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The Concepts of the American Dream in Francis Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Norman Mailer's An American Dream
Kříž, Jonáš ; Chalupský, Petr (advisor) ; Ženíšek, Jakub (referee)
The thesis provides a comparative analysis of the American Dream's concept in the two essential pieces of American literature: Francis Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Norman Mailer's An American Dream. The theoretical part of the text focuses on the general definition of the American Dream and its development throughout the history of the United States. It aims at exposing the close relationship of the idea of the American Dream and the American national consciousness in terms of self-reliance, individualism and freedom. The analytical part concentrates on isolating the individual literary motifs of each novel that can be regarded as related to the notion of the American Dream. It discusses the central characters as well as dramatic aspects of The Great Gatsby and An American Dream in order to prove the American Dream to represent an essential theme in their literary frameworks. As a conclusion the thesis presents the opinion that each author elaborates this theme differently. Both novels, however, expose the individual version of the American Dream as being defeated in a struggle against the collective nature of the 20th century American society restricting the efforts of an individual for his or her self-realization. Keywords: Norman Mailer, An American Dream, Francis Scott Fitzgerald,...
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Benjamin Franklin and Jay Gatsby: A Comparison of American Literary Self-Made Men
Korejtková, Adéla ; Procházka, Martin (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
The thesis focuses on Benjamin Franklin, as he is portrayed in his Autobiography, and Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, who are connected not only by being self-made men. Firstly, they are both symbolical figures that made a powerful commentary on a period, on the country and on its core myth - the American Dream. Secondly, they are linked by Fitzgerald himself since his hero creates a schedule and a table of general resolves which clearly imitate Franklin's schedule and the list of thirteen virtues that he intended to master. The aim of this paper is to focus on the Autobiography and The Great Gatsby and to show that Franklin's views of self-help, virtue, material wealth, social progress or religion may add another dimension to the analysis of the character of Jay Gatsby and his relation to the American Dream. In the second chapter of this thesis, the two texts are examined in terms of the authors' purpose, style and the way the central character is presented to the audience. Furthermore, I compare Franklin's own stylized self-presentation to Nick Carraway's view of Gatsby. The third chapter aims to determine in what way was Franklin's version of the central American myth transformed or corrupted in The Great Gatsby. In this part, I compare the schedules of the...
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Sam Shepard: Buried Child
Filinger, Marek ; Josek, Jiří (advisor) ; Russell, Robert Alexander (referee)
One of the reasons for writing this thesis was to help readers and theatregoers better understand Shepard's plays and to let them see, at least partly, his intentions. Yet, to ask for a straightforward explanation or an unambiguous ending would mean to completely misunderstand the author. Samuel Shepard the playwright, actor, director, screenwriter, poet and musician as well as a cowboy and shaman - "a New World shaman" - is anything but a piece of cake. To know this much might be enough unless you plan to translate or direct one of his plays. And for these very purposes, I have decided to prepare a roadmap for understanding Samuel Shepard Rogers III. My goal was to show three main influences that helped to form Shepard's style. First, we will travel with young Sam eastwards all the way to New York in order to discover a brave new world. Only fifteen years later, we will set the sails in the same direction again, this time to accompany an unheard-off success - an Off-Off- Broadway show moving from San Francisco to New York to be eventually awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Unfortunately, this child prodigy we came with is dying; indeed, it is already a Buried Child. After twenty more years, Shepard will revise the text and claim that "it's now a better play". That is where our analysis starts. First, we will...
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Family in modern American drama
Hovorka, Jan ; Wallace, Clare (advisor) ; Ulmanová, Hana (referee)
This work analyses the American family in context of society and its demands. It focuses on the cannonical works of the Modern American drama, namely plays of Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, Sam Shepard and David Mamet. The playwrights are analysed in two distinctive groups according to similar themes they share. Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller depict the family under increasing pressure from the outside as well from the inside. The unit disintegrates, members of the family escape and thus the unit loses its funtions. The pressure is imposed by the tenets of the American mythology that governs the society, which, in turn, influences the family. The common theme of the first group of playwrights is the feeling of loss. This comprises of two dimensions - spatial and tempoval. The second group of playwrights share the same theme of loss with its spatial and temporal implications. They are characteristic by their distinctive use of language that depicts the prevalent sense of doom, apocalypse, futility and sterility. The search for identity is also implied by the restlessness of characters. The detrimental effect of harsh business environment on the family is explored with regards to masculinity. The work shows the family in the context of the 1950s, an era when the family was elevated to...
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Three critical voices of post-war American literature
Malá, Kateřina ; Hanuš, Jiří (advisor) ; Calda, Miloš (referee)
The thesis deals with critical views of the post-war American society as found in three literary works: Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and Jack Kerouac's On the Road. The thesis's aim is to introduce briefly the post-war society and then, on basis of text analysis, to provide criticism expressed by each book mentioned above. Divided into four main parts, it describes the post-war situation in the United States (political, social and cultural) and thereafter it focuses on the books itself. It provides a short biographical summary of each author's life but it mainly targets the criticism the book contains. The post-war period was significant because of the change it brought. The society of the 1950s was characterized by many "booms" that contributed to its development. The main features of this period were consumerism and materialism; these were also the principal things subjected to criticism. The question the thesis wants to answer is whether this criticism was justified or not. This objective is realized in the conclusion. Based on all facts provided by the thesis, the answer is that the criticism was justified; however, it is not so easy and it is necessary to read the whole thesis to understand all reasons that led to this conclusion and to think over...
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The Paradoxical World of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
ŠANDEROVÁ, Milada
In The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald created a world of fundamental contradictions. Whether talking about the way the whole society works, the immense differences among social classes, the characters, or the tension between attributes of a particular character. Therefore, the goal of this bachelor thesis is to analyse the world of this novel as the world built on paradoxes.
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