Coyle, William

Games and sports in life reveal the lifestyles, beliefs, and rituals of man. Games and sports in literature, then, become important tools for the author as he uses them as metaphor, as a game for himself, and as a game for the reader. In John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany, three types of games and sports are used. First is the game Irving plays to entertain himself. He creates a whimsical, playful novel characterized by absurd characters and situations. The second category is the use of sports and games as metaphor, using pretend games, organized games, and the Arts as a game. The third game is the game of the author playing a game with the reader by changing recognizable standards. The reader plays by figuring out the new rules. The protagonist, Owen Meany, is a whimsical Christ-figure who comes of age through playing games and sports, and serves God through his perfection of the slam dunk.

Walter Van Tilburg Clark, prior to his success as a popular writer, wrote as his first M.A. thesis a redaction of the legend of Tristram, one of the tales commonly associated with the works composing the Arthurian Cycle. In his thesis, Clark demonstrated a thorough knowledge of the Arthurian legends, a knowledge which manifests itself in two of his novels, The Ox-Bow Incident and The Track of the Cat. Tracing these echoes through the two novels reveals that the archetypal relationship to the Arthurian legends strengthens the thematic and character development in each novel and gives Clark's work a more universal appeal.

In an ever-changing society beset by technological growth, Kurt Vonnegut has found dissatisfaction with traditional masculine behavioral patterns that perpetuate masculine aggression. Vonnegut abandons gender-specific roles to propose alternative methods of behavior through his creation of passive protagonists. These passive protagonists have a nurturing element and an ability to share their essence with others. This feminine nurturing element is seen by Vonnegut as a critical element essential for humanity's evolution and salvation. The passive protagonists examined are Eliot Rosewater in God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five, and Rabo Karabekian in Bluebeard.

Charles Dickens liked to create eccentric pairs within his novels by contrasting one benevolent with one unscrupulous caricature. In his first novel, Pickwick Papers, good-hearted Samuel Pickwick is set off against deceitful Alfred Jingle. In Dombey and Son, produced mid-point in his writing career, compassionate Captain Ned Cuttle is distinguished from cunning Major Joseph Bagstock. In his last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend, humanitarian Nicodemus Boffin counterposes corrupt Silas Wegg. These characters are humorously portrayed through their appearance and speech, as well as through the farcical situations in which Dickens places them. They also become metaphors for human qualities, such as greed, naivete, pride and compassion, thereby clarifying Dickens's serious themes.

Passive-aggression is an insidious form of tyranny that uses hypochondria and other tactics to manipulate. Presumably with her mother in mind, Jane Austen frequently portrays the passive-aggressive character and ridicules hypochondria, as in the satirical Sanditon. Mr. Woodhouse and Mrs. Churchill are life-denying parental figures in Emma, who use illness and hypochondria to manipulate their children, much like Mansfield Park's Lady Bertram, who uses hypochondria and social withdrawal to control her family. In Persuasion Mary Musgrove, a young copy of Lady Bertram, uses hypochondria and hysteria to manipulate, and Mrs. Clay passively ingratiates herself with the Elliot family in an attempt to become the next Lady Elliot. Through her novels Jane Austen shows the effects of this damaging, despotic behavior.

A mixed-media study of Vietnam War literature begins in Africa with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and travels into Vietnam with Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now and Michael Herr's Dispatches. Marlow, Willard, and Herr are first person narrators on voyages of self-discovery. Their journeys into Africa, Cambodia, and Vietnam lead the audience into an examination of themes pertinent to not only the works, but the twentieth century and, therefore, history. Through an examination of imperialism, the conflict of Western and non-Western values, the interplay of fantasy and reality, and the nature of moral confession, Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now, and Dispatches aim to force their audiences to confront the responsibility of all mankind for the horrors of war.

Originally intended as light magazine journalism, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a book of photographs by Walker Evans and prose by James Agee, evolved into a complex work that exists on the boundaries of many genres, disciplines, and movements. The book is a documentary account of a month's stay with a family of Alabama tenant farmers in 1936. But it is simultaneously a challenge to claims of documentary realism, and to the assertions of knowledge and power that accompany those claims. Using modern theories of the documentary, as well as theories of postmodernism, this study traces the book's problematic relationship to "representation" as a textual and political strategy. I consider the interaction of words and images as one locus of ethical representation. The book's vision of just representation, I argue, can best be understood as an equal exchange involving author, reader, text, and the subjects of the representation.

Sarah Price Worth is a hero in mythical and psychological terms. Her growth can be traced through her name changes within the novel: Sarah Price Worth/Kundalini/Rare Sarah. She leaves the Judeo-Christian belief system and enters an Eastern system in an ashram where yoga is practiced. Sarah's progress can be seen in terms of the stages of the heroic quest and archetypal imagery--in particular, the snake. The novel's action suggests a parallel between chakra ascension and psychological growth in Jungian terms. Updike's "yes, but" tendency is at work in this novel: Yes, Sarah Price Worth is a bitch. But she is, nonetheless, a hero. As Sarah Price Worth and Kundalini, she has allowed men to be her gods, but Rare Sarah finds her own way. Through her earnest seeking, she succeeds in her quest.

The controversy in Native Son is over the book's "message"; however, few agree exactly what this message is. It is not, as misinterpreted by many critics, a struggle between the races. Refusing to accept passively society's definition of himself as a non-person, Bigger fights for the right to be and for a reason for being. Discarded as human garbage, Bigger rebels. His consequent actions become the justification for his existence. He kills Mary Dalton because he is "scared and mad," reacting instinctively in the manner he is forced to live his life. Wright delves into Bigger's motives in order to explain the archetypal "bad nigger," not to gain sympathy from whites nor to be cruel to blacks, rather to build a foundation for communication between the races in order to expose the ongoing American tragedy.

The familiar essay provided Odell Shepard the opportunity to be himself. In The Harvest of a Quiet Eye, he wrote of an idyllic two-week hike in rural Connecticut. In The Joys of Forgetting, he wrote of the pleasure of remembering forgotten details. In Thy Rod and Thy Creel, he wrote of the pleasure of fly fishing and of its history. These essays reveal a sensitive man, a man who felt compelled to be a contributing member of society, but also a man who knew his own limitations and needs.