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The Comic in Henry James' Fiction
Kudrna, David ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor) ; Robbins, David Lee (referee)
The subject of this thesis is the study and interpretation of the interlacement of the world of comedy in several works of Henry James and the reflection in these fictions of certain specified problems and challenges of modern society which assist to bring forth the social ambience therein. In the author's opinion, the comedy in the said works of James, on the fundamental level, criticises and pokes fun at the evils of modern society and the characters who pay homage to them. The thesis argues that the comedy in the analysed works of Henry James satirizes several challenging, problematic socio-cultural and economic developments of contemporary modern times through the ridicule and stigmatization of the mostly despicable characters who, under the sway of these developments, perpetrate their negative influence on the lives of other characters in the selected works. To substantiate this argument the thesis looks at the following works of James: The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl, The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors, "The Turn of the Screw" and "The Beast in the Jungle." At the outset, the thesis outlines briefly several critical approaches to the comedy in James's works, comments on their validity, reveals the author's views, and points in the direction of the critical opinions and approaches...
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Mental and Ontological Simulacra: Non-Rationality and Non-Reality in Works by Philip K. Dick
Kudrna, David ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
This thesis offers a model for the underlying architecture of the narrative reality in science-fiction works by Philip K. Dick, arguing that Dick's fictional worlds are grounded in the pervasive metamorphosis - the overarching perception of the shifting - of the narrative fabric operating under the conditions of non-rationality and non-reality. The hyphenated coinages conveniently stand for the paradigms of the reality and mental configurations in PKD subverting the seemingly natural dichotomizing oppositions and hierarchies of the real/unreal and the rational/irrational. Bringing in Gilles Deleuze's ontology of difference, this thesis explains the non-rationality and non-reality of Dick's worlds in Deleuzian terms as, firstly, inducing the perception of fictional reality as realizing the innate potential of being by the perpetual becoming of being in multiplicity and, secondly, engendering - in the vein of Deleuzian simulacra - the impossibility of apprehending and categorizing fictional reality unequivocally. The thesis considers and evaluates the underlying assumptions and claims common to various approaches to the subject of reality in PKD's fictions in order to provide the essential context for the following development of the theoretical basis for non-rationality and non-reality shifting....
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The Comic in Henry James' Fiction
Kudrna, David ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor) ; Robbins, David Lee (referee)
The subject of this thesis is the study and interpretation of the interlacement of the world of comedy in several works of Henry James and the reflection in these fictions of certain specified problems and challenges of modern society which assist to bring forth the social ambience therein. In the author's opinion, the comedy in the said works of James, on the fundamental level, criticises and pokes fun at the evils of modern society and the characters who pay homage to them. The thesis argues that the comedy in the analysed works of Henry James satirizes several challenging, problematic socio-cultural and economic developments of contemporary modern times through the ridicule and stigmatization of the mostly despicable characters who, under the sway of these developments, perpetrate their negative influence on the lives of other characters in the selected works. To substantiate this argument the thesis looks at the following works of James: The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl, The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors, "The Turn of the Screw" and "The Beast in the Jungle." At the outset, the thesis outlines briefly several critical approaches to the comedy in James's works, comments on their validity, reveals the author's views, and points in the direction of the critical opinions and approaches...
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