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Linguistic Estrangement in Selected Science Fiction
Lebedeva, Tatiana ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Clark, Colin Steele (referee)
This work is a discussion of the connections between language in science fiction, the formalist concept of estrangement, and gender studies. The thesis suggests that the language of science fiction features linguistic estrangement that manifests itself in the form of a device and an effect which is produced as a result of certain modification of language used in a science fiction narrative. As the device of linguistic estrangement can be aimed at highlighting various processes, this thesis focuses on a narrow category of the representation of the sexes in the English language and the transformation of gender-biased language and the unequal representation of sexes via the aforementioned device. The introduction to this work gives an overview of the current debate on the topic in order to introduce the reader to the relevance of the discussion. The first chapter explores the definition of science fiction through the theory of cognitive estrangement by Darko Suvin and explains the choice of this medium for the study of language and gender. Then, it gives a definition of the device of literary estrangement as well as explains the nature and the usage of linguistic estrangement in science fiction. The second and the third chapters exemplify this phenomenon in selected works, Woman on the Edge of Time by...
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Mental Illness In The Works Of Edgar Allan Poe
Hladká, Alena ; Procházka, Martin (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
1 Abstract The focus of this thesis aims at mental illness in the works of Edgar Allan Poe, their incorporation in his short stories and their function as a means of inducing of horror in the reader. It will be attempted to establish a typology of madness based upon the insane characters from eight of Poe's stories. These stories, chosen for their clear depiction of mentally deranged characters, are "The Black Cat," "The Cask of Amontillado," "Ligeia," "Eleonora," "Berenice," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "William Wilson." This thesis will consist of four main parts with a small additional chapter dedicated to the life of Edgar Allan Poe, since the author's life experience is also important for the understanding and appreciating of his work. Chapter 1 will focus on Poe's narrators in the stories "Eleonora" and "Ligeia." Their insanity, stemming from love, passion and loss, and especially from a vain attempt to achieve the ideal of beauty manifests in their later depression or drug addiction. In essence, the characters are driven mad by unhappy love. Chapter 2 will show the physical manifestation of madness into murder. It will deal with Poe's insane murderers from the tales "The Black Cat," "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Tell-Tale Heart." In these tales, the narrators...
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David Foster Wallace, Technology and the Self
Russell, Alexander ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
This thesis is concerned with an analysis of how David Foster Wallace's treatment of technology defines his understanding of the self in late 20th-century and early 21st-century America. With a primary focus on how this understanding evolved between the publication of his major novel Infinite Jest (1996) and his posthumously published unfinished novel The Pale King (2011), this thesis also takes into consideration Wallace's ideas as expressed through his many short stories, non-fiction works, and critical essays, most prominently "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction" (1993). This thesis first briefly places Wallace in the context of contemporary literary scholarship, evaluating the state and extent of the nascent field of Wallace Studies. It then proceeds to examine and map out the philosophical underpinnings to Wallace's conception of the self, emphasising the importance of existential thought and the notion that the self is to be created rather than pre-existing in the individual. Technology as it is presented in Infinite Jest and The Pale King is then examined in relation to this philosophical understanding of the self, proving itself consistently to be an impediment to the existential self-becoming valorised in the novels. Wallace's early interest in entertainment technology as...
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Elizabeth Bishop: The Map of Her Life and Work
Nováková, Lucie ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Quinn, Justin (referee)
The aim of the thesis is straightforward: to provide readers with a glimpse into the life of Elizabeth Bishop but not to put emphasis on biographical details. The focus lies on her two most formative relationships with her fellow poets, namely Marianne Moore and Robert Lowell. The thesis aims to present five selected poems and to read them with acknowledging the mutual influences and, at the same time, it strives to provide specific instances of such influences. The first part of the thesis is dedicated to the relationship with Marianne Moore. The two poets met during Bishop's Vassar years and their friendship lasted until Moore's death in 1972. From the teacher - mentored paradigm, their friendship evolved into an affectionate companionship. The thesis introduces their relationship while using selected letters, interviews and, to illustrate the matters more clearly, two of Bishop's poems, "The Roosters" and "Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore." The first poem captures the breaking free from Moore's direct influence and additionally serves as a link to the second part of the thesis. The later poem is used to illustrate their reconciliation and to present the milestone that marks the shift of paradigms. The second part of the thesis presents Robert Lowell, who is the already mentioned link between...
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Language, Thought and Nineteen Eighty-Four
Sailerová, Simona ; Beran, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
By considering the differences between oral and literate cultures, the thesis explores how the very nature of writing and written records, alongside their advantages, has introduced a certain divergence in human perception, thinking and knowledge and their relation to the external and internal world. The potential liabilities this creates are exploited by the Party in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and used as a means of establishing and maintaining their dominance. Language is one of their main tools, as well as a major concern in the novel. The thesis focuses on the following aspects and their relation to language: memory and records, time and change, and meaning and consciousness. As opposed to the fleeting nature of spoken language, writing (and other kinds of records) allows words to exist as objects independent of their "speakers" and the context in which they were produced. The rapid advances in text production and literacy have enabled the creation of a vast body of records far greater and (ideally) more reliable than the capacity of individual memory. Apart from the obvious advantages, due to the permanence of texts and the prestige associated with literacy, there exists the notion that external records are superior to the memory of an individual. By encouraging this notion and...
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"A Serious Writer: Various Literary Techniques and Devices in the Selected Short Stories of Joyce Carol Oates from the 1960s and the Early 1970s
Rydlová, Daniela ; Ulmanová, Hana (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
Seven short stories written by Joyce Carol Oates in the 1960s and the 1970s are analysed in this thesis from the perspective of various literary techniques that Oates employs in her writing. The stories are "Pastoral Blood," "A Girl at the Edge of the Ocean," "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?," "Upon the Sweeping Flood," "Norman and the Killer," "The Dead" and "How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Corrections and Began My Life Over Again." The first part of this thesis is theoretical. The introduction gives a sense of Joyce Carol Oates as a serious writer and presents her conviction to depict culture and people of her time. The second chapter introduces the American reality of the 1960s and 1970s and presents all key events of the era. The first part of the chapter focuses on Detroit and the de-civilizing process of the 1960s connected to the upsurge of violence in the U.S. The second part is concerned with struggles that began in the 1960s and continued in the 1970s and challenged the role of the president, and by extension of the upper classes, in society. The last part of the chapter contains a basic summary of the civil rights movement. The third chapter gives an overview of some of Oates's literary influences and literary streams and techniques often found in her...
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Setting in Poe's Short Stories and Its Relationship to Characters
Nekvasilová, Klára ; Procházka, Martin (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
The thesis provides an analysis of spatial setting in selected short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, and is based mainly on Daniela Hodrová's works "Places with a Secret" and "The Poetics of a Place." Additionally, the thesis also considers temporal setting. In the thesis, short stories "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Black Cat," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "Eleonora," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Oval Portrait," "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "Ligeia" are be observed with an attempt to explore how does the spatial setting in them correspond to the concept of "a place with a secret" which Hodrová examines and defines in her work. Simultaneously, the concept of "a character with a secret" is studied, since it deeply intertwines with the idea of "a place with a secret," and the two cannot be possibly separated. Accordingly, the thesis attempts to uncover how does the setting and the characters affect and reflect each other. As for the structure of the thesis, it commences with three theoretical introductory chapters which serve as a base for the later analysis. The chapters place Edgar Allan Poe and Daniela Hodrová into context. E. A. Poe is presented in connection to romantic literature and Gothic fiction, regarding both the English and the American context. Daniela...
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The Image of Death in Selected Works of Contemporary American Indian Literature
Glatzová, Zuzana ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Kolinská, Klára (referee)
The subject of this BA thesis is contemporary American Indian literature. My aim is to explore how selected representatives of this minority literature portray death in their works. To be able to understand the native population's approach to death, it is important to consider their traditional spirituality and how it stands on the question of death. The spirituality began to transform with the arrival of the European settlers. The traditional way of life of American Indians was disrupted and they became the object of exploitation. Not only were they subjected to physical elimination but their culture was also purposefully repressed. All this contributed to a transformation of the understanding of death which is reflected in the contemporary American Indian literature. The works which will be discussed are Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony, Louise Erdrich's Tracks and N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn. The thesis is divided into theoretical and practical part. The purpose of the theoretical part is to offer a basic introduction to traditional native spirituality before the colonization of North America, describing its main features. It also presents the cultural conflict between the Indians and the white settlers and how the spirituality evolved under the pressure of Christianity and assimilating...
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The Political Aspect of Literature: Criticism of a (Neo)conservative Community
Kašparová, Karolína ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
Thesis Abstract The political aspect of literature, specifically fiction, has always provoked passionate discussions, both in academia and in mainstream media. Avoiding politics might rob literary works of their context and power, while reducing them to mere political manifestos denies these works their aesthetic qualities and underestimates the role of fiction. One has to take into consideration the important fact that politics in works of fiction is crucially shaped by the historical context and is thus beyond the author's control. The thesis examines how the political aspect of literature functions, and the focus is narrowed down to two dystopic novels which critically deal with life in a neoconservative community; namely Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives. The analysis of how the atavistic communities in the novels are constructed to appear illiberal, undemocratic or even fascist requires research not only in the field of literary theory (or aesthetics), but also in philosophy. The thesis involves two streams of inquiry - the first one is centred on the community itself and on its totalitarian tendencies, where the works of Roberto Esposito and Hannah Arendt are of great importance, as they determine the dynamics of a community. Furthermore, they explain the reasons...
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Feminist Science Fiction: Cherie Priest's The Clockwork Century
Nováková, Petra ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Robbins, David Lee (referee)
Feminist Science Fiction: Cherie Priest's The Clockwork Century Diploma Thesis Petra Nováková Abstract Marleen S. Barr, one of the pioneers of feminist science fiction criticism, is an outspoken commentator on gender inequality in this genre. In Feminist Fabulation: Space/Postmodern Fiction and Future Females: A Critical Anthology, Barr defines feminist science fiction as metafiction about patriarchal fiction. She speaks out against both authors and critics who recycle narratives restricted by a patriarchal view of the world in which women are silenced and/or relegated to the position of an accessory of the male hero, made to behave in a stereotypically feminine manner. While Barr does not include steampunk fiction but focuses on science fiction oriented towards the future and space exploration, her analysis of the female character's plight is nonetheless applicable to the steampunk genre. In this respect, feminist steampunk fiction can be read as a meditation on established gender norms. Cherie Priest's work is a prime example of such an innovative re-examination of gender stereotypes that Barr calls for in her critical work. As both a woman and a writer of science fiction, the author has adopted a feminist approach in her steampunk series The Clockwork Century. Among other things, Priest examines the role...
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