The presentation of the orphan child in eighteenth and early nineteenth century English literature in a selection of William Blake's 'Songs of innocence and experience', and in Charlotte Brontë's 'Jane Eyre', and Emily Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights'
- Authors: Singh, Jyoti
- Date: 2010 , 2013-07-18
- Subjects: Blake, William, 1757-1827 -- Songs of innocence and of experience -- Characters -- Orphans Blake, William, 1757-1827 -- Criticism and interpretation Brontë, Charlotte, 1816-1855 -- Jane Eyre -- Characters -- Orphans Brontë, Charlotte, 1816-1855 -- Criticism and interpretation Brontë, Emily, 1818-1848 -- Wuthering Heights -- Characters -- Orphans Brontë, Emily, 1818-1848 -- Criticism and interpretation Orphans in literature
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2267 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1005628
- Description: This thesis is a study of the presentation of the orphan child in eighteenth and early nineteenth century English literature, and focuses on William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. It is concerned with assessing the extent to which the orphan children in each of the works are liberated from familial and social constraints and structures and to what end. Chapter One examines the major thematic concern of the extent to which the motif of the orphan child represents a wronged innocent, and whether this symbol can also, or alternatively, be presented as a revolutionary force that challenges society's status quo in Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience. Chapter Two considers the significance of the child "lost" and "found", which forms the explicit subject of six of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience and explores the treatment of these conditions, and their differences and consequences for the children concerned. Chapter Three focuses on Charlotte Bronte's depiction of the orphan in Jane Eyre, which presents two models of the orphan child: the protagonist Jane, and Helen Burns. The chapter examines these two models and their responses to orphan-hood in a hostile world where orphans are mistreated by family and society alike. Chapter Four determines whether the orphan constitutes a subversive threat to the family in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and also explores the notion that, although orphan-hood often entails liberation from adult guardians, it also comprises vulnerability and exposure. The thesis concludes by considering the extent to which orphan-hood can involve a form of liberation from the confines of social structures, and what this liberation constitutes for each of the three authors.
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- Date Issued: 2010
The shadowed corners of sunlit ruins: Gothic elements in twentieth century children's adventure fiction
- Authors: Wagenaar, Peter Simon
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Children's literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism , Gothic literature
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2250 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002293 , Children's literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism , Gothic literature
- Description: This thesis examines the way in which children's adventure fiction makes use of Gothic features, how these features have been modified for a younger audience and how these modifications have been influenced by other developments in children's and popular fiction: Chapter One sets out to define the nature of Gothic and isolate those aspects of it relevant to the proposed study. It puts forward a theory to account for the movement of Gothic trends into later children's fiction. Chapter Two examines the use of landscape, setting and atmospheric effects in Gothic and the way in which children's fiction has used similar trappings to create similar effects. Children's fiction, emphasising pleasurable excitement rather than fear has, however, muted these effects somewhat and played down the role of the supernatural, so intrinsic to Gothic. Chapter Three emphasises the Gothic's use of stereotypes, focusing on the portrayal of heroes and heroines. Those of children's fiction are portrayed very similarly to those of Gothic and the chapter compares and, on occasion, contrasts them noting, inter alia, their adherence to rigid moral codes and narrowly defined norms of masculine and feminine behaviour. Chapter Four looks at the portrayal of villains and the way in which their appearance defines them as such (as, indeed, does that of heroes and heroines). It examines in some detail their relationship to and interaction with the heroes and heroines, noting, for example, the 'pseudo-parental' role of villains who are characteristically older and in socially approved positions to exert power over heroes and heroines. The Conclusion addresses the fantasy aspect of these novels,referred to several times in passing in the course of earlier chapters, and comments on how the features detailed in Chapters Two, Three and Four all operate within the conventions of a fantasy.
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- Date Issued: 1991