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Anti-slavery debate during the American Revolution
KLIMEŠ, Ondřej
By analysis of political pamphlets and essays, hereby presented undergraduate thesis aims to reconstruct the anti-slavery debate that took place in Britain and her North American colonies in the years preceding the American Revolution. After outlining the sources of the British anti-slavery thought of the 18th century follows an analysis of four petitions of black slaves who petitioned for their own freedom in Massachusetts between the years 1773 and 1777. Next three chapters analyse three texts from three important anti-slavery activists of their day. Firstly, a pamphlet from 1773 named An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements, on the Slavery of the Negroes in America by American physician and politician from Philadelphia Benjamin Rush. Secondly, a pamphlet published in 1774 called Thoughts Upon Slavery by the founder of the methodist movement John Wesley. And lastly, an essay from the year 1775 African Slavery in America, which has for a long time been incorrectly attributed to Thomas Paine but was penned by a congregational pastor and theologian from Rhode Island Samuel Hopkins. Each of the three analyses is introduced by a biographical passage based mainly on published personal correspondence, journals and diaries and memoirs of the respective authors as well as various biographies. Biographical passages pursue the development of personal anti-slavery thought of chosen authors. The conclusion of the thesis compares the results of the analyses of the pamphlets.
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The Reception of Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
HOUŠKOVÁ, Barbora
The aim of this thesis is to explore the problematics of the reception of Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Though this autobiography, first published at the beginning of 1861, is today known as one of the most major works of the genre of slave narratives, its authenticity and authorship have been questioned and denied for several decades, and only by the end of the 20th century has the narrative been recognized as a valuable and truthful personal testimony of what slavery meant for African American women in antebellum America. This thesis then focuses on both the contemporary reception, mainly with regard to the historical circumstances of abolitionism and the upcoming Civil War, and a more recent one, predominantly on 20th-century criticism and the subsequent canonization of the narrative. The key factor of this analysis will be the multiple discrimination which affected the life and work of Harriet Jacobs as a sexually abused woman of African American descent.
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From the Law comes Slavery, from the Gospel Freedom (Gal 4:21-31)
Boháčik, Jaroslav ; Brož, Jaroslav (advisor) ; Matějec, Tomáš (referee)
The aim of the thesis "From the Law comes Slavery, from the Gospel Freedom: Galatians 4:21-31" is to provide a comprehensive interpretation of the allegorical pericope about Hagar and Sarah as representatives of two different covenants (Gal 4:21-31) in relation to the overall context and the theological message of Paul's letter. The introductory chapter deals generally with the letter of the apostle Paul to the Galatians with regard to its origin, reason and place of writing, addressees, key theological emphases and structure. The core part of this work is the linguistic and literary analysis of the above- mentioned pericope, including exegesis. This chapter takes a closer look at the rhetorical aspects and tools that Paul uses in the epistle, also with regard to contemporary tendencies in Judaism confronted with the Hellenistic world. It places the analysed pericope in the overall context of the letter to the Galatians and further reflects the intertextual dimension of the use of the story from the book of Genesis, including a direct quotation (Gn 21:10) and a reference to the book of the prophet Isaiah (Is 54:1). The meaning of the pericope is clarified by the immediately following verse (Gal 5:1), which is the key to its correct reading based on the Christian's freedom in Christ.
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The Issue of Race in American Literature: A Comparative Study of Mark Twain's 19th-Century Novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Kathryn Stockett's Contemporary Work The Help
LANDOVÁ, Dominika
This diploma thesis focuses on the issue of race in American literature. It draws a comparison between Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and The Help (2009) by Kathryn Stockett and determines how both novels view the role of African Americans in society. Since these works depict two of the most significant periods in the history of the United States concerning the racial issue, namely the eras of slavery and racial segregation, the work also provides historical context of both periods, which is crucial for the analysis. The thesis aims to highlight the similarities and differences of the novels regarding this issue. The authenticity of these works, the treatment of African Americans and the concept of their integration into society, criticism, and other topics are discussed as part of the analyses.
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Novels that Changed History: Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Jungle
MATYSOVÁ, Tereza
This thesis will first briefly introduce the literary movement of both authors, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 - 1896) and Upton Sinclair (1878 - 1968), their motivation and the time period, in which they wrote their novels. Later, the student will analyze the two novels, their characters and the story. The most crucial part of the thesis will be an analysis of the historical impact on American society and how they were received.
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Black Characters in British Literature of the 19th century
BENEŠOVÁ, Tereza
The aim of my diploma thesis is to analyse black characters in British literature of the 19th century. For the analysis, I chose Thackeray's Vanity Fair, Jane Austen's Mansfield Park and Sanditon, Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone. To my analysis I also included the historical background and summarized history of slavery. I also considered the social question on the topic in my thesis.
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Representing Slavery in Black British Writing
Bartová, Nikola ; Nováková, Soňa (advisor) ; Kolinská, Klára (referee)
This thesis is concerned with black British literature which deals with the issue of slavery. The chosen authors are of a Caribbean or an Afro-Indian (though, an American novelist was used for needs of comparison) origin and belong to the black diaspora in Britain. The issue of slavery in the Caribbean is central to the forming of and creating an identity and defining the concept of home in the works debated. The aim of this thesis is to determine the impact of the past of slavery on the identity of people in the black British diaspora as well as to determine the approach and aesthetic choice most appropriate for representation of such traumatic past. The first part of this thesis concentrates on theoretical background of the topic of slavery in the Caribbean in order to define terms such as diaspora, cultural identity, memory and the difficulty of not only artistic representation of slavery but also its remembering. It also includes the historical background of slavery and slave trade in Britain and the Caribbean in the eighteenth and the nineteenth century in order to be able to judge the accuracy of the works and to comprehend the cruel reality of slavery. In the following chapters, the authors are introduced individually and their background information serves to determine their standpoint and...
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Spanish-Dutch relations in the New World during the existence of the West-Indische Compagnie
Kubátová, Eva ; Křížová, Markéta (advisor) ; Skřivan, Aleš (referee) ; Marek, Pavel (referee)
Spanish-Dutch Relations in the New World during the Existence of the West Indische Compagnie Eva Kubátová Abstract This dissertation is dedicated to the Spanish-Dutch relations in the New World during the existence of the first Dutch West India Company (1621-1674). On base of an imagological analysis, this thesis presents elements of mutual relations, reflected in hetero-images, together with self-representation of both analyzed parties (thus self-image) within the ongoing conflict of the Eighty Years' War. The imagological analysis is applied on archival material, chiefly the Dutch pamphlets and Spanish Relaciones de sucesos (which can be translated as "Treatises of Successes"). The result of this thesis is then an analysis of development and changes of mutual images, upon the historical events of the Spanish-Dutch war conflict: thus since the beginnings of the Dutch Revolt, passing through the Twelve Years' Truce, until the signature of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. A special emphasis is put to the final phase of the Eighty Years' War, in this thesis delimited by the years 1621-1648, which was marked by the official entrance of the West India Company into the Spanish waters of Greater Caribbean. An important watershed in mutual relations is afterwards represented by the Peace of Westphalia, which...
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Slave Narratives as a variation on motivational self-help books
Klimt, Vojtěch ; Ženíšek, Jakub (advisor) ; Topolovská, Tereza (referee)
This thesis aims to examine the representative of classic Enlightenment self-help text, Benjamin Franklin's Way to Wealth, and two representatives of the slave narrative genre, Frederick Douglass's and Olaudah Equiano's works, in terms of their possible affinity. The thesis compares and contrasts the individual texts and seeks to find analogies in structure and content which would indicate the influence of the self-help genre in American literature on the narratives and demonstrate the presence of the self-improvement element in the reading of slave narratives. The thesis consists of two key parts, the theoretical introduction onto the issues and practical part which analyses the texts themselves. KEY WORDS Frederick Douglass, Olaudah Equiano, Benjamin Franklin, slave narratives, self-help books, self-improvement, US history, uplift, autobiography, slavery, Enlightenment, 18th Century, 19th Century
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