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The escapes from the reality in Czech drama after revolution in 1989 (the motive of iracionality and madness in plays of dramatics born between 1960-1970)
Erml, Jiří ; Herman, Josef (referee) ; Just, Vladimír (advisor)
The relation between reality and different kinds of unreality is one of the most important subjects in Czech drama written after revolution in 1989. In the last seventeen years a new generation of authors - middle aged dramatics - was formed between the dramatic authors, who started to write before the revolution. Alfred Radok's Association, which organises the dramatic competition (since 1992) and rewards the best Czech and Slovak plays, helped this new generation of dramatics to become more known among people interested in drama. Among these successful "middle aged" dramatics belongs for example Markéta Bláhová, David Drábek, Jiří Pokorný, Roman Sikora, lva Volánková, Petr Zelenka oops. Of course, it is valuable to suceed in Radok's competition not only for this middle aged dramatics generation, but also for older authors who started to write before the revolution and the youngest generation of dramatics as well. My thesis deals with some of the plays written by "middle aged" authors which succeeded in Radok' s competition. David Drábek is one of these "middle aged" authors. In my theses I analyze his plays "Burning giraffes" (Hořící žirafy), "Jane from park" (Jana z parku), "Akvabely" and others. Drábek works with special kind of humour full of fantastic motives very often but at the same time his plays...
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Outsiders in the Works of Tennessee Williams and Sam Shepard
Kecerová, Martina ; Wallace, Clare (advisor) ; Ulmanová, Hana (referee)
This thesis analyzes characters - outsiders that appear in the plays The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire written by Tennessee Williams and True West and Fool for Love by Sam Shepard. These outsiders are always singled out from somewhere and they have difficulties to fit in a relationship, society or the physical environment in which they are found. They have been outsiders their entire lives, thus the past is as important as the present. These characters were classified as outsiders because they cannot or do not want to fit in a majority, belong to one specific place and adjust to environment. Consequently, they often use various means to fight against the reality that they are not part of instead of accepting it. In the introduction of the thesis I explain that even though there is a gap of several decades between the works of both authors and their style of writing is considerably different, we can still find the similar characters that are lost in reality. In this section of the thesis I also discuss the fact that the way authors describe the characters can be related to their own lives and experiences that formed them. Tennessee Williams, since a child, was very sensitive and different from other children and later-confessed homosexuality also made him an outsider. This can be later...
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Japanese American experience in the works of Nisei authors
Dušáková, Hana ; Kolinská, Klára (referee) ; Nováková, Soňa (advisor)
Presenting this diploma thesis as a general overview of one group of writers, perhaps only a few words would suffice for the explication of my choice. Putting aside any emotional or personal involvement of mine in this topic, which stems from my ongoing interest in Japanese culture and the study of this language, I regard Japanese Americans and the literature they produced as unique in several respects. Considering their often contradictory reception and the turbulent historical shifts they were subjected to, one has to view this group as a generation of paradoxes. Being born in America, yet all their lives contending with the label of "exotic" or "oriental," struggling to conform, but only to discover that this effort (if it brought them closer to their peers) distanced them from their immigrant parents, writing literature in a language that was usually not their original mother tongue. These are attributes and dilemmas that would pertain probably to any recent group of immigrants to the United States. But what singles out the Japanese American experience among the countless other immigrant histories, is their collective experience in the years 1942-1944, when the nation they long aspired to be a part of suddenly crushed these hopes in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack by considering them an enemy and...
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The Borders of Fiction
SEVERA, Tomáš
The submitted master's thesis focuses on issues of fiction. First, it pursues the competing definitions of the term itself in order to define it as non-referential sign afterwards. In chapters two to four it presents and comments three traditional approaches to fiction formal, semantic and pragmatic. In chapter five, which is the largest one of the entire work, it addresses in the writings of theorists who largely try to move around the presumed border between fictional and factual narration, usually represented by historiographical works. And finally in chapter six it deals with insights brought to the traditional theories of fiction by two versions of relatively new discipline the simulation theory.
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Linguistic analysis of Petr Nikl's works
Sigmundová, Alena ; Palkosková, Olga (advisor) ; Janovec, Ladislav (referee)
The content of this paper is a linguistic analysis of Petr Nikl's texts. Petr Nikl is an all-round artist. His main activity is graphic arts; he is also engaged in the Puppet Theater, he sings with a music group Lakomé Barky and writes children books. The aim of this study is to determine if the author respects the child perspective in his works. Especially if he uses only such language elements, that are appropriate for children. After a thorough analysis of all Nikl's books (Pohádka o Rybitince (2001), O Rybabě a Mořské duši (2002), Lingvistické pohádky (2006), Záhádky (2007), Jělěňovití (2008) a Niklův Blázníček (2009), I concluded that the author respects only some elements of the perspective of a child. The syntactic structure of the text is uncomplicated and therefore children appropriate. From the lexical point of view the situation is not so clear. The author uses simple metaphors, similes, uses words that mostly originate from the national origin, and often uses emotive words. On the other hand, uncommon and literary words and complicated poetic neologisms, that most children cannot know, occur in his texts quite frequently. From the morphological point of view I do not find any significant obstacles, so that children could not read and enjoy his works. But these obstacles can occur on the...
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Influence of Czech Immigrants on Willa Cather's Literary Work
Vomáčková, Tatiana ; Ženíšek, Jakub (advisor) ; Grmela, Josef (referee)
My interest in Willa Cather developed from reading her novels "My Antonia", "O Pioneers!" and several short stories dealing with European immigrants, especially those from Bohemia. I found it interesting that an American writer devoted so much attention to portray characters of another nationality with such a consistent approach. In this work I present available information on the background of her motivation and trace her sources for understanding the expatriate Bohemian community in the United States, in order to describe their representatives in fiction. I would like to draw a connecting line between the historical context and the literary portrayal of immigrants from Bohemia. Furthermore, I would like to introduce the real life model for Antonia Shimerda in "My Antonia" and depict some of the general characteristics ascribed to Bohemians at the break of the twentieth century. This thesis will deal with the factual, as well as the implicit, characteristics of Bohemian characters shown in her writings. I intend to compare Cather's point of view with the perspective of others who added their voice to the literary discussion of this subject matter.
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"Reflections on Religion: Richard Wright and James Baldwin"
Jirásková, Anna ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
The thesis seeks to explore how religion is depicted in the works of two of the most influencial African American authors of the 20th century, Richard Wright and James Baldwin. The analysis takes as framework Wright and Baldwin's mutual discussions about how to properly articulate the African American experience in literature. The thesis examines an autobiographical work and a novel by each author. In Wright's case, the books that are discussed are his two-volume autobiography, which consists of a first part dealing with Wright's childhood and early youth in the American South, called Black Boy, and a second part, American Hunger, recounting his adult life in the North. Furthermore, his major novel Native Son is analyzed. In the case of Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, i.e. two essays which elaborate on different episodes from Baldwin's life, and the novel Go Tell It on the Mountain are examined. The discussion is completed by insights offered by Wright in his essay "How 'Bigger' Was Born", and by Baldwin in the essays "Everybody's Protest Novel", "Many Thousands Gone", and "Alas, Poor Richard!" The first section of the thesis deals with the criticism Baldwin advanced against Wright in several essays, in which Baldwin was suggesting that Wright's angry writings have only reinforced the discourse of the...
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Carthusian Prayer
Kutarňa, Andrej ; Ventura, Václav (advisor) ; Červenková, Denisa (referee)
Andrej Kutarňa Carthusian Prayer Diploma thesis 2011 Abstract The Diploma thesis entitled "Carthusian Prayer" is trying to collect and arrange a body of information about the spiritual world of the Carthusian order. It aims at discovering the key characteristics of the life of prayer as seen by members of Carthusian order both in early and recent history of the Order and presented in their writings. First the thesis presents the wider context of carthusian prayer by showing the way of life of carthusian monks and what is specific to this particular monastic tradition, also trying to point at some possible sources of inspiration from older traditions. Then it proceeds to the matter of solitude and silence which are the formative elements that mould the carthusian prayer into the shape of simplicity and sobriety while retaining fine balance of community and solitary life, as well as that of great silence and living inner dialogue. The latter part of the thesis then attemps to show the inner dynamics of the prayer and the role of silence, liturgical and personal prayer and meditation of Scriptures for achieving unification with God, which is both the goal and the fruit of spiritual life. It also explains other fruits of prayer both for the praying monk himself and for other people. While it is not possible to...
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(Public) space for action
Rumanová, Ivana ; Vrhel, František (advisor) ; Pargač, Jan (referee) ; Korecká, Zuzana (referee)
The paper deals with the topic of wall-writings, leaflets and actions in the public space well before the November 89 when similar forms of disapproval expressions were considered as crimes. The research is based on an analysis of the materials form the Archive of the former State Security Services which permits to see the event from the point of view of those intended to repress similar expressions. Within the analysis a specific tension appears between the event (as indicated in fragments: by means of fotodocumentation, detailed description, or the evidence of the suspected) and a discourse which shapes it and which is in this case obvious and easy to deconstruct. The paper works with the criminalistic trace in a semantic and fenomenological sense of the word. The criminalistic registers provide with the very tangible examples of the particular, hybrid synthesis of the System and the everyday. The leitmotif of the paper consists in the various forms of dealing with the practical everyday necessities and with the System at the same time.
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Social Themes in In-Yer -Face Theatre Plays
Sedláková, Jitka ; Chalupský, Petr (advisor) ; Ženíšek, Jakub (referee)
In-Yer-Face theatre is a new kind of theatre which was established in Britain in the 1990s. With it, a new sensibility arrived into the theatre. The first part of this diploma thesis is aimed to bring to the reader's attention the concept of In-Yer-Face Theatre and investigate the life and work of two of its playwrights. The main attention will be paid to two plays, Blasted (1995) by Sarah Kane and Shopping and Fucking (1995) by Mark Ravenhill who belong to the major representatives of In-Yer-Face Theatre of the socalled 'New Writing'. The in-yer-face themes in the context of 1990s British theatre will be demonstrated on these plays.
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