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My academic work

On this page you will find abstracts and introductions of papers I've completed most recently.

Master's Thesis

Preconstituted third-world Women in chris cleave's Little Bee

Abstract

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            In “Under Western Eyes,” Chandra Mohanty explains how some Western feminist scholars unconsciously other third-world women by imposing on them their Eurocentric universality. Using Mohanty as a primary lens, this thesis argues that in Chris Cleave’s Little Bee (2008), the protagonists, Sarah and Little Bee, are respectively represented as a Western referent and a third-world preconstituted woman, rendering any true collaboration between them impossible. Little Bee is a text that is meant to enlighten its readers of the plight of refugees in the United Kingdom, and in some ways it does just that. Little Bee also, however, situates the English protagonist Sarah as a frame of measurement to all of the third-world women in the novel, particularly the Nigerian asylum-seeker, Little Bee, and in doing so, positions Little Bee and all the novel’s women of color as already-constructed characters of the Global South. In opposition to the representation of the liberated and independent Sarah, Little Bee and her asylum-seeking companions are presented as little more than victims of male violence who are dependent on various institutions for their welfare. I use several other postcolonial theorists to reinforce the binary positioning of the two protagonists, and these different approaches allow for a comprehensive study of what are presented as seemingly equal female characters in Sarah and Little Bee.

studies in the novel to 1900

Between two extremes: chosen identity and its consequences in Middlemarch

Abstract

 This paper argues that each of the three primary female characters in George Eliot’s Middlemarch establishes a governing principle early on, and that particular standard determines her relationship both with herself and others. Rosamond seeks status, Dorothea seeks religion, and Mary seeks honesty and community. While many critics discuss Rosamond and Dorothea as anti-feminist examples, only a few authors have found merit in Mary Garth. I would like to contribute to the conversation by contending that a discussion of the three female characters as a group reveals most clearly that Mary is a centering female force in the novel by virtue of her more balanced nature via her leading character traits of honesty and sensitivity. Furthermore, this proportionality is reflected in her consistent strength of values and relationships. Rosamond desires to acquire a “good name,” all the while mindless of any consequences to the people around her, and Dorothea seeks to construct her identity with religiosity through an understanding of her husband’s work and later, through justice regarding her lover’s blemished reputation. Mary, on the other hand, is neither egoist nor selfless in that she gives of herself generously but discerningly, maintaining a steady strength of mind and human connections throughout the novel. This steadiness, I assert, contributes to her representation as a woman who is feminine, moralistic, educated, and honest without the trappings and tropes of shallow beauty or aspiring sainthood. By contrasting the characterization of Rosamond and Dorothea with that of Mary, the earnest and less ornate Mary emerges as a symbol of direction for women in the Victorian era and today.

studies in the novel to 1900

Becoming Jane Eyre: Resisting

the resistors

Abstract

 This article argues that the presence of specific characters in Jane Eyre who use their authority to resist Jane’s innate desires are the people who most fully contribute to a clear formation of her values. While some critics disagree as to the novel’s specific strain within the Bildungsroman genre, others argue in various ways that Jane Eyre is one of the first feminist writings in all of literature. I would like to contribute to the conversation by contending that within the discussion of Jane’s character development and feminist traits, her identity is most impacted by those characters who resist Jane’s personal understanding of her authentic self; she learns, distances herself from, and then employs her newfound identity traits to subsequent relationships in the novel. By probing specific altercations with Mrs. Reed, Mr. Brocklehurst, Mr. Rochester, and St. John Rivers, I maintain that their resistance to Jane’s developing identity provokes her to disconnect from them, and with some separation, Jane decides for herself who she will be. Through her embattled relationships with specific characters, Jane experiences vengeance and chooses grace; she is humiliated and learns self-love; she finds love but refuses to sacrifice it for her morals; and finally, she considers a life of rational faith but rejects it for the passion she knows she deserves. By solidifying her understanding of her own needs in life, Jane Eyre eventually determines to hold close the people that honor her identity and distance herself from the people that would deny her.

ENG 663
Shakespeare

leontes's mistaken mission IN SHAKESPEARE'S THE WINTER'S TALE

Introduction

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            In William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, “the narrative concerns the unholy power of kings who can be mistaken but whose power, however mistaken, is final” (Atchity 316). Leontes, King of Sicilia, has what many critics have described as a jealousy-fueled, irrational period of rage directed at his wife, Hermione, and his good friend, Polixines, ruler of Bohemia. His rage is certainly fueled by jealousy – but, at its heart, his fury is more complex; furthermore, true to Shakespeare’s artful and sophisticated deliberations, Leontes’ rage is not irrational, but it is completely self-centered and immature. While Leontes has a great deal of power as monarch, he is not omnipotent in the way that his mythological gods are. For most rulers, complete power over an entire country and its people would be satisfying enough; Leontes, however, using a twisted lens, sees only what he lacks in light of what his wife has. Leontes’s wife, Hermione, is heavily pregnant with their second child. Add to this emotionally vulnerable situation the long-time presence of his best friend in their home, and the flirtatious relationship this friend shares with Hermione, and the combination is enough to create chaos in the mind of an arrogant king. At this precise moment of vulnerability, Leontes reveals his greatest insecurity: a defiant awareness regarding his lack of control over the natural order of life. A seemingly insignificant story of his lost innocence at the hands of Hermione incites a train wreck of emotions and events, culminating in the apparent deaths of Leontes’s wife and son and general destruction in their kingdom. The king’s wish for a lost innocence is merely symbolic of an even greater longing, however. Jealousy in The Winter’s Tale emerges from Leontes’s immature desire: he wants to control even time and its impact on his innocence, but what he hasn’t yet realized is that not only is he unable to control these forces, but he must gain the wisdom to know that. Leontes will selfishly spurn his wife and children before he learns the truth that Hermione knows all along: the innocence of childhood may be lost, but it is replaced with mature, adult wisdom.

Modern british literature

imperial saviors IN ZADIE SMITH'S WHITE TEETH

Introduction

 

According to Frantz Fanon, “Colonial racism is no different than other racisms” (69); however, when that racism is compounded by gender and othering, a far more complex version of racism is born. Much of Zadie Smith’s body of work “illustrates the ways in which colonialist ideology is inherently racist, classist, and sexist and is a fundamental element lurking at the core” of British cultural identity (Tyson 428). In any discussion of postcolonial literature, an analysis of identity is almost guaranteed, and this is certainly warranted regarding an examination of Smith’s White Teeth, a novel which reveals a clear “relationship between personal and cultural identity and the double consciousness (being both immigrant and female)” that are innately present in English women of Jamaican descent (Tyson 426). “Since black women stand in the intersection of race and gender,” Kimberle Crenshaw argues, “they should be viewed from both points of view. They are women and black” (Jang 619). As immigrant, female, British citizens of color, then, it is no surprise that the four generations of Bowden women in the novel either run from or search fruitlessly for an individual identity that is indivisible from their very flawed cultural identity. Because the four generations of women are doubly oppressed “by colonialist and patriarchal ideologies” (Tyson 422), they are immersed in and haunted by their colonial trauma, “an unmistakable wound” (Fanon 77), through generations. Their trauma inhibits their ability to think of themselves outside of colonialism, and this brainwashing filters into their choices regarding male companions. Zadie Smith underscores “many of the cultural anxieties attached to the construction of Englishness in the contemporary imagination” (Bentley 501), and these anxieties serve as motivations for specific choices in the characters’ lives. By the end of the novel, it is clear that their male partners serve as symbols of colonial culture, and through these relational bonds, Ambrosia, Hortense, Clara, and Irie reveal that their “partner” desires are a metaphor for their repressed colonial or imperial desires.

modern gothic literature

beyond the spectral bully: agency and healing in beloved

Introduction

A cursory reading of Toni Morrison’s novel might lead one to believe exactly what the narrator says: that Beloved “is not a story to pass on,” and that the unspeakable horrors experienced by millions of slaves are just too gruelling to tell again and again.  In “Unspeakable Things Unspoken,” Toni Morrison writes that “We are the subjects of our own experience, and, in no way coincidentally, in the experience of those with whom we have come in contact. We are not, in fact, ‘other.’ We are choices” (208). How, then, should one read the controversial removal of the ghost at 124 Bluestone Road? James Berger suggests that Sethe has the potential to be a serial murderer and Beloved will never leave, while others find some accordance in the idea of restoration at the end of the book. It is my assertion that there is an apparent healing among certain characters at the end of Beloved, but any internal healing will be short-lived, and that is not commensurate with complete restoration. I would like to add that, perhaps, the external healings suggest something else — something other critics have disregarded or overlooked — that is not only worthwhile, but that also corresponds with Toni Morrison’s own words concerning choices. As an alternative to full restoration, I believe there is something within the necessary confines of each character’s individual and cultural experiences that is more practical and even decidedly attainable. Steven Daniels notes that the characters in Beloved “are subject to and subjects of slavery and therefore ostensibly without autonomy” (Daniels 1). While scholars argue over “incompatibilism” — described by Florian Bast as the incongruity between free will and choice versus genetic and social factors (Bast 1) — Sethe, Denver, and Paul D’s persistent existence at the end of the novel certainly suggests that, as Bast defines it, post-modern agency “lies in an individual’s ability to knowledgeably work within the discourses that define his or her existence” (2). That defined agency comes with often perilous choices, and it is the uncertain compromises these characters make in four distinct events before, during, and after the exorcism that reveal their unmistakable will to forge a life worth living, and, consequently, a clear sense of individual promise for them and others who have experienced similar trauma.

critical theory

patriarchal blindness in ellison's invisible man: a feminist perspective

 Abstract

           In Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, the narrator journeys to discover his identity as a Black man in a White man’s world. He makes the critical misstep of perpetuating a destructive categorization of women into objects that mirror the patriarchal society in which he dwells. By depreciating women’s roles, he discounts – or “others”– them in the same way that he feels “othered.” Ultimately, the narrator deepens his understanding of how his race affects his identity, but he never clearly recognizes how his sexism undermines that knowledge.

            Invisible Man exhibits an increasing self-awareness throughout the narrative, yet he is oblivious to his relationships with “othered” beings as an important component of his identity – an identity necessarily comprised of both intellectual and emotional intelligences. My paper will emphasize that in his mindset toward women, there are three phases through which the narrator progresses. He begins his odyssey with an uncompromising patriarchal view of women that compels him to carelessly categorizes females as various objects to be used and discarded. In his second phase, Invisible Man discovers that, through solely using his intellect, he achieves the greatest degree of material success, so he discounts his emotional intelligence; this mentality further diminishes his disposition toward women, whom he now views as commodities – a means to an end. In his third phase, he recognizes the importance of his own emotional intelligence, only to be sidetracked by a tunnel vision that fails to identify what might contribute to a healthier relationship with women. Narcissistically blinded by all that has been “done to him,” the narrator is unaware of his own impaired view of “othered” beings in his life. Ultimately, Invisible Man’s unwillingness to view women as equals precludes any authentic emotional rendering of himself.

climate fiction

dissonance and discovery in john lanchester's the wall

 Introduction

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That young people live at odds with their parents is an all too common story the world over. Disharmony between generations within families is ubiquitous, which deems effectuating philosophical harmony between parents and children either truly remarkable or impossible. In the wake of a preventable world disaster, oppressive generational relationships in John Lanchester’s novel The Wall provide a bleak view of familial ties; however, the reimagined ideas of family and community that emerge as a response to or despite this tension ultimately encourage readers to envision alternate forms of community more adequate to the social challenges of climate change. Living on an island in the future, members of the younger generation, including Joseph Kavanagh and his girlfriend Hifa, must now work as soldiers to restore order to the calamity that the “olders” have made of the earth, while the older generation remains comfortably at home, expecting their children to protect them all from “Others” – people from other countries who might impinge on what has become their parents’ limited land space. Maintaining a resistance to the environmental changes that should have happened long ago, the parents dig into their old life and ways, further distancing themselves from their children’s generation and any hope of eventually surviving the planetary destruction that their passivity has wrought. Both generations respond to the overwhelming sense of social and political oppression in ways that are destructive to their family relationships. However, during a brief camping trip in the wilderness, the youngers unexpectedly experience a world of community unlike they have ever encountered in their new and dismal subsistent life. This new vision of a more harmonious society is magnified substantially when Kavanaugh and Hifa are forced to leave their parents’ homeland, for dispirited life on this restricted island patiently breeds an acute complacency that exhausts all of their living and breathing space, allowing no room for imagination and inspiration; their frightening expulsion, however, launches an unimagined and perhaps more satisfying reality with powerful lessons for these young characters and people the world over in light of a lurking and plausible climate catastrophe.

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