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The trickster in Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade and the works of Charles W.Chesnutt
Kyselová, Alžběta ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Procházka, Martin (referee)
Tricksters are popular cultural and literary characters which appear across regions and genres in various forms. The characters Uncle Julius from The Conjure Woman collection of short stories by Charles W. Chesnutt, and the confidence man from Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade are both tricksters who are based on strong cultural backgrounds: the African(- American) religious trickster, and real life con artist William Thompson, respectively. This thesis sets out to compare the tricksters in thematic and structural elements. The origins of the literary characters help shape the readers' expectations and perception of the tricksters. Melville and Chesnutt encourage the stereotypical reading of the characters while also including an alternative one in the text. The conflict of perceptions serves to introduce a number of social topics regarding slavery in The Conjure Woman and self-reliance in The Confidence-Man, both of which ultimately point to the problematic distribution of freedom in American society. The tricksters appear both as literary characters and literary devices, corresponding with the ambiguous nature of the trickster archetype.
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Comics as the medium of the artistic expression
Valentová, Simona ; Mocná, Dagmar (advisor) ; Kořínek, Pavel (referee)
The dissertation (diploma thesis) with the topic "Comics as the medium of the artistic expression" consists of theoretical and practical parts. The theoretical part represents a definition of the comics, its short history and some important terms of the comics terminology. Next this part concerns with specific narrative constructions of the comics medium and also describes functions and cooperation of the visual and verbal components. In the individual charter is shortly described Japanese comics (manga), its characteristic and different aspects against the classic European and American comics. The end of the theoretical part is dedicated to the theory of the artistic expression and its particular elements, which are used in the comics. The practical part comprising the analysis of two classic comics works and one Japanese manga. Namely it is The Crow, The Crow: Skinnig the Wolves and The City of Light. These works were chosen intentionally because of their technical, thematic and cultural aspects, so the analysis can work with the wider scale of the artistic elements. The dissertation tries to defend the opinion, that the comics medium is multifunctional, it can contain full-blown artistic expression and it is able to work with any content. For better specification there are contained some...
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The trickster in Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade and the works of Charles W.Chesnutt
Kyselová, Alžběta ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Procházka, Martin (referee)
Tricksters are popular cultural and literary characters which appear across regions and genres in various forms. The characters Uncle Julius from The Conjure Woman collection of short stories by Charles W. Chesnutt, and the confidence man from Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade are both tricksters who are based on strong cultural backgrounds: the African(- American) religious trickster, and real life con artist William Thompson, respectively. This thesis sets out to compare the tricksters in thematic and structural elements. The origins of the literary characters help shape the readers' expectations and perception of the tricksters. Melville and Chesnutt encourage the stereotypical reading of the characters while also including an alternative one in the text. The conflict of perceptions serves to introduce a number of social topics regarding slavery in The Conjure Woman and self-reliance in The Confidence-Man, both of which ultimately point to the problematic distribution of freedom in American society. The tricksters appear both as literary characters and literary devices, corresponding with the ambiguous nature of the trickster archetype.
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