|
|
(In)Sincere Authorship - Three Novels of Jeffrey Eugenides
Rydlová, Daniela ; Vichnar, David (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
Above anything else, New Sincerity is characterized by responding to postmodern irony, not in the form of its abandonment, but rather in its unmasking, critique, redeployment and transcendence. What Jeffrey Eugenides shares with New Sincerity authors is a critical treatment of the heritage of postmodernism. Balancing between postmodernist techniques and their transcendence, Eugenides writes about contemporary issues plaguing the American society (gender identity, mental health, the American dream, migration) and addresses the literary tradition of American fiction. However, his response to the literary tradition of postmodernism differs from the majority of New Sincerity writers. The New Sincerity's "manifesto," David Foster Wallace's "E Unibus Pluram," is an essay about fiction, but it is also a text about American television and culture. Eugenides' books by and large avoid commentary on popular culture, and their socio-political commentary is often found inadequate: their reflection of the legacy of Reaganomics within the Bush and Clinton administrations is oblique, as is their treatment of the many other issues symptomatic of the 1980s and 1990s: the spread of HIV/AIDS, the ubiquitous television culture and its gradual replacement in the digital age, information oversaturation and the looming...
|
|
|
"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...
|
guest ::
RSS feed.