English Senior Literature Capstone Presentations

Living a Narrative Life: (Auto)Biography in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea —William Huff Towle

This presentation focuses on Jean Paul Sartre’s novel Nausea.  I argue that Nausea can stand alone as a work of modernist literature. Rather than separating the novel from Sartre’s philosophy, a literary reading of nausea allows one to recontextualize both the cause of Roquentin’s nausea as well as its effects on him. In particular, this paper explores how nausea causes Roquentin to change from writing a biography to an autobiography and the impact of this change in literary form on his psychological condition.

Progression of the Transgressing Woman Archetype in Literature from the 1930s-1970s —Liesl Francisco

The femme fatale is a classic character archetype that can be traced all the way back to ancient myths. The femme fatale is, in its most basic description, a deceitful and cunning woman that is able to manipulate male counterpart(s) for her own benefit. A more modern version of this archetype is expressed through the “transgressing woman,” who oversteps her social boundaries in some way. My project compares and contrasts the femme fatale Brigid O’Shaughnessy from Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon (1931), the transgressing woman Blanche DuBois from Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), and the transgressing woman Carrie White from Stephen King’s Carrie (1974). The side-by-side analysis of these three women characters illustrates how the portrayal of women in American literature has developed over time.

The Feminist Literary Movement: What Women Writers Teach Us About the Realities of Maternity and Women’s Health —Peyton Muldoon

Men have been writing women for centuries, but what about women writing women? The feminist literary movement has constantly been gaining momentum over the years, and many women are taking this opportunity to write about women’s health and the system that coincides with it. Elisa Albert, Margaret Atwood, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman made it their mission to educate readers regarding maternity, female psychology, and women’s healthcare by writing haunting pieces of literature that highlight these topics.

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis: A Response to Modernism —Carli Vander Top

In the early 1990s, Modernism was sweeping across the intellectual Western world, having particularly interesting effects in literature. Following the wake of devastating events such as WWI and WWII, people began to mistrust traditional institutions such as Christianity, and many scholars argued that no ultimate truth could be determined. Amid this environment, C.S. Lewis wrote his book The Great Divorce. In his symbolic tale, Lewis boldly contradicts the core tenets of Modernism and presents an intriguing alternative argument. 

Exploring the Role of the Ideal Woman Through The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh—Morgan Vouk

Abstract: Through an analysis of The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh and the role the character of Victoria plays in challenging the ideals for women, I identified the elements of Victoria’s character that strayed from the ideals for women in modern society. Drawing on scholarship from influential Women’s and Gender studies scholars, this analysis questions the role literary characters play in providing context and stories that emphasize and challenge ideals for women. In this analysis, I identify anger, motherhood, and identity as themes in The Language of Flowers that contribute to Victoria’s character and how she contradicts these traditional expectations set for her as a woman. These themes contribute not only the larger issue of female ideals in society, but also to Victoria’s exploration of her past, her present, and her future. Based on Diffenbaugh’s themes from The Language of Flowers, I include my own experience and discussions of these themes and ideals as seen in literature and my own life.