Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Dissertations of Note

1985; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 13; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/chl.0.0323

1543-3374

Rachel Fordyce,

Themes in Literature Analysis

Dissertations of Note Rachel Fordyce (bio) Alford, Sandra Elaine. "The Portrayal of Black Characters in Children's Literature." Ph.D. diss. University of Pittsburgh, 1982. 117 pp. DAI 44:90A. Alford surveyed 163 books that would normally appeal to children between the ages of five and twelve to determine what personal traits were assigned to black characters. She hypothesizes that bias would be more prevalent in books published before the 1954 Supreme Court ruling on desegregation. In fact, she finds "no significant level of bias" and suggests that while some books do show bias "most black characters are portrayed nonstereotypically, not as a group but as unique characters." Where bias exists there is marked generalization of all black people. Burston, Linda. "Fantasy Components of Sir James Matthew Barrie: A Study through Selected Plays." Ph.D. diss. University of Georgia, 1983. 203 pp. DAI 44:1245A. Relying on the critical works of Tolkien, Norman Holland, Eric Rabkin, and others, Burston demonstrates how Barrie "incorporates varying fantasy features with his basic reality, creating plays at different levels of theatrical fantasy." In this instance, fantasy is defined as "some ideal wish fulfillment manifested in a comforting realm centered around the individual human being, thus providing a sense of escape from realistic problems, tensions, and/or ambiguities." Burston gives a detailed analysis of Peter Pan and discusses those features of Barrie's life that contributed to his creation of fantasy plays. Bushneil, John Palmer. "Powerless to Be Born: Victorian Struggles in Romantic Landscapes of Adolescence." Ph.D. diss. Rutgers University, The State University of New Jersey (New Brunswick), 1983. 342 pp. DAI 44:1459A. In individual chapters on Great Expectations, David Copperfield, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Bushneil argues that "adolescence, especially as depicted in Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, and Shelley, functions as an appropriate metaphor for the Victorian period itself." Noting that Carlyle and Ruskin feared the "rebellious power" of adolescence, he stresses that the Brontës, Dickens, Carroll, and others "recognize the adolescent quest for selfhood as positive and exhilarating, similar to the national quest for identity and akin to their own life-creating, artistic energies." Throughout the dissertation Bushneil examines "the novelists' portrayals of youth's attractiveness as well as their recognitions of its frequent inability to escape the constricting forces of adulthood and an industrial age." Carey, Bonnie Marshall. "Typological Models of the Heroine in the Russian Fairy Tale." Ph.D. diss. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1983. 217 pp. DAI 44:1100A. Using a structural and semiotic methodology, and predicating her work on the assumption that fairy tales are "reflections of ideologies and value systems," Carey demonstrates that "the patterns and messages that emerge from folklore texts are important to a definition of feminine roles and models." Moreover, she is concerned with a male-oriented critical scholarship. She feels strongly that the Aarne-Andreev-Thompson index, as a research tool, "perpetuates a scholarship that ignores, diminishes and misrepresents the heroine." While describing the conflict between matriarchies and patriarchies, Carey notes the subjugation of women to [End Page 220] marriages that they can either accept "fatalistically or struggle against." For the heroine in the Russian fairy tale "there is no happy ending." Cariou, Mavis Olive. "Syntax, Vocabulary and Metaphor in Three Groups of Novels for Children in Grades Four to Six." Ph.D. diss. The University of Michigan, 1983. 206 pp. DAI 44:1613A. This dissertation in library science is designed to analyze three groups of novels for middleschool children: Newbery Award books, novels children have acclaimed by vote, and "popular series novels such as the Hardy Boys and the Nancy Drew mysteries." Cariou's focus is on language as she studies various "aspects of syntax, vocabulary and metaphor." Newbery Award books were the most complex syntactically, choice books were the least complex, and "popular series novels had the highest means for vocabulary difficulty and diversity." However, Cariou suggests caution in overinterpreting these findings. Corona, Laurel Ann Weeks. "Man into Beast: The Theme of Transformation in American and European Fiction from the 1860's to the 1920's." Ph.D. diss. University of California, Davis, 1982. 246 pp. DAI 44:161A. Corona's dissertation in comparative literature...