Symbolism in literature

Contemporary thinking, bound as it is to a dualistic paradigm,
inherently privileges one side of the duality over the other. Feminists - most
notably in this dissertation, Val Plumwood - argue that we must overcome
these privileged dualities and reconstruct a way of knowing that recognizes
difference while not granting privilege to one side or the other. Dualities result
from the modernist and postmodernist desire to name and control. One of the
reasons that we cannot transcend this desire is because we have lost our
connection to our environment. Examining novels and films set in Detroit,
Michigan, as well as coming to terms with that city's history, will allow us to
find places where clairvoyant messengers can commune with the
environment and offer us an insight into ways of overcoming the radical
"othering" ofduality.
This project begins by examining the literary history of urban fiction in
the United States and pointing to the tradition of duality and some of its
surface problems. Then, the project begins to construct a history of Detroit that
exposes the complex layers of duality that have informed the city's growth
and ultimately led to the 1967 riots. Next, the argument suggests the
importance of fiction and film in understanding modern dualities.
The first fictive example, Maureen, from Joyce Carol Oates's novel
them is an example of a potential clairvoyant. However, bound as she is to a
postmodern existence, Maureen experiences her "other'' but fails to provide a
didactic example of non-dualistic thinking. Ultimately, postmodernism and
postmodern/post riot Detroit only mystify and compound the problems
associated with modern dualities. Likewise, Jeffrey Eugenides transgendered
hero/ine Calliope (Middlesex) experiences her natural "other" and allows us to
call into question the traditional binaries we use to create our understandings
of gender. Both characters retell their experience and re-present their bodies
in an attempt to bridge dualities and overcome their "otherness." Finally, the
dissertation finds a representation of contemporary Detroit, Eminem's 8 Mile,
and argues that violence and shame are at the root of dualities and ultimately
distract us from overcoming both fictional and real examples of the
oppressive "othering" which results from a culture steeped in dualistic
thinking.

This short story collection is a meditation on happenstance and circumstance as played
out in each character's life often catalyzed through the introduction of an unknown
element: whether that element be a new character, perspective, or knowledge.
Stylistically, the voice of the narration is colorful and humorous though the subject
matter may be of the melancholic or macabre variety. The point of view changes from
first to third, depending on the story and main character; however, the unifying factors
of this collection is that each character is changed because of a loss, whether metaphoric
or literal.

The objective of this study is to compare Emerson's and Thoreau's concepts of
nature as they are informed by Immanuel Kant. In particular, this study examines
Emerson's Nature, The Transcendentalist, The Divinity School Address, The
Conservative; and Thoreau's A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Walden;
or, Life in the Woods and The Maine Woods to analyze how their ideas of nature are
anchored in Kant's three Critiques.
Emerson and Thoreau develop Kant's ideas and both arrive at an unlimited
nature which is not bound to objects of form. While Emerson focuses on human nature
in the organism, Thoreau is concerned with organic nature in particular.

In this novel of first person present tense , a family of women responds to death in techniques of memento mori and carpe diem. Whether living for a cause or without one, their journeys cover three continents and five islands where geography is metaphor for the violence, wanderlust, power, love, and need to create that drives thems as they interrogate the controlled demolition of their world, answering it with a return to nomadic lifestyles. Celia is an escape artist, satirizing the world as she wanders through it, putter her own perspective stamp and slant on things, while Taylor wants to be president but leaves mainstream for the slipstream of trauma. Elaine is a cornucopia of inputs, energies, and charges fired up all at once, while Ruth paces her longevity in the flatness of the new world. At the hidden center, Noni attempts to reincarnate herself without dying.

This collection of eight short stories explores the themes of nonconformity, selfacceptance,
and transformation. Characters confront religious, racial, and moral issues,
which result in overcoming some internal or external challenge. The stories are told with
magical, satirical, and traditional story-telling elements. For example, "The Liberation of
Mammy" is about a slave who uses her secret pancake recipe to cause a distraction that
allows her to escape from bondage; "Her Own House," is inspired by the biblical burning
bush story; and "Notes on a Video Honey" is the story of a young girl who doesn't
complete! y understand or approve of her mother's decision to degrade herself by being
mere eye candy in rap videos. Worlds similar to our own and worlds that are
exaggerations of our own are intended to guide readers to ideas they may have never
before considered.

Bullet is a collection of short stories that fictionalizes the last days of
twentieth century world authors. Inspired heavily by the biographies of each writer,
the stories depict the spiraling psyches of each suicide. Each narrator is carefully
crafted out of the real life of each author though, first and foremost, each story is
fiction. By the end, Bullet is a contemplation of both life and death from the
perspective of the greatest minds of the last one hundred years. Only now, in the new
millennium, can the twentieth century be definitively sketched. Bullet is one of the
first pieces of writing to do so.

Consistent with Vivian Gornick's "idea of self," Work In Progress is, in many
ways, a classic coming-of-age story in which the boy, Nicky, along his life-journey,
struggles to discover who he is. If Work In Progress is unusual, it is in the degree and the
detail that it delves into its major themes, which I discuss below. Second, Work in
Progress is unusual in the number of purposeful stylistic variations employed across the
project's books.
Nicky's story is told in seven books, each of which is a standalone, personal
essay. Through the books the reader is provided an episodic snapshot of Nicky's life.
Each of the snapshots facilitate a particular view of Nicky, each is a jigsaw-puzzle-piece
that, when snapped together with the other puzzle pieces, form a single, holistic image of
the boy and his search for self I provide an overview of each of the seven books below.
I am also endeavoring to write Work in Progress on three levels: The first level is
the compelling, personal level that draws the reader to the individual, Nicky, and the
group of supporting characters. The story has to be compelling enough to pull the reader through the various stylistic iterations of each of the different books. Second,
through the exploration of the major themes of institutionalization, abuse, religion, and
racism (including the offshoots: race-based self-hatred and the discrimination within
races that Alice Walker cans colorism), I attempt to raise the story up to another level, a
level of universal applicability. Specifically, I want the everyday reader, the reader who
has not suffered these circumstances to know them through the reading experience, and,
consequently, to relate to and with Nicky. Toward this end, I use every narrative tool and
technique at my disposal including utilizing reflection in the form of stream of
consciousness and dreams, for example, to put the reader into the experience instead of
telling the reader what the protagonist is thinking. I also maximize the use of scene,
imagery, metaphor, and dialogue, to show the reader, and to allow the reader to come to
their own conclusions.

This is a collection of short stories that deal with elements of identity, the
fantastic, fragmentation, poetry, the media, politics, and myriad other themes. The stories
are connected by an interwoven thread of self-discovery and awareness. These stories
present an image and then rework it, giving greater or varied details about whatever is
being describing in the hope of achieving a more visceral story, a more true experience of
writing and reading, and a better understanding of the emotions that underlie the story.
These stories also try to capture and communicate the idea that our experience is a
common one, across time and cultures, and the idea that many, many more writers than I
could ever read in my lifetime have written about this experience.

Silas Weir Mitchell in 1872 defined as "phantom limb" the sensation and feelings of
anxiety, confusion and even pain the amputee receives from an absent body part. By extending
this concept and applying it to the architectural imagery within literature, it is possible to observe
the dynamics between the characters and their structural environment. This thesis explores the
relation between spatial structure and identity in two Latin American works: "Walking Around"
(1933) by Pablo Neruda and Aura (1962) by Carlos Fuentes. Both authors introduce architecture
as an intrinsic element in the construction of their narrative; Neruda's poetic voice wanders
around a seemingly living city, while Fuentes's characters abandon the city to become part of a
house. The architectural imagery of both texts leads the reader to explore the construction of its
literary subjects and to see the physical space as their "phantom limbs." This reading will
elucidate the importance of architecture within Latin American literature as well as reveal the
maneuvering of the structural representations in the construction of the Latin America identity.

Through the worlds of cause and effect, forms, and formlessness, echoing the structure
of the shrine Borobudur, this work explores these convergences: Paul Oppenheimer's
argument that the best origin of sonnet is sonitus, the music of the spheres perceived in
this world as a deafening; the experience of Borobudur 's rectangular stone reliefs within
a structure that looks angular but is circular; and a deaf woman's observation that vowel
sounds conflate on faces under the duress of pleasure or pain. The attempt, as the sonnet
moves through the volume, interrupted four times by poems of other types, is to
experience what seems, like stone or path, a most syllogistic of forms, as mandala.
Throughout, the relationship between sight and sound is explored, using homophones,
syntax working with and against parts of speech and lineation, hearkening to words that
keep as unresolved as possible the vowel sounds, as brogues do, and tonal languages.