic schoolroom poems in her efforts to distinguish herself from her less intelligent friends. These moments of memorization--although at first appearing merely to reflect what texts were consumed and recited in nineteenth-century England--in reality suggest much more. I argue that memorization remained centrally connected to nineteenth-century conceptions of identity: people are what they remember, even if those memories do not relate to their own lives, but instead to the information stocked in their minds. My readings of Mary Shelley's Matilda and George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss demonstrate rote learning's potential to erode a young woman's personal and religious identity. Instead of committing an act of powerful "poaching," as Michel de Certeau proposes, a memorizer often submits to the text's "strange invasion," as George Poulet suggests. My chapters centered on Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and R.M. Ballantyne's Jarwin and Cuffy, however, locate possibilities for gaining critical thinking skills and forming cross-cultural relationships through a person's response to quoted texts. By examining the significance of memorization in nineteenth-century novels, we gain new understandings of the Victorian period, ranging from the minutiae of everyday routines to the complexity of entire belief systems. A seemingly straightforward moment, such as a character reciting a line or two of poetry, can lead to interdisciplinary insights about forms of reading, functions of memory, ideas about gender, beliefs about religion, and methods of imperialism. As my dissertation demonstrates, nineteenth-century mental anthologies give twenty-first-century readers a veritable index to the cultural past.
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Berglund, Hanna. "Stereotypes of British Accents in Movies : A Speech Analysis of Character Types in Movies with British Accents." Thesis, Högskolan i Halmstad, Akademin för lärande, humaniora och samhälle, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-33991.
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This essay deals with the use of linguistic stereotypes in three different movies with British accents, namely Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, with a main focus on phonology. It investigates whether attitudes towards British accents found in studies about ideological beliefs about accent variation are reflected in the selected movies and discusses the notion of linguistic identity. The essay analyses how studies of perceived prestige and attractiveness of accents correlates to the character types males, females, main heroes, villains, comic relief and mentors in the selected movies. The essay finds a correlation between Received Pronunciation and every character type. It also finds that accents rated high on the discussed lists most often correlate to the character types mentor, villain and hero, while accents lower down on the list correlates with the character types comic relief and villains. The use of accents in these movies is probably intentional and not coincidental.
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Torma, Frank Anthony. "A Character Type in the Plays of Edward Bond." The Ohio State University, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1290984556.
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Delgado-Garcia, Cristina. "The aesthetics and politics of character and subjectivity in contemporary British theatre." Thesis, Aberystwyth University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2160/c6578e94-d667-4a82-b953-2137f2cddd86.
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This doctoral project offers a politically-inflected renegotiation of the related notions of character and subjectivity as they are currently used in Anglophone theatre studies. It proposes to strategically rethink character as “any figuration of subjectivity in a theatre text or performance” so as to enable a less prescriptive inquiry into the theatrical forms and subjective figures that veer away from the liberal-humanist ideal. This understanding of character is deployed to re-route and politicise the reception of four contemporary British, script-led works that experiment with speech attribution – a heterogeneous textual strategy that has often been interpreted as offering “no characters”. Chapter One surveys the conflicting narratives on the crisis and death of character that have been generated in the last thirty years, setting the ground for this project’s redefinition of character as a malleable category. Chapter Two examines the theories of the subject of Judith Butler, Alain Badiou and Jacques Rancière, with a brief introduction to Louis Althusser’s theory of interpellation. Their conceptualisations of subjectivity can help theatre studies to disarm liberal-humanist preconceptions about the subject, and anchor inquiries about character on political grounds. Chapter Three examines three scripts concerned with the physical and psychic aspects of the subject, alongside several productions: Sarah Kane’s Crave (1998) and 4.48 Psychosis (1999), and Ed Thomas’s Stone City Blue (2004). This thesis contends that character in Kane’s plays outlines “non-individuated characters” that performatively refuse the regulatory norms that give intelligibility to the subject; the “dividuated” characters of Stone City Blue vindicate a fragmented, melancholic and relational definition of subjectivity. Chapter Four examines Tim Crouch’s ENGLAND in relation to collective character: figurations of the subject that spill over national boundaries and that are configured through practices.
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Stiles, Victoria. "Empire and national character : British imperialism in books from the "Third Reich"." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2015. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/29297/.
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This thesis examines the variety of representations and rhetorical deployments of the theme of British Imperialism within books published in the “Third Reich”. The thesis considers these books not only as vehicles for particular ideas and arguments but also as consumer objects and therefore as the product of a series of compromises between the needs of a host of actors, both official and commercial. It further traces the origins of the component parts of these texts via the history of reuse of images and extracts and by identifying earlier examples of particular tropes of “Englishness” and the British Empire. British imperial history was a rich source of material for National Socialist writers and educators to draw on and lent itself to a wide variety of arguments. Britain could be, in turns, a symbol of “Nordic” strength, a civilisation in decline, a natural ally and protector of Germany, or a weak, corrupt, outdated entity, controlled by Germany’s supposed enemies. Drawing on a long tradition of comparing European colonial records, the British Empire was also used as a benchmark for Germany’s former imperial achievements, particularly in moral arguments regarding the treatment of indigenous populations. Through its focus on books, which were less ephemeral than media such as newspaper and magazine articles, radio broadcasts or newsreels, the thesis demonstrates how newer writings sought to recontextualise older material in the light of changing circumstances. Through managing the context in which earlier British and Anglophile material was read, doubt could be cast on the integrity of such views and on the trustworthiness of what was styled as the “English national character”. This demonisation of Britain through her imperial record became a key focus of Anglophobic books published in Germany during the Second World War.
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Lahel, Amarjit. "Political leadership : character and performance : a comparative analysis of British political leadership, 1997-2010." Thesis, Aston University, 2012. http://publications.aston.ac.uk/17475/.
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Classical and contemporary scholarship on leadership has referred to political performance and the ability of political actors to deploy the self to political purpose. Literature on contemporary British politics (Hennessy, 2001; Marquand, 2008, King, 2009) has highlighted the qualitative shift in political leadership from the mid-1990s towards a focus upon the image, style, celebrity and performance of political leaders, and the shift towards the presidentialisation or semi-presidentialisation of the prime minister (Foley, 2001). However, the literature has lacked a focus upon political performance and a methodology for assessing leadership performance within cultural and institutional contexts. This thesis assesses British political leadership performance from 1997-2010 through the proposal of a framework of political performance to suit comparative purpose. The framework consisting of culture, institutions and performance is used to assess the performance of the case studies (Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron, and Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg in the televised Leaders’ Debates of 2010). The application of the framework to the case studies will allow us to a) analyse political performance within given cultural and institutional contexts; b) establish the character traits and other aspects of a politician’s political persona; and c) appraise the role and effects of performance and persona upon the political process.
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Hancock, John William. "The anatomy of the British Liberal Party, 1908-1918 : a study of its character and disintegration." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1993. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/251552.
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Ploom, Illimar. "On the character of the British Conservative tradition: Disraelian and Thatcherite creeds in an Oakeshottian perspective." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.665299.
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This thesis argues that Oakeshott's theory of civil association and his reading of modem European history offer a plausible way of comprehending the general historical character of the British Conservative tradition. Focusing on two broad periods, it claims that as different as the facets of 19th-century 'paternalism' and 20th_ century 'libertarianism' are, they can nevertheless be understood as interpretations of the same Conservative core. A novel Oakeshottian approach is suggested whereby its subject is understood as a tradition. This draws on the Conservative structure which consists of two categorically distinct parts - philosophical assumptions and practical politics, a divide only further emphasised by the anti-ideological stance. In order to achieve a holistic view of the tradition, its philosophical and practical layers are tied together by way of considering the Conservative assumptions in terms of their historical implications and by extracting from behind the relatively long periods of Conservative politics their main philosophical positions. Based on this scheme, it is possible to juxtapose Hegel's and Oakeshott's complementary readings of societas with Disraelian Toryism and Thatcherism. It is found that while sharing the idea of civil association, the two creeds still differ significantly since they stem from different perceptions and historical contexts. This works both period-wise but also in parallel since the threat to societas was perceived as multifaceted - both collectivism and radical individualism were considered dangerous by Conservatives. As representatives of the 'paternalist' and 'libertarian' subtraditions, the thesis focuses on some salient general features of the Disraelian and Thatcherite streams and finds them representing the distinguished Oakeshottian assumptions. Likewise, the ideas of some prominent Disraelian and Thatcherite protagonists are considered. Despite the often significant differences in their views, it is argued that their broader understanding of the role of the state relies on the idea of societas.
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Midhin, Majeed Mohammed. "The artist as a dramatic character in contemporary British drama : a critical study of Stoppard, Barker and Wertenbaker." Thesis, University of Essex, 2017. http://repository.essex.ac.uk/20011/.
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The focus of this dissertation is the representation of the artist as a character in British theatre. In this study, which includes three chapters and one introductory chapter, I attempt to show that British playwrights, whether male or female, use their main fictional characters as artists either for self-reflexivity or to comment on the situation of being an artist. In accordance with the above premise, the responsibility of the artist and the function of art is investigated with due reference to radical thinkers, philosophers and writers such as, among others, Immanuel Kant, Oscar Wilde, Georg Lukács, Antonio Gramsci, Walter Benjamin, Viktor Shklovsky, Bertolt Brecht and Jean-Paul Sartre. This investigation concentrates on the conceptualization and contribution of those intellectuals to the definition of the role of the artist. Though I focus mainly on the period from the 1970s to the 2000s onwards, by analysing the dramatic texts of three British playwrights: Tom Stoppard, Howard Barker, and Timberlake Wertenbaker, I also discuss the decade following John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (1956). In this manner, I trace the key changes that have taken place in British theatre during the second half of the 20th century. Though there is an abundance of critical material on the subject which focuses on the figure of the artist to show self-referral for the dramatist, the present thesis goes beyond that to highlight the role and responsibility of the artist in British theatre, the function of art, the potential dilemmas he or she may confront and the economic and political circumstances surrounding them. The plays examined in this thesis range from those depicting the problematic role of the artist as an intellectual, who is torn between morality and immorality, as in Stoppard’s Artist Descending a Staircase (1972) and Travesties (1974), to those which reject the utilitarian function of art, for example Barker’s No End of Blame: Scenes of Overcoming (1981) and Scenes from an Execution (1984). In the case of Wertenbaker, I highlight the role and dilemmas of female artists as they use theatre as a means to show the hegemonic political and economic constraints imposed on their artistic creativity. By analysing several of Wertenbaker’s plays which centre on the use of the artist as a character, her Three Birds Alighting on a Field (1991) and The Line (2009), reflect the relationship between male and female artists and the dilemmas they faced. This thesis poses the following questions: as a fictional character, how can the artist function as a member of a certain community whilst at the same time retain the distinctiveness of his or her role as an outsider? Is he or she committed to the creative work or to the social usefulness of society? If so, can we expect art or the artist to have the answer to society’s problems? Or is that an overly high expectation to place on the artist? How did artists feel living in a society under censorship? How can they avoid being censored? And if they failed, what is the price of free expression? Springing from the discussion about the dilemmas of the artist in British theatre, it will become apparent how these dilemmas, represented by fictional characters, bring forth the dominant plays about artists. Within the framework of the above mentioned playwrights, it is demonstrated that the pressing dilemma which radical artists are faced with nowadays are multiple: social, commercial and political.
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Baker, Laci J. "Motherless Women Writers: The Affect on Plot and Character in the Brontë Sisters’ Novels." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2014. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/187.
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Through the use of biographical materials, and three selected works from Charlotte, Anne, and Emily Bronte, parallels were found between their lives, character design, and the plot of their works. The lack of a mother figure in the lives of the Bronte sisters caused their upbringing to differ from that of other children, and as a result influenced their perspective of the world. Motherless female characters were found in each of the three novels by the Bronte sisters and in each instance commonalities were shared with the author of the work, to a degree that indicates that the lives that the sisters led, was the inspiration for the stories they created. After investigating whether or not the novels created by the Bronte sisters were influenced by the lack of a mother figure, the conclusion reached, is that this absence had an immense influence throughout their lives, and based on more than one account, helped shape the design of each of their respective works.
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Curtis, Corbin. "Nabokov’s Satan: Defining and Implementing John Milton’s Arch Fiend as a Contemporary Character Trope." Ohio University Honors Tutorial College / OhioLINK, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouhonors1524755406848739.
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Groenhout, Fiona Elizabeth. "Debauchery, disloyalty, and other deficiencies : the impact of ideas of princely character upon indirect rule in central India, c.1886-1946." University of Western Australia. History Discipline Group, 2007. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2010.0006.
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This thesis examines a series of episodes in the history of indirect rule that resulted in rulers being deposed or otherwise removed from power. It does so from the conviction that such episodes provide a valuable opportunity to explore the conceptions of princely character held and articulated by British officials, and to assess to what extent such conceptions informed British expectations of the princes, and thus shaped the daily and local practice of indirect rule in colonial India. The study is intended to contribute to the growing body of work on the history of the princely states, a subject that until recently was considered marginal to understanding colonial South Asia, but whose importance is increasingly being recognised. Its geographical focus the states of the Central India Agency attempts to redress the comparative neglect of this region to date; it also seeks to achieve a balance between the relative merits and shortcomings of single-state and 'all-India' studies, by allowing for intensive analysis of an interconnected group of rulers and officials, whilst maintaining a sufficiently diverse sample of situations and individuals to enable broader conclusions to be suggested. Moreover, the approach adopted firmly locates this thesis within the emerging study of the cultural history of empire: the rulers of the princely states occupied a position within the colonial hierarchies of class, race and gender that was uniquely liminal within India and rare elsewhere. They failed to fit neatly any of the pre-ordained categories of colonial society and consequently had the potential to disrupt the conventions of deference, distance and difference on which such a society was based. Analysis of how the British attempted to characterise the princes, therefore, should complement existing analyses of the operation of such important concepts as race, masculinity, sexuality, sanity, class and tradition in colonial India. This study argues that British ideas and ideals of princely character were neither fixed nor hegemonic: conflict over the meaning and significance of a ruler's conduct regularly arose between the many levels of the imperial bureaucracy. There was not a single, consistent and explicitly defined normative discourse of princely conduct: officials' expectations of rulers shifted over time in response to the changing outlook and interests of the British in India, as well as varying across the significant differences of faith, race, region and status that they perceived to divide the princely order. Furthermore, rulers themselves whether through negotiation, evasion or contestation played a significant role in the constant redefinition of such ideas. However, British officials' conceptions and representations of princely character were not wholly constitutive of their power over the princes and their states. Although assessments of a ruler's character as inadequate, even incurably deviant, could be advanced as justification for intervening in a state, the impact of such ideas upon the actual practice of indirect rule was substantially qualified by an array of other considerations. Orientalist conceptions of princely character may have been highly influential in shaping the conduct of 'political relations', but they were often ignored or abandoned by officials when the dividends of a more pragmatic approach to the princes were thought to be higher.
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Haugtvedt, Erica Christine. "But Wait, There's More: Serial Character and Adaptive Reading Practices in the Victorian Period." The Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1440247725.
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Conrad, Courtney A. "Tracing the Origins of the Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Rake Character to Depictions of the Modern Monster." Cleveland State University / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1560014785115022.
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Goudge, Charlotte Ellen Ann. "The trans-Atlantic spirit of change : the effect of social, technological, and environmental change on the material character of rum production in the British Caribbean during the long nineteenth century." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2017. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.723494.
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Reading, Jill. "Critical literacy in a global context: Reading Harry Potter." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2006. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/47.
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Millions of adolescents across the globe eagerly await and read each new Harry Potter fictional novel. As a series, the novels can be assumed to participate influentially in the production of adolescent literacies and subjectivities. Situated in politically conservative times, however, the texts may support readings in simple accord with culturally pervasive conservative views which favour conventionally masculinist, martial views of the individual and of society. Such readings potentially confirm ancient prejudices built out of differences which themselves may be associated with the socio-cultural reproduction of violent conflicts. Nevertheless, contemporary conditions such as planetary climate change and globalised political fear demand resolutions based not in conflict but in unprecedented degrees of global and local co-operation. This thesis, then, explores ways in which the Harry Potter texts may be approached from a critical literacy perspective to support readers to contest conservatively-aligned readings and to question the role of the texts in preparing students for a world of peace and cooperation.
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Ferraz, Marilia Cortes de. "Liberdade e imputabilidade moral em Hume." [s.n.], 2006. http://repositorio.unicamp.br/jspui/handle/REPOSIP/281518.
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Orientador: Jose Oscar de Almeida MarquesDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas
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Resumo: A dissertação examina a análise de Hume dos conceitos de liberdade e imputabilidade moral. O texto de referência para a pesquisa é a seção VIII da Investigação sobre o entendimento humano. Mostro, a partir do estudo dessa seção, em que sentido os conceitos de liberdade e necessidade são compatíveis para Hume. Para tanto, analiso o compatibilismo humeano enfatizando a unidade explicativa que o autor esposa claramente na obra citada. De fato, Hume, em seu exame das noções de liberdade e necessidade anuncia introduzir novidades que prometem ao menos algum resultado na decisão da controvérsia entre a doutrina da necessidade e a doutrina da liberdade (da vontade). Ele propõe um 'projeto de reconciliação¿ (reconciling project) que consiste em mostrar que liberdade e necessidade são perfeitamente compatíveis entre si, e que afirmar que as ações humanas são livres não é afirmar que estejam fora do âmbito da necessidade, mas apenas que se realizaram sem constrangimento. Em seguida, esclareço as razões que conduzem à crença na vontade livre, crença esta infundada, segundo Hume. Por fim, procuro estabelecer as conseqüências que o compatibilismo humeano traz para a noção de responsabilidade moral. Hume entende que não só é perfeitamente possível explicar os juízos morais pelo seu compatibilismo, como também que o seu compatibilismo é a única alternativa de fato consistente para dar conta dos ajuizamentos que fazemos acerca da moralidade. Entendo que a explicação dos juízos morais de imputabilidade oferecida por Hume representa uma hipótese altamente persuasiva e com vigor suficiente para responder a objeções geralmente apresentadas pelos incompatibilistas
Abstract: The dissertation examines the analysis of Hume of the concepts of freedom and moral imputability. The text of reference for the research is section VIII of the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. I show, from the study of this section, how freedom and necessity are compatible for Hume. To this effect, I analyze the humean compatibilism emphasizing the unit of the explanation that the author maintains in the cited work. Hume, in his examination of freedom and necessity, announces a new approach that promises at least some results for the decision of the controversy between the doctrine of the necessity and the doctrine of the freedom (of the will). He proposes a conciliatory project that consists in showing that freedom and necessity are perfectly compatible, and that to say that the human actions are free is not to say that they are out of the scope of the necessity, but only that they are without constraint. After that, I clarify the reasons that lead to the belief in free will, which is baseless according to Hume. Finally, I establish the consequences that humean compatibilism brings for the notion of moral responsibility. Hume understands not only that it is perfectly possible to explain moral judgments by means of his compatibilism, but also that his compatibilism is the only consistent alternative to account for moral judgement. I understand that the explanation of moral judgments of imputability offered by Hume represents a highly persuasive hypothesis, and strong enough to answer the objections generally raised by incompatibilists
Mestrado
Filosofia Moral
Mestre em Filosofia
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Greer, Julie. "Learning from linked lives : narrativising the individual and group biographies of the guests at the 25th Jubilee dinner of the British Psychoanalytical Society at The Savoy, London, on 8th March 1939 : a prosopographical analysis of the character and influence of the formative and significant figures present at the dinner." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2014. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/370351/.
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This thesis is a prosopography drawn from the original seating plan for the dinner. Aided by rich supporting data, including photographs, archive materials, correspondence and reminiscences, this research presents a collective of biographical information on the guests and seeks out the connections between them: one story from many. This work offers new information and ideas on how the links between the lives of the guests were key to assimilating Freud’s theories into the mainstay of our cultural reference and in enabling psychoanalysis, the ‘talking cure’, to be recognised as a science and a legitimate alternative to the mind-works that had gone before. Drawing on a feminist paradigm and using explanations of social, cultural and symbolic capital to interpret the data, this thesis presents many findings that are new to the public domain and a scope for research that extends beyond these pages.
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Ahmed, Farah. "Pedagogy as dialogue between cultures : exploring halaqah : an Islamic dialogic pedagogy that acts as a vehicle for developing Muslim children's shakhsiyah (personhood, autonomy, identity) in a pluralist society." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2018. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/278513.
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This thesis presents an argument for the use of dialogic halaqah to develop the personal autonomy of young Muslims in twenty-first century Britain. It begins by developing a theoretical grounding for Islamic conceptualisations of personal autonomy and dialogic pedagogy. In doing so, it aims to generate dialogue between Islamic and ‘western’ educational traditions, and to clarify the theoretical foundation of halaqah, a traditional Islamic oral pedagogy, that has been adapted to meet the educational needs of Muslim children in contemporary Britain. Dialogic halaqah is daily practice in two independent British Muslim faith-schools, providing a safe space for young Muslims to cumulatively explore challenging issues, in order to facilitate the development of selfhood, hybrid identity and personal autonomy, theorised as shakhsiyah Islamiyah. This thesis examines the relationship between thought, language, and the development of personal autonomy in neo-Ghazalian, Vygotskian and Bakhtinian traditions, and suggests the possibility of understanding shakhsiyah Islamiyah as a dialogical Muslim-self. This theoretical work underpins an empirical study of data generated through dialogic halaqah held with groups of schoolchildren and young people. Using established analytic schemes, data from these sessions are subjected to both thematic and dialogue analyses. Emergent themes relating to autonomy and choice, independent and critical thinking, navigating authority, peer pressure, and choosing to be Muslim are explored. Themes related to halaqah as dialogic pedagogy, whether and how it supports the development of agency, resilience and independent thinking, and teacher and learner roles in halaqah, are examined. Moreover, findings from dialogue analysis, which evaluates the quality of educational dialogue generated within halaqah, that is, participants’ capacity to engage in dialogue with each other, as well as with an imagined secular other, are presented. The quality of the dialogic interactions is evaluated, as is evidence of individual participant’s autonomy in their communicative actions.
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Owen, Kate Marie Novotny. "Modes of the Flesh: A Poetics of Literary Embodiment in the Long Eighteenth Century." The Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1494180648937066.
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Alghamdi, Alaa. "The representation of home and identity of Muslim characters in selected British postcolonial novels." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.555964.
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The concepts of home and identity are at the heart of any Postcolonial examination of literature and society. Home and identity are profoundly impacted by the power dynamics of the colonial relationship, by the individual immigrant's experience, and by the multicultural setting in which the subject finds him or herself. This study undertakes an interrogation of home and identity in the work of British authors Salman Rushdie, HanifKureishi, Zadie Smith, Monica Ali, and Fadia Faqir. All of the novels studied deal with Muslim subjects - in most cases, first and second generation immigrants -living in England. Home and identity have powerful, multiple and contested meanings for these subjects. Drawing upon the theoretical work of Homi Bhabha, Rosemary Marangoly George, Gayatri Chakrovorty Spivak and Edward Said, the conception of home and the formation of hybrid identities in these subjects is examined and connected to larger cultural manifestations of Muslim/Westem relationships. Specifically, the ways in which the subjects define their home - to what degree is the new setting 'home', and to what degree does that term seem to refer to an increasingly imagined and unchanging homeland? - are examined. The necessity of reference to home in order to establish identity and, accordingly, the emerging sense of home as the precursor to a successful hybrid identity formation are observed. The marginalized or 'Othered' position of the immigrant Muslim subject is considered, as is the ability of these texts (written by "Third World Cosmopolitans", as one critic maintains) to represent the voice of the subaltern subject. In this context, Spivak's seminal enquiry about the ability of the subaltern to speak is actively engaged and examined. The power dynamics caused by colonialism influence, but do not define, the voice of the Postcolonial subject. In many cases, the voice of the Postcolonial subject does indeed speak, and yields unique and creative solutions to dilemmas of home and identity. These are aptly represented in the works of the authors studied, as are the occasional assertions that the open possibilities and competing pressures of hybrid identity formation in a Postcolonial world might lead to an untenable level of strain in the individual subject.
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Bender, Ashley Brookner Pettit Alexander. "Personal properties stage props and self-expression in British drama, 1600-1707 /." [Denton, Tex.] : University of North Texas, 2009. http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc12081.
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Hakala, M. (Mari). "The representations of Britishness and British characters in the American television series Friends:a case study." Bachelor's thesis, University of Oulu, 2017. http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:oulu-201704251546.
Full textAbstract:
English is spoken around the world both by those who speak English as their first language and by those who have learned English as a foreign language for communicative purposes. This results in English being spoken with various different accents, and a contrast between the native speakers and those who speak it as a foreign language may arise. Using Discourse Analysis to support the analysis, this study investigates how the American television show Friends portray characters from Britain, as well as Britishness in general, in the otherwise American contextEnglantia käyttävät niin sitä äidinkielenään puhuvat kuin hekin, jotka ovat oppineet englantia viestinnällisiin tarkoituksiin vieraana kielenä. Tästä luonnollisesti seuraa, että englantia puhutaan monella eri aksentilla, mikä saattaa synnyttää konflikteja äidinkielenään englantia puhuvien ja englantia vieraana kielenä puhuvien välillä. Diskurssianalyysiä apuna käyttäen tämä kvalitatiivinen kandidaatintutkielma tutkii, miten amerikkalaisen televisiosarjan "Frendit" brittihahmot ja brittiläisyys yleisesti kuvataan muutoin amerikkalaisessa kontekstissa
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Wyko, Mary E. "That Besetting Sin: How George Eliot Punishes Her Ambitious Female Characters." Connect to resource online, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ysu1263604143.
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Peterson, Katrina M. "Humor, Characterization, Plot: The Role of Secondary Characters in Late Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Marriage Novels." The Ohio State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1303262727.
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28
Neithardt, Leigh Anne Neithardt. "Narrative Progression and Characters with Disabilities in Children’s Picturebooks." The Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500310695900109.
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29
Bender, Ashley Brookner. "Personal Properties: Stage Props and Self-Expression in British Drama, 1600-1707." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2009. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc12081/.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation examines the role of stage properties-props, slangily-in the construction and expression of characters' identities. Through readings of both canonical and non-canonical drama written between 1600 and 1707-for example, Thomas Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy (1607), Edward Ravenscroft's adaptation of Titus Andronicus (1678), Aphra Behn's The Rover (1677), and William Wycherley's The Plain Dealer (1677)-I demonstrate how props mediate relationships between people. The control of a character's props often accords a person control of the character to whom the props belong. Props consequently make visual the relationships of power and subjugation that exist among characters. The severed body parts, bodies, miniature portraits, and containers of these plays are the mechanisms by which characters attempt to differentiate themselves from others. The characters deploy objects as proof of their identities-for example, when the women in Behn's Rover circulate miniatures of themselves-yet other characters must also interpret these objects. The props, and therefore the characters' identities, are at all times vulnerable to misinterpretation. Much as the props' meanings are often disputed, so too are characters' private identities often at odds with their public personae. The boundaries of selfhood that the characters wish to protect are made vulnerable by the objects that they use to shore up those boundaries. When read in relation to the characters who move them, props reveal the negotiated process of individuation. In doing so, they emphasize the correlation between extrinsic and intrinsic worth. They are a measure of how well characters perform gender and class rolls, thereby demonstrating the importance of external signifiers in the legitimation of England's subjects, even as they expose "legitimacy" as a social construction.
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Demberg, Rebecca. "Linguistic sexism : A study of sexist language in a British online newspaper." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för språk (SPR), 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-36871.
Full textAbstract:
The aim of this study is to investigate the occurrence of sexist language-use in the British online newspaper The Daily Mail. The material consists of 162 articles that were analysed by using feminist stylistics. The scope of the study was limited to selected features from feminist stylistics at word- and discourse-level. The features of linguistic sexism analysed were the use of gendered generic words, naming of females and males and how female and male characters are described. The gender of the journalists was also analysed to examine if it affected the language-use in terms of sexism. The results show that linguistic sexism is expressed to some extent at both word-level and discourse-level. At word-level linguistic sexism is expressed inthe generic use of some masculine words, the difference of how first name and surname are used to refer to women and men and in the use of titles. At the level of discourse linguistic sexism is expressed in the difference of how women and men are referred to in terms of their relationship to others and in terms of appearance. The gender of the journalist did not show any significance for the language-use in terms of sexism. Considering the limited material of the study, the results might not be suitable for generalisations. The results are nonetheless interesting and it can be concluded that the toolkit of feminist stylistic is relevant to this day and that linguistic sexism exists to some extent in the online version of The Daily Mail.
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Clark, Damion. "Marginally Male: Re-Centering Effeminate Male Characters in E. M. Forster’s A Room with a View and Howards End." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2005. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/english_theses/1.
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In this thesis I argue that understanding Forster’s effeminate male characters is central to understanding the novels that they appear in. Tibby in Howards End and Cecil in A Room with a View are often viewed as inconsequential figures that provide comic relief and inspire pity. But if, instead of keeping them at the margins, readers put Tibby and Cecil in direct contact and conflict with the dominant themes of gender identity, gendered power structures, and gender equality in these novels, these characters develop a deeper significance that details the fin de siècle’s ever-changing attitudes regarding prescribed gender roles for both men and women. Indeed, by examining Forster’s feminized male characters, one can chart the development of these roles in both the larger world and Forster’s prescription for gender evolution in his novels.
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Bailey, Jillian. "The Dangerous Women of the Long Eighteenth Century: Exploring the Female Characters in Love in Excess, Roxana, and A Simple Story." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2019. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/3583.
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The Long Eighteenth Century was a period in which change was constant and proceeding the Restoration Era; this sense of change continued throughout the era. Charles II created an era in which women were allowed on the theatre stage, and his mistresses accompanied him to court; Charles II set the stage for the proto-feminist ideas of the eighteenth century that would manifest themselves in Eliza Haywood’s Love in Excess, Daniel Defoe’s Roxana, and Elizabeth Inchbald’s A Simple Story. These novels showcase the enlightenment of women and some of their male contemporaries and the beginning struggles of female agency. The eighteenth century was a time in which the separate sphere mentality grew ever stronger within the patriarchal society, and yet, women began to question their subservient place in this society—although this struggle would continue to intensify throughout the nineteenth century and eventually come to fruition in the late nineteenth century.
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Sveen, Hanna Andersdotter. ""Honourable" or "Highly-sexed" : Adjectival Descriptions of Male and Female Characters in Victorian and Contemporary Children's Fiction." Doctoral thesis, Uppsala University, Department of English, 2005. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-6247.
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This corpus-based study examines adjectives and adjectival expressions used to describe characters in British children’s fiction. The focus is on diachronic variation, by comparing Victorian (19th-century) and contemporary (late 20th-century) children’s fiction, and on gender variation, by comparing the descriptions of female and male characters. I adopt a qualitative as well as a quantitative approach, and consider factors such as lexical diversity, adjectival density, collocation patterns, evaluative meaning, syntactic function and distribution across semantic domains. Most findings are related to a dichotomy set up between an idealistic and a realistic portrayal of characters. The study shows that an idealistic portrayal of characters is typical of the Victorian material and a realistic portrayal of characters typical of the contemporary material. Further, gender differences are much more pronounced, and reflect traditional gender role patterns more in the Victorian material than in the contemporary material. For instance, a pleasant appearance is typically described for Victorian female characters and social position for Victorian male characters. Moreover, descriptions of mental properties of Victorian female characters are conspicuously rare. Such gendered patterns are less distinct in the contemporary material, although appearance is still more extensively described for female than male characters. As regards how the qualities are attributed to characters, the descriptions of Victorian female characters were found to be the most formulaic compared to the descriptions of Victorian male, contemporary female and contemporary male characters.
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McGrath, Alyssa F. "Aaron, Othello, and Caliban: Shakespeare's Presentation of Ethnic Minorities in Titus Andronicus, Othello, and The Tempest." Marietta College Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=marhonors1367332575.
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Han, Lei, and 韓蕾. "British Romanticism: Its Character and Limits." Thesis, 2014. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/95823465560796306461.
Full textAbstract:
碩士國立臺灣大學
歷史學研究所
102
Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century, and in most areas it was at its peak in the approximately from 1800 to 1850. Romanticism can be seen as a rejection of the precepts of order, calmness, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that typified Classicism in general and Neoclassicism in particular in late 18th-century. It was also to some extent a reaction against the Enlightenment and against 18th-century rationalism and physical materialism in general. Historians of French and German literature are accustomed to set off a period, or a division of their subject, and entitle it “Romanticism” or “the Romantic School.” Writers of English literary history, while recognizing the importance of England''s share in this great movement in European letters, have not generally accorded it a place by itself in the arrangement of their subject-matter, but have treated it cursively, as a tendency present in the work of individual authors. Scholars have described “Englishness” as strict and honourable, and sometimes boyish. Therefore, British Romanticism continued to reflect the constant conflict and tension between reason and sensibility. This article will discuss the thesis through literature, arts, philosophy, and politics of the romantics, in order to understand the character and limits of British romanticism.
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Kono, Barbara S. "Defining the British national character: Narrations in British culture of the last two centuries." 1999. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9920619.
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This dissertation argues that widespread belief in a British national character is the result of the wide circulation of images purporting to depict its traits, and further, that audiences for those images have been no less important than image makers in determining what kind of character has been imagined. To support these contentions depictions of the British or English are examined, chosen mainly for their own wide circulation or that of their authors' work in general, but also for their derivation from earlier images in order to demonstrate the continuity of the nation's self-imagining. Apart from one sixteenth century text by Sir Walter Raleigh, the images examined are taken from British works of the last two centuries: in the nineteenth century from texts by Thomas Macaulay, James Anthony Froude, Charles Kingsley, Matthew Arnold and Alfred Tennyson, and paintings by Ford Madox Brown and John Everett Millais; in this century from texts by Sapper, Maud Diver, E. M. Forster, George Orwell, Margaret Drabble and Salman Rushdie, political speeches by Margaret Thatcher, T. E. Utley and Britain's current chancellor Gordon Brown, and the 1980s re-enactment of Raleigh's activities known as Operation Raleigh. Reference is also made throughout to other contemporaneous images in a variety of media. Discussion draws on post-colonial theory and on theories of nations and nationalism and of narrative and historiography, with a predominantly Marxist approach. Although authors' motives for designedly portraying the national character have quite personal, even, at times, irrational aspects, they are primarily ideological. Motivation is, however, largely irrelevant to the images' reception, which mainly depends on their appeal, availability and general circulation. In conclusion, the construction and proclamation of a supposed national character is seen to be a continuing process which provides the nation's members with an acceptable collective self-image adapted to concerns of the time. Largely stereotypical, inevitably idealized and fraught with ideology, such collective representations incorporate much that is true but differ considerably from prevailing national norms of attitude and behavior. One or another such representation has nevertheless been embraced by a very large number of Britons as embodying their national character.
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Lieske, Pamela Jean. "The construction of gendered character in eighteenth-century British women's fiction." 1996. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9638990.
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This study is an examination of how gendered characters in eighteenth-century British women's fiction are constructed and challenged. The novels under study are Eliza Haywood's The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751), Frances Sheridan's Memoirs of Sidney Bidulph (1761), Elizabeth Inchbald's A Simple Story (1791), and Charlotte Smith's The Old Manor House (1793). Chapter one, "Theory, Gender, and Eighteenth-Century British Women Writers," discusses how eighteenth-century scholars often substitute a focus on women writers and their female characters for a more thorough examination of gender and gender issues. Using post-structuralist and feminist-materialist theory, I maintain that it is important to consider a process-oriented conception of male and female identity, and to understand that each sex is continually in dialogue with the other, and with society at large. My subsequent chapters apply this supposition on a practical level. "Negotiating Female Identity in The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless" argues that Trueworth constructs his masculine identity by associating with "virtuous" women and by avoiding any examination into his own sexual or moral conduct. He and society repeatedly and incorrectly judge the benevolent and high-spirited Betsy to be morally deficient and sexually permissive, and she comes to believe what everyone tells her: that she is a coquette and that it is her fault men sexually harass her. Consequently, Haywood offers no alternative way of perceiving women's gendered identity than by polarizing sexuality and ethics and by collapsing sexuality into gender. "Gender and Disguise in the Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph" also focuses on the social indoctrination of women into accepting conservative notions of womanhood. More specifically, it explores the manifestation of heterosexual desire during a time when women were taught to venerate their parents and keep a tight rein over their desires while men were allowed more latitude in expressing their sexuality. The two remaining novels are more progressive in their construction of gendered characters. "A Simple Story: The Complexity of Gender Realized" argues that in Inchbald's novel gendered identity is indeterminate and in flux. Gender is consciously foregrounded with the construction and dismantling of gendered stereotypes, and the repetition and extension of their intergenerational stories. Characters' identities (same sex and different-sex) merge and plotlines (romance, incest, and adultery) are fluid. Finally, "Domestic Ideology and the Delusion of Gendered Stability in The Old Manor House" contends that Orlando and Monimia are deluded about the makeup of their gendered identities and the relationship they have with each other. While they work hard to maintain that separation between the public and private upon which their identities are based, Smith shows us that these spheres are always already intertwined and that it is impossible for heterosexual romance to remain immune from societal forces.
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Teal, Karen Kurt. "The later evolution of Trollope's female characters." 2000. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9960793.
Full textAbstract:
Dickens, Thackeray and Eliot satisfied specific goals in deploying female characters without hearts, accomplishing satirical needs within their texts. Trollope's anti-heroic female characters also fulfill satirical needs within their texts: Lizzie Eustace of The Eustace Diamonds (1873), Winifred Hurtle of The Way We Live Now (1875), Glencora Palliser of The Prime Minister (1876), and Arabella Trefoil of The American Senator (1877) provide, through their struggles, a rich context for cultural critique of the status of women in nineteenth-century Britain. These characters stand at a distance from those female moral paragons of earlier non-comic Trollope novels. I want to argue that these four characters are the culmination of a mainstream consciousness in conflict with its own creative imagination. They are affronts to the usual dicta, yet resisted discussion as a group for various reasons. Narratorial ambiguity reveals, then hides their feminist agendas. Furthermore, rather than make a point with his characters, Trollope preferred to “drive with loose reins” and let the character make a point through him. This concept will be carefully documented. By looking critically at this ambiguity one can see these characters as forming a group rather than remaining anomalies, which encourages a new perspective on Anthony Trollope's subject, his range of tolerance, and his vision. This study accentuates the ironic relation, currently undiscussed, which Trollope had with conventional thought on the binary opposition of the genders. It looks at ways these later characters put pressure on the implied reader's prejudices. There is some disagreement over whether Trollope simply advertised conventional values or questioned them. My study introduces a new way of answering the question. My strategy involves historicizing the characters in their contexts. Each character's predicament will be seen as a criticism of an institution, and will be studied with the help of a framing text. I will examine how Trollope creates in his characters' situations a cultural/ethical dissonance that cannot be resolved by conventional prescriptions for women's lives. Trollope's narrator and implied reader make daring points without producing the sort of texts that were rejected, like those of suffragism, by the public.
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Horáčková, Ludmila. "Postava novináře v britském románu 20. století." Master's thesis, 2012. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-304804.
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The aim of the diploma thesis The Picture of a Journalist in the 20th century British novel is to map the space dedicated to characters of journalists in literature, the 20th century British novels in particular. Depiction of the journalistic characters is based on fifteen selected literary works within three different novel types - comic novel, detective novel and social-critical novel. Using a detailed analysis of a sum of both the narrative and the extra-literary elements the thesis compares various characters of male and female journalists appearing in the selected novels. It tries to compare the differences as well as the similarities within portrayals of journalists in different novel types. As a conclusion the thesis evaluates the overall picture of journalists in these works and attempts to trace any similarities or recurring trends in depiction of journalists in literature.
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Lai, Yu-ping, and 賴宇萍. "The British Characters in Howards End and A Passage to India." Thesis, 1997. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/13303691462347471319.
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碩士國立中正大學
外國語文學系
85
This thesis deals with E. M. Forster's representation of the British characters in two of his well-known novels, Howards End and A Passage to India. There have been great controversies about the ending of these two novels, as whether Forster is optimistic, or pessimistic, about the future of his countrymen and of the human race. "Personal relations" defines the main theme in Forster's novels. His lack of interest in conventions is evident in his description of the social problems. Chapter one deals with the domestic problems in England. The middle- class people, like the Wilcoxes and the Schlegels, serve as the center of the British society. The working class, as represented by Leonard Bast, are unduly suppressed. Howards End, as represented by Mrs. Wilcox, is the last comfort for the weary souls of the British. Chapter two deals with the foreign problems aroused by the British in India. The British officials assume the air of superiority over the natives, and refuse to bridge the gulf between East and West. The racial tension is at its height when the English girl, Adela Quested, brings the charge of attempted rape against the native Dr. Aziz. Chapter three is an analysis which seeks to outline the pattern of Forster's theory about connection through the process of examining the aspects of the private life, of the social life, and eventually of Forster's ideal universe. This thesis concludes with an optimistic answer to the question of human plight by alluding to Forster's own belief in human race.
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Holden, Philip Joseph. "Colonizing masculinity : the creation of a male British subjectivity in the oriental fiction of W. Somerset Maugham." Thesis, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/6830.
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This thesis discusses the oriental fiction of W. Somerset
Maugham in the light of current theoretical models
introduced by postcolonial and gender studies. Immensely
popular from their time of publication to the present,
Maugham's novels and short stories set in Asia and the South
Pacific exhibit a consummate recycling of colonialist
tropes. Through their manipulation of racial, gender, and
geographical binarisms, Maugham's texts produce a fantasy of
a seemingly stable British male subjectivity based upon
emotional and somatic continence, rationality, and
specularity. The status of the British male subject is
tested and confirmed by his activity in the colonies.
Maugham's situation of writing as a homosexual man, however,
results in affiliations which cut across the binary
oppositions which structure Maugham's texts, destabilising
the integrity of the subject they strive so assiduously to
create.
Commencing with Maugham's novel The Moon and Sixpence,
and his short story collection The Trembling of a Leaf, both
of which are set in the South Pacific, the thesis moves to a
discussion of Maugham's Chinese travelogue, On a Chinese
Screen, and his Hong Kong novel, The Painted Veil. Further
chapters explore the Malayan short stories, and Maugham's
novel set in the then Dutch East Indies, The Narrow Corner.
A final chapter discusses Maugham's novel of India, The
Razor's Edge. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Maugham
does not even attempt a liberal critique of British
Imperialism. Writing and narration are, for him, processes
closely identified with codes of imperial manliness.
Maugham's putatively objective narrators, and the public
"Maugham persona" which the writer carefully cultivated,
display a strong investment in the British male subjectivity
outlined above. Yet Maugham's texts also endlessly discover
writing as a play of signification, of decoration, of
qualities that he explicitly associates in other texts with
homosexuality. If Maugham's texts do not critique the
formation of colonial subjects they do, to a critical
reader, make the rhetoric necessary to create such subjects
peculiarly visible.
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Cooper, Lucille. "Is there a woman in the text? : a feminist exploration of Katherine Mansfield's search for authentic selves in a selection of short stories." Diss., 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/2410.
Full textAbstract:
Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923), British Modernist writer whose search for authentic selves in the lives of the characters in her short stories, is reflected in her innovative style of writing in which she examines the interior consciousness of their minds.
Mansfield questions the inauthentic lives of the characters, revealing that the roles they play are socially imposed forcing them to hide their true selves behind masks.
The stories which have been chosen for this study focus on women characters (and men also) who grapple with societal prescriptions for accepted actions, and are rendered mute as a result. The women characters include all age groups and social classes. Some are young and impressionable (The Tiredness of Rosabel, The Little Governess and The Garden Party), others are married and older (Bliss, Prelude and Frau Brechenmacher attends a wedding ), while there are also middle-aged women in Miss Brill and The Life of Ma Parker.English Studies
M.A. (English)