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Lost in Time: The Concept of Temporality in Works of the US Lost Generation
Fedorenko, Roksolana ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (advisor) ; Ulmanová, Hana (referee)
The main focus of this thesis is the concept of time and temporality as represented in the major works of the US Lost Generation. The authors and the writings examined within this thesis are F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night; Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms; William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying. This thesis explores the way in which the understanding of the concept of time has undergone a dramatic change at the turn and the first half of the twentieth century, shifting its focus towards the subjectivity of human perception of time. The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter portrays the philosophy of influential thinkers of the period such as Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Walter Benjamin to create a background for further discussion and analysis of the novels. The following chapter provides the historical and cultural context of modernism to introduce major factors that shaped modernist thinking within which the Lost Generation appeared. The next three chapters are dedicated to the detailed analysis of the novels, with each chapter focusing on one of the above-mentioned authors. Each of the novels is examined by close reading, paying attention to the way it incorporates...
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Psaní jako léčba: srovnání románů Dorothy Allisonové a Tary Westoverové
Šindlerová, Zuzana ; Ulmanová, Hana (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
In my thesis I compare two American literary works, the canonical work of Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina, and a more recent memoir by Tara Westover, Educated. Even though the two works do not share geographical, religious, or socio-political settings, their similarities are undeniable. Both works represent a story of problematic family background, with episodes full of physical, psychological, and in the case of Bastard Out of Carolina, even sexual abuse. The universality of poverty, terrible social position in the main society and the detrimental effects of patriarchy provide a connecting matrix of similarities between the two literary works. My thesis is divided into two main parts, a theoretical introduction, and an analytical part, analyzing the literary works. The introductory part concentrates on three main topics that are essential to understanding the profoundly American context of both works. The common topic of the 'American poor' social class is contextualized mainly within the Southern context of the canonical work. The term 'white trash," is explained, chiefly supported by the highly acclaimed academic works of Matt Wray, Annalee Newitz and Nancy Isenberg. For a better understanding of the historical term, I provide a historical excursion of the derogatory term, utilizing the...
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"It must have been the nigger blood in him": The Mechanism of Lynching in William Faulkner's Light in August
Matoušková, Magdalena ; Ulmanová, Hana (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
Race and the American South are inseparable from both the literary work of William Faulkner and the practice of lynching. The aim of this thesis is to analyze the mechanism of lynching in Faulkner's novel Light in August. Lynching served as a racial and social control tool to scare Black Americans into submission and acceptance of a lower social rank. Black people were cruelly treated - shot, beaten, burned alive, tortured, or hung from trees. The thesis argues that the character Joe Christmas from Light in August is a victim of such practice when he is hunted and shot on the pretense of being a Black criminal. The thesis explores how his identity has been created by the communities - first as a Black man and then as a Black criminal. From his early childhood, Joe Christmas has passed through different communities that created assumptions about his racial origin. Since his race is never revealed in the book and Joe is unsure of it himself, his racial identity is socially constructed as a Black man. His Blackness is further stereotyped by two myths - the myth of the tragic mulatto and the myth of the Black rapist. The myth of the tragic mulatto is based on the notion that a person of mixed Black and white origin does not belong anywhere and is doomed to end tragically. The idea of the Black rapist...
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Rude Awakening: The Collapse of the American Dream in the Death of a Salesman and Streetcar Named Desire
Šáralová, Karolína ; Wallace, Clare (advisor) ; Ulmanová, Hana (referee)
The American Dream is a fundamental aspect of the American cultural paradigm, and its forms can be found in many essential literary works of American authors. The objective of this thesis is to examine this phenomenon in the context of the American theatre of the middle of the twentieth century, specifically in the plays Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller and A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. These plays share a tragic ending for the protagonists who fail to achieve their own American Dreams. This thesis examines the evolution and significance of the American Dream in American history and distinguishes three forms of the concept: the Dream of Independence, the Dream of Ownership, and the Dream of Personality. These forms are subsequently described and put into context of the discussed plays. This creates a concise survey of the American Dream as a social concept and identifies its significance in the plays. These forms of the American Dream are explored further in A Streetcar Named Desire and Death of a Salesman. The motivations of the protagonists are connected to the American Dream through character analysis. This thesis demonstrates that their collapse is caused by their loss of faith in the ideals of the American Dream which provided identity, hope, and security. Without these...
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Sexual Violence in Selected Works of Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and Sapphire
Vlasáková, Michaela ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Ulmanová, Hana (referee)
This thesis focuses on three works of African-American female writers: Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Alice Walker's The Color Purple, and Sapphire's Push. The primary topic of my analysis is sexual violence, or more specifically, child sexual abuse and the trauma resulting from it. Each selected novel has a protagonist who is a victim of sexual abuse and/or rape. Their victimhood plays a significant role in their psychologies, relationships, development, and their (in)ability to live a "normal" life. This thesis is divided into six chapters. In the introduction, I explain why these aforementioned works are suitable for comparison. What follows is a brief introduction to the topic of child sexual abuse and the trauma which results from it. I also present the theoretical literature I use to support my claims in the upcoming chapters. In addition, I briefly define the terms "happy ending," "realistic ending," and "tragic ending." The first analytic chapter studies the character of Celie in The Color Purple. It follows her development from a fourteen-year-old uneducated victim, to the fully formed independent survivor she becomes. Even though Celie is the only character that is serially victimized, by both her stepfather and her husband, Celie's story is one of hope. Through her abusive marriage to...
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Reading Faulkner's Minds
Krtička, Filip ; Ulmanová, Hana (advisor) ; Arbeit, Marcel (referee) ; Bílek, Petr (referee)
The present dissertation focuses on the work of William Faulkner in relation to the concept of mind as conceived by the second wave cognitive sciences. This concept radically challenges previous notions such as cartesian dualism and physicalism which equates mind with the brain and puts forth the human mind as embodied, embedded in the environment, extended beyond the skin, enacted in a particular situation, and encultured, being both a product and a producer of culture. Such a vision changes the landscape of phenomena that fall under the label "mind" and has implications for the study of minds within literature as well. Literature and narrative art constitute a rich source of insights on the human mind and are treated here as an autonomous discourse on human cognition without necessarily seeking confirmation by the sciences. Since it represents a new discipline among approaches to Faulkner's oeuvre, I discuss cognitive literary studies and their relation to cognitive sciences as well as more traditional literary studies arguing for a cognitive approach to literature guided by the discipline's distinctive methods, goals and object of study. In his works, Faulkner narratively presents human cognition as transcending the boundaries of the skull, being formed by both natural and social spheres, by...
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Moving the Frontier of Conscience: Representations of Animal Ethics in Selected Contemporary Anglophone Literature
Holečková, Zuzana ; Quinn, Justin (advisor) ; Ulmanová, Hana (referee)
1 ABSTRACT This MA thesis examines how selected works of contemporary anglophone literature reflect ethical principles in human behaviour towards animals. It begins by explaining basic ethical theories and their development in Western philosophy. The first chapter also presents several works of literary criticism that explore literary animal studies, with reference both to representations of human-animal interaction in literature, and to new ways of interpreting literary texts. The second chapter analyses Karen Joy Fowler's novel, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (2013), along with the collection of short stories by the Australian writer Ceridwen Dovey Only Animals (2014). Both works illustrate the possibilities of human communication and emotional relationships with animals. Blurring the physical boundaries between human and non-human animals, and associated ethical considerations come to the fore in Michel Faber's sci-fi novel Under the Skin (2000), and in the novel Animal's People (2007) by Indra Sinha, discussed in the next chapter. The final chapter deals with the novel Elizabeth Costello (2003), in which J. M. Coetzee consciously crosses the boundaries between moral philosophy, literary theory and fiction.
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Bernard Malamud's Selected Fiction in the Context of Black-Jewish Literary Relations
Simonová, Anna ; Ulmanová, Hana (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
Although Bernard Malamud's fiction has been frequently regarded as allegorical and symbolic, Malamud did not avoid the period's social issues in his works, such as the racial question and the changing nature of relationship between American Jews and African Americans. The present thesis aims to discuss Malamud's selected fiction dealing with Black- Jewish relations, namely short stories "Angel Levine," (1955) "Black Is My Favorite Color" (1963) and the novel The Tenants, (1971) and to place them into the context of Black-Jewish relations in the United States and of Black-Jewish literary dialogues and the tensions they express. It thus seeks to evaluate Malamud's role in the discourse of Black-Jewish relations in America. Calling upon a theoretical framework, outlined in chapter 2, based on philosophical and sociological findings of Judith Butler, John Searle, and Michael Omi with Howard Winant, the study examines the role of language and literature in constructing the Self and the Other (understood both as individual and collective identities, including categories of race and ethnicity), suggesting thus that literary texts, such as Malamud's selected fiction, are a part of discursive dialogue through and against which American Jews and Blacks construct their identities. Apart from the approaches to...
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African-American Mothers in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and Toni Morrison's Beloved
Piňosová, Michaela ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Ulmanová, Hana (referee)
This BA thesis examines the concept of a black mother as a key figure in the fight for freedom as depicted in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and further explored in Toni Morrison's Beloved. Stowe's novel presents the idealized concept of motherhood in characters such as Eliza Harris, Aunt Chloe, Mary Bird and Rachel Halliday. These characters represent Stowe's ideology of Christian motherhood, in which the mother acts as a mediator of moral and religious principles in her family and community. To enable the identification of white middle-class female readers with the African-American characters in her novel, Stowe employed a distinctive method of characterization in Uncle Tom's Cabin. One of the main characteristics of her female figures is their ability to perform a maternal role. Mother love is depicted as a universal force, which is common to both white and African-American mothers, and which is equivalent to the love of Christ. Stowe believed that motherhood based on Christian values would free the United States from slavery and rebuild her society. For these reasons, Stowe encouraged white middle-class wives and mothers to present their abolitionist stances in their families and mediate them to their husbands, whose opinions might have been influential in political development in...
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Southern Womanhood: A Story Behind the Southern Belle
Petrušová, Gabriela ; Ulmanová, Hana (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
The present MA thesis focuses on the development of the archetype of the Southern Belle in the selected works of American fiction, namely John Pendleton Kennedy's Swallow Barn, William Faulkner's Sanctuary and Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. The main task is to explore how the archetype of the Southern Belle was constructed and (if) transgressed at different times in the American literary tradition from the period of antebellum South to the era of the Southern Renaissance. Since the archetype of the Southern Belle is connected with the white upper class society it will be also discussed in this respect. By comparing texts from different historical periods I want to compare the different nature of cultural and social conditions that contributed and informed the meaning and the function of the Southern Belle. Moreover, by selecting Southern woman writer and Southern male writers respectively I want to compare female and male perspective on the literary representation of the Southern Belle. The first chapter briefly addresses the development of the American South as a region with a distinct social structure and cultural values and attempts to position the figure of the Southern Belle within that socio-historical context. Chapters three, four and five introduce and analyze the archetype of the...
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