|
|
Masquerade scenes in the eighteent century women's writing
Kazdová, Linda ; Nováková, Soňa (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
Conclusion. The objective of this work was to concentrate on eighteenth century female authors. Simultaneously popular and severely criticised during their time, the playwrights, short fiction writers and novelists succeeded in the establishing of the tradition of women's writing and established the foundations for the following generations. Nevertheless, they have usually been omitted from the canon. Only in the recent decades, with the increasing interest in the literary margins and gaps, have they been 'resurrected' and, to some extent, done justice to. This paper in particular focuses on the talented playwright Hannah Cowley, the prolific and versatile, mostly prose-writer and journalist Eliza Haywood and the renowned critic and a novelist Elisabeth Inchbald and their works. All the three women authors can be said to be innovative and original. They overcame the obstacles of social prejudice and left a rich textual legacy to their adherents. In particular, the paper attempted to analyse the masquerade scenes in Cowley's The Belle's Stratagem, Haywood's Masqueraders, or the Fateful Curiosity and Inchbald's Simple Story to attest to the importance of the masquerade and to register its varied textual reflections. The masquerade as a social practice and a cultural event was highly fashionable in the...
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
"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...
|
|
|
Decline of southern aristocracy in the selected novels of William Faulkner
Mackal, Jan ; Ulmanová, Hana (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
The main aim of this thesis is to analyze the decline of the so-called Southern aristocracy in two selected novels by William Faulkner, namely Absalom, Absalom! and The Sound and the Fury. Their protagonists are members of rich planter family in the first case, or, as in the second case, descendants of such a family. They all inhabit Faulkner's fictitious Yoknapatawpha County and are considered Southern aristocrats by their fellow citizens. Yet they are not living the life of leisure and luxury often ascribed to people of their rank but facing their own decline instead. In both novels, the nature of this decline is both materialistic and spiritual; the latter being the beginning of the former. The decline of Southern aristocracy is primarily seen as a conflict of two sets of values or, in other words, as a struggle between the "Old South" and the "New South." Therefore the main cause of this decline is seen in the enormous dependence on the past, which goes hand in hand with the notion of the myth of the antebellum South. The first two chapters of this thesis constitute a theoretical introduction for the subsequent analyses of the novels, for they discuss the key concepts associated with the South; namely the myth of the Old South in comparison with the actual historical development, and the notion...
|
|
|
Women characters in Willa Cather's fiction as a reflection of U.S. women's rights history
Heck, Lucie ; Procházka, Martin (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
Willa Cather (1873-1947) is nowadays regarded as one of the most important U.S. writers, and the volume of critical works, articles and dissertations devoted to her as a person and an artist is immense. One of the problematic relationship has always been, as can be seen from a number of critical essays and books, between Cather and U.S. feminists. The feminists would have liked to include Cather, as an feminist writer, into their group of the first-rate, woman-authored "female canon", however, such intent brought about an important question. Is it possible to regard Willa Cather as a feminist, considering her attacks on other women-writers, and her negative attitude towards the organized women's rights movement? This work's objective is to explore the background of Cather and organized women's rights movement's bizarre relationship, and answer the question above. To find out if Cather's work with its strong heroines empowered or weakened women in general, her novels and stories, rather then facts and assumption about her personal life, are used. The relevant parts of the plots from Cather's fiction are put into the historical perspective of the contemporary U.S. laws, showing that although Cather created exceptional woman characters, she let them deal with the same conditions and problems other...
|
|
| |
|
|
The idealized portrayal of Indians in James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of Mohicans and René Francois de Chateaubriand's Les Natchez
Brožová, Tereza ; Procházka, Martin (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
The aim of this bachelor thesis is the depiction of the portrayal of Indians in two pieces of art, James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans and René François de Chateaubriand's Les Natchez. Both authors depict the character of the Indian on the background of the emerging American states. The exotic setting, which fascinated a great number of artists, served as a device for the critique of the European society and civilization. The wilderness of the American continent was shrouded in mystery and thus stimulated the imagination of writers. Cooper and Chateaubriand were influenced by the reading of early reports of adventurers and ethnographers. These records were mingled with their own experience, traditions, myths, and the common presuppositions. Therefore, in both pieces of art, Indian characters bear idealized character features. Cooper and Chateaubriand both deal with the issue of mixing of races, gender and racial roles, and tension between civilization and savagery. Due to the problem of the blood- purity which would be destroyed by the interracial marriage, the main heroes of The Last of the Mohicans are sentenced to die. Chateaubriand, on the other hand, burdens his characters with Christian features and their lives are spent in brooding over the uneasiness of life and destiny. The thesis also...
|
|
| |
|
|
Toni Morrison; Magical Realism Serving to Outline Cultural Experience
Hůlková, Kateřina ; Veselá, Pavla (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
Thesis Abstract In my thesis I focus on the application and role of magical realism in Toni Morrison's two novels, Song of Solomon and Beloved. Because the supernatural elements in these two stories serve mainly as catalytic forces that reveal hidden and submerged realities of the characters' lives, my goal was to discuss and determine Morrison's motivations for the use of magical realism, its purpose, and possible final results of the writer's literary effort. I began by analyzing Morrison's own critical work in which she focuses on her position as a writer being confronted with the dehumanized picture of blackness the way it was created by white Americans in order to preserve their own humanity in the wilderness of the New World. As for the literary language, the writer argues that the said point of view and the literary tradition that stems from it offer only two possible approaches: incursive glorification of the minority, or defensive conformity. These nevertheless appear to be metaphorical blind alleys to her attempts, as none has a potential to create an authentic picture of African Americans. A relevant hindering obstacle to mention is that a lot was lost through the process of dehumanization. My attempt was to demonstrate that by the application of magical realism, Morrison tries to re-humanize (to...
|
guest ::
RSS feed.