Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Novelists, English – Fiction'

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Riverside, 2010.
Includes abstract. Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Title from first page of PDF file (viewed May 21, 2010). Includes bibliographical references. Also issued in print.

The research field of this thesis is framed by the major political and legal women's movement campaigns from the 1840s to the 1870s: the debates over the Married Women's Property Act; over philanthropy and methods of addressing social ills; the campaign for professional opportunities for women, and the arguments surrounding women's suffrage. I address how these issues are considered and contextualised in major works of Victorian fiction: Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South (1855), Charlotte Bronte's Villette (1853), and George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871--2).
In works of fiction by women, concepts of social justice were not constrained by layers of legal abstraction and the obligatory political vocabulary of "disinterest." Contemporary fiction by women could thus offer some of the most developed articulations of women's changing expectations. This thesis demonstrates that the Victorian novel provides a distinct synthesis of, and contribution to, arguments grouped under the rubric of the "woman question." The novel offers a perspective on feminist politics in which conflicting social interests and demands can be played out, where ethical questions meet everyday life, and human relations have philosophical weight. Given women's traditional exclusion from the domain of legitimate (authoritative) speech, the novels of Gaskell, the Bronte's, and Eliot, traditionally admired for their portrayal of moral character, play a special role in giving voice to the key political issues of women's rights, entitlements, and interests. Evidence for the political content and efficacy of these novels is drawn from archival sources which have been little used in literary studies (including unpublished materials), as well as contemporary periodicals. Central among these is the English Woman's Journal. Conceived as the mouthpiece of the early women's movement, the journal offers a valuable record of the feminist activity of the period. Though it has not been widely exploited, particularly in literary studies, detailed study of the journal reveals close parallels between the ideological commitments and concerns of the women's movement and novels by mid-Victorian women.

Recent scholarly interest in Elizabeth von Arnim has related Elizabeth and Her German Garden and The Solitary Summer to the New Woman and Female Aesthete movements, concluding that von Arnim does not align herself with any movement per se. Rather, in these early works, Elizabeth advocates and adamantly defends her right to time in her garden, which becomes her sanctuary for reading and thinking. Little critical attention has been paid to von Arnim's later works; however, many of the themes established in von Arnim's early works can be traced through her later novels. In The Enchanted April Lady Caroline retreats to the garden at San Salvatore in order to escape the attention of others and discover who she really is and what she wants out of life. Because she follows the early von Arnim model by defending her garden sanctuary, she is able to find the strength to insist on being treated as a person rather than a beautiful object. Additionally, Lucy Enstwhistle's interrupted time in the garden in Vera demonstrates the importance of the role of von Arnim's garden in forming an identity and developing the ability to make decisions for oneself. Because Lucy allows Everard Wemyss to rob her of these opportunities, she loses the opportunity to create her identity. She soon becomes the second Mrs. Wemyss, realizes that she is abject, and begins taking on first wife Vera's attributes and passions to cope with Everard's constant demands. Because Lucy has forfeited the formative experiences the garden space can provide, Lucy is left to take up Vera's identity and tragic fate.

This thesis explores the construction of masculinity in novels written by New Women authors between the years 1881-1899. The fin de siècle was a period during which gender roles were renegotiated with fervour by both male and female authors, but it was the so-called New Woman in particular who was trying to transform the Victorian notion of femininity to incorporate the demands of the burgeoning women's movement. This thesis argues that in their fiction, New Women authors often tried to achieve this transformation by creating male characters who were designed to justify and to mitigate the New Woman protagonist's departure from traditional structures of heterosexual relationships. The methodology underlying this thesis is the notion that men and women were perceived as binary opposites during the Victorian period. I refer to this as the binary code of the sexes. This code assumes that men and women naturally possess diametrically opposed character attributes, and also that “masculine” attributes are perforce better than “feminine” ones. In the body of this work, I argue that New Women authors attempted to contest both of these assumptions by creating, on the one hand, traditional male characters whose masculinity is corrupted in crucial and recurring ways, and on the other, impaired male characters who cannot assume the traditional role of man. The comparison of the New Woman protagonist with the corrupt traditional man elevates her feminine attributes, while the impaired man's dependency legitimises her acquisition of what were otherwise considered “masculine” attributes and privileges, thereby contesting the notion that men and women possess sex-specific attributes at all. The second part of my thesis examines contrasting examples, in which this way of characterising masculinity – as traditional or impaired – is questioned and manipulated. It examines the limitations of the New Women authors' specific approach to reconstructing the binary code.

Why do we read what we read? Janice Radway examines works that were not popular in an author's time period, but now are affecting the construction of the canon. In her own words, Radway seeks to "establish [popular literature] as something other than a watered-down version of a more authentic high culture [and] to present the middlebrow positively as a culture with its own particular substance and intellectual coherence" (208). Mary Elizabeth Braddon's novels were considered "middlebrow" and were very popular in Victorian England. Along with this facet, her heroines were considered controversial because they were not portrayed as what would be labeled a "proper female" in Victorian society. The popularity of her novels, her heroines, along with facets of her personal life, keep her from being recognized as one of the foremost authors in the Victorian period.

His Story takes the form of a fictive but autobiographically based investigation into the child and young adult I used to be, and follows that protagonist into early adulthood. It tries to show the damage done to that character and the way in which he damaged others in turn. As Hemingway said, We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. More importantly, the main protagonist is somebody who became concerned with, and cognizant of the main political and social events of his day. His life is set in its social context, and reaches out to the larger issues. That is to say, the personal events of the protagonist's life are recorded alongside and set in the context of the major events taking place on the world stage. The manuscript is some sort of hybrid of novel, autobiography, and historical and social document. As Isaac Bashevis Singer said, The serious writer of our time must be deeply concerned about the problems of his generation. In order to make His Story effective in sharing my ideas and beliefs, and, of course, in order to protect the innocent and more particularly, the guilty, it is created in the colourful area that is the overlap between memory and fiction. When we tell the stories of our lives to others, and indeed, to ourselves, we prise them out of memory's fingers and transform them into fiction. To write autobiography well, as E.L. Doctorow said, you have to invent everything, even memory.

Robert A. Heinlein is a key figure in the development of American science fiction. What makes his contribution unique is his emphasis on philosophical speculation. Heinlein's program is based on rationality as a vital element to salvation. Although the importance of rationality is an aspect of many schools of philosophy particular value may be gained by comparing Heinlein's system with the philosophy of Plotinus. An examination of Heinlein's key works (Stranger in a Strange Land. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Time Enough For Love, The Number of the Beast--. And various short stories I provides ample evidence to support the idea that the two systems are quite similar. Thus it becomes apparent that Heinlein presents a carefully considered world view which is particularly exemplified in his competent heroes, and in his concern for family, morality, and aesthetics.

This thesis investigates not so much the engineer as a character in fiction but the writer of fiction, the novelist, as a person who can have surprising insights into engineering principles without formal study or training in engineering. The engineer has featured in fiction novels significantly in the last century. The engineer as a protagonist in the novel on many occasions has been created by an author who is not an engineer. The same comment could well be made regarding the writers of science fiction who indeed are not necessarily scientists but write credibly about scientific inventions, usually set in the future. This thesis argues that there is a distinction between writing science fiction and writing about engineering, although the two are often combined in the one novel. This thesis distinguishes science fiction (Sci-Fi) from what is described as En-Fi or engineering fiction. Engineering fiction or En-Fi is based upon real life engineering feats, if one accepts that the definition of engineering is the “application” of science and technology. The specific hypothesis of this thesis is that credible engineering fiction (En- Fi) can be constructed by non-engineer trained authors. To support this hypothesis there is both a review of novels with the engineer as a central character and an examination of novels where engineering concepts used in developing a storyline are outlined in detail. Indeed, to support the above hypothesis a supplementary “En-Fi” novel has been created. This novel, titled, “Amber Reins Fall”, is used as the central device in addition to the literature review to prove that a writer untrained in engineering can write an En-Fi novel that has a high degree of credibility in engineering terms. The construction of this engineering fiction (En-Fi) novel is carried out in detail outlining the various engineering devices used to strengthen the storyline. Examples of engineering such as a light engineering factory of the 1950’s, operational aspects of the Panama Canal and the disposal of nuclear waste in the Australian desert are included in the novel. Three other novels by the author (of this thesis) are included as part of the argument supporting the hypothesis. They also demonstrate the combination of En-Fi and Sci-Fi. In the first novel “Greenwars” (d’ettut 1998) the overriding engineering component is AARDVARK (accelerated animal reasoning, decision making, voicing and reflective kinetics); the interactive voting video and dolphin scooters. The second novel “Pie Square” (d’ettut 2000) has as the major engineering component the interactive video games. The third novel, “Vampire Cities” (d’ettut 2000) has as the major engineering component a conductor’s baton (although this might be construed as science fiction). Two of the actual novels, “Greenwars” and “Pie Square” have been appended as part of the thesis presentation. They both deal with the central character “Adam Teforp”, also featured in “Amber Reins Fall”. “Vampire Cities” has not been appended as this critical character is not part of that novel. The literature review and the construction of ����Amber Reins Fall���� point to the validity of the hypothesis; that is that non-engineers can write convincing engineering orientated novels. Its also asserted that there is sufficient evidence to recognize a genre called En-Fi, different from the science fiction genre.

Thesis (M. Eng. (Hons.)) -- University of Western Sydney, 2007.
A thesis submitted to the University of Western Sydney, College of Health and Science, School of Engineering, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering (Hons.). Includes bibliographical references.

Focusing on four early works, then three from his middle period and three from the 1890s, this dissertation explores Meredith’s role as a novelist in the unfolding of a social and literary paradox, namely, that with the death of George Eliot in 1880, the dominant writers of fiction were male, and this remained the case until the advent of Virginia Woolf, while at the same time the woman’s movement for emancipation in all spheres of life—domestic, commercial, professional and political—was gathering in strength and conviction. None of the late nineteenth-century male novelists—James, Hardy, Moore and Gissing, as well as Meredith—was ideologically committed to the feminist cause; in fact the very term ‘feminist’ did not begin to become current in England until the mid-1890s. But they were all interested in one aspect or another of the ‘Woman Question’, even if James was ambivalent about female emancipation, and Gissing, on the whole, was somewhat hostile. Of all these novelists, it was Meredith whose work, especially in its last two decades, most copiously reveals a profound sympathy for women and their struggles to realize their desires and ambitions, both inside and outside the home, in a patriarchal world. The dissertation therefore concentrates on his presentation of his heroines in their relationships with the men who, in one way or another, dominate them, and with whom they must negotiate, within the social and sexual conventions of the time, a modus vivendi—a procedure that will entail, especially in the later work, some transgression of those conventions. Chapter 1 sketches more than two centuries of development in female consciousness of severe social disadvantage, from literary observations in the mid-seventeenth century to the intensifying of political representations in the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, and the rise of the woman’s movement in the course of the Victorian century. The chapter includes an account of the impact on Meredith of John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women (1869), and an examination of some of his female friendships by way of illuminating the experiential component of his insights into the ‘Woman Question’ as reflected in his fiction and letters. His unhappy first marriage is reserved for consideration in Chapter 2, as background to the discussion of The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859). This early novel, Meredith’s first in the realist mode, is widely accepted as being of high quality, and is given extended treatment, together with briefer accounts of three other early works, The Shaving of Shagpat (1855), Evan Harrington (1861), and Rhoda Fleming (1865), and one from Meredith’s middle period, Beauchamp’s Career (1876). Two more novels of this period, The Egoist (1879) and Diana of the Crossways (1885), are generally considered to be among his best works, and their heroines are given chapters to themselves (3 and 4). Chapter 5 provides further contextualization for the changing socio-political circumstances of the 1880s and 1890s, with particular reference to that heightening of feminist consciousness represented by the short-lived ‘New Woman’ phenomenon, to which Diana of the Crossways had been considered by some to be a contribution. Brief discussion of some other ‘New Woman’ novels of the 80s and 90s follows, giving literary context to the heroines of Meredith’s three late candidates in the genre, One of Our Conquerors (1891), Lord Ormont and His Aminta (1894), and The Amazing Marriage (1895). The dissertation concludes with a glance at Meredith’s influence on a few early twentieth-century novelists.

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts.
"Why do women read the romance?" cannot be answered by Anglo-American feminist literary criticism; a critique is brought against feminist definitions of gender and genre, and the question, "Why did women begin to write (novels)?" Gender definition and genre formation are integrally interrelated in the modern period; this can be traced through textual analyses of textual practices in early nineteenth century texts. Analyses of Wuthering Heights, Emma, and Madame Bovary enable critique to be brought against tenets central to feminist criticism: the figure and function of the female author; the definitions of gender, desire and sexuality; the social and the sexual contracts; and the role of Oedipus in feminist-psychoanalytical debates. Moi's Sexual/Textual Politics provides a. critique of feminism, Armstrong's Desire and Domestic Fiction a feminist history of the novel, and Radway's Reading the Romance a feminist account of romance fiction.
Andrew Chakane 2018

Fay Weldon is a popular, prolific author whose oeuvre stretches from 1967 to the present and includes 20 novels, three collections of short stories and numerous stage, radio and television plays, scripts and adaptations. This thesis limits itself to her fiction and follows the chronological course of Weldon's writing career in five chapters. Fay Weldon's fiction, situated at the intersection of postmodemism and feminism, is doubly subversive. It both overturns 'reasonable' narrative conventions and wittily deconstructs the specious terminology used to define women. Weldon's disobedient female protagonists - madwomen, criminals, outcasts and she-devils - assert the power of the Other. Gynocentric themes - single parenthood, sisterhood, reproduction, motherhood, sex and marriage - are transformed by Weldon into uproarious feminist revenge comedy. This she achieves through an intertextuality which often involves unorthodox typography, genreswopping and metafictional devices. Moreover, a unique ventriloquism enables her omniscient first-person narrators to mimic 'Fay Weldon' herself. Since her narrators are rebels and iconoclasts, Weldon has always been viewed as a subversive individual worthy of media attention, especially interviews. For this reason, and because she is a woman writer who struggled initially against social and domestic odds, the thesis incorporates in its argument the author's biography and public personae. Chapter One explores the connections between Weldon's first novels - notably Down Among the Women (1971) - and early liberationist and anthropological feminism. In Chapter Two, Bakhtin's dialogic imagination and Derrida's differance provide the basis for a discussion of multiplicity in Weldon's novels of the late 1970s, particularly Praxis (1979), shortlisted for the Booker prize. Chapter Three tests the limits of a psychoanalytical model in accounting for Weldon's novels of (m)Otherhood, including The Life and Loves of a SheDevil (1983). Theories of humour and carnival inform Chapter Four's analysis of how Weldon's wit - at its tendentious best in The Heart of the Country (1987) - declines into innocence. Finally, Chapter Five sees Weldon's flagging literary reputation as the symptom of authorial exhaustion and retreat from a feminist agenda. This concluding chapter is, however, ultimately optimistic that the mercurial author's undeniable talents may reassert themselves
English Studies
D.Litt. et Phil. (English)

This thesis investigates not so much the engineer as a character in fiction but the writer of fiction, the novelist, as a person who can have surprising insights into engineering principles without formal study or training in engineering. The engineer has featured in fiction novels significantly in the last century. The engineer as a protagonist in the novel on many occasions has been created by an author who is not an engineer. The same comment could well be made regarding the writers of science fiction who indeed are not necessarily scientists but write credibly about scientific inventions, usually set in the future. This thesis argues that there is a distinction between writing science fiction and writing about engineering, although the two are often combined in the one novel. This thesis distinguishes science fiction (Sci-Fi) from what is described as En-Fi or engineering fiction. Engineering fiction or En-Fi is based upon real life engineering feats, if one accepts that the definition of engineering is the “application” of science and technology. The specific hypothesis of this thesis is that credible engineering fiction (En- Fi) can be constructed by non-engineer trained authors. To support this hypothesis there is both a review of novels with the engineer as a central character and an examination of novels where engineering concepts used in developing a storyline are outlined in detail. Indeed, to support the above hypothesis a supplementary “En-Fi” novel has been created. This novel, titled, “Amber Reins Fall”, is used as the central device in addition to the literature review to prove that a writer untrained in engineering can write an En-Fi novel that has a high degree of credibility in engineering terms. The construction of this engineering fiction (En-Fi) novel is carried out in detail outlining the various engineering devices used to strengthen the storyline. Examples of engineering such as a light engineering factory of the 1950’s, operational aspects of the Panama Canal and the disposal of nuclear waste in the Australian desert are included in the novel. Three other novels by the author (of this thesis) are included as part of the argument supporting the hypothesis. They also demonstrate the combination of En-Fi and Sci-Fi. In the first novel “Greenwars” (d’ettut 1998) the overriding engineering component is AARDVARK (accelerated animal reasoning, decision making, voicing and reflective kinetics); the interactive voting video and dolphin scooters. The second novel “Pie Square” (d’ettut 2000) has as the major engineering component the interactive video games. The third novel, “Vampire Cities” (d’ettut 2000) has as the major engineering component a conductor’s baton (although this might be construed as science fiction). Two of the actual novels, “Greenwars” and “Pie Square” have been appended as part of the thesis presentation. They both deal with the central character “Adam Teforp”, also featured in “Amber Reins Fall”. “Vampire Cities” has not been appended as this critical character is not part of that novel. The literature review and the construction of ����Amber Reins Fall���� point to the validity of the hypothesis; that is that non-engineers can write convincing engineering orientated novels. Its also asserted that there is sufficient evidence to recognize a genre called En-Fi, different from the science fiction genre.
Master of Engineering (Hons.)