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This thesis explores the notion of empathy in David Foster Wallace’s short story collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999). Following a discussion of narrative empathy and theory of mind, an analysis of how empathy is portrayed on the diegetic level, i.e. between characters, is performed. Throughout this analysis, it is demonstrated that Wallace’s collection presents a nuanced picture of

The following master's thesis discusses Virginia Woolf's essays A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas from contemporary feminist points of views in order to define the nature of Woolf's feminism. The two feminist theorists Rosi Braidotti and Judith Butler serve as the bases of the two most widely known branches in feminist theory today, the sexual difference theory on the one hand,

This thesis investigates the traditional role of women in society through looking at five novels about women by women. To establish what a woman’s traditional place is this thesis compares Coventry Patmore’s poem “The Angel in the House” to Virginia Woolf’s speech “Professions for Women.” It then goes on to analyze the main women characters of five literary works that demonstrate and counter this

This essay examines how the characters experience a sense of place in two of Katherine Mansfield’s modernist short stories, “Prelude” (1918) and “Bliss” (1918). Geographers have during the past century developed and problematized the relation between space, place, and human beings. The concepts of space and place are means for us to better understand our place in the world by relating ourselves to

Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves is a stunningly complex work, blending elements of the traditional haunted house tale, postmodernism, and film analysis with innovative approaches to textuality and to the format of the novel. This thesis explores House of Leaves with regard to many of these elements, presenting a reading which unifies its various modes of discourse by relating them back t

This thesis examines The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) by Junot Díaz as an example of postmodern fiction. The thesis begins with a background chapter that outlines the central characteristics of postmodern fiction, followed by three chapters that tackle one main postmodern aspect of the novel each: fragmentation, metafiction and intertextuality. First, the novel’s use of fragmentation is

In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson depicts a fiery, independent and highly sexual protagonist in the character of Lisbeth Salander. While many readers fail to notice the subtle reference to Lisbeth’s natural red hair, this quality, along with Larsson’s admittance that his inspiration originated from Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking, situates Lisbeth in a long tradition of redhea

The fact that Jane Austen composed and edited her novels during two eventful decades in Britain’s history excites an interest to investigate if this has affected the creation of her characters. This thesis explores whether Austen’s heroes develop in accordance with a shift in masculine ideals that can be discerned around the turn of the nineteenth century. The masculine ideal for gentlemen can be

This dissertation analyses the representations of Norway, Denmark and Sweden in Scottish travel literature towards the end of the Georgian Era. By comparing two travel accounts, I aim to identify both the authors’ approach to the Nordic countries as well as their reflections on their own national identity. The primary sources used are Henry David Inglis’ A Personal Narrative of a Journey through N

This thesis explores representations of duality across the work of contemporary Native American poets. Through the use of several analytic methods and postcolonial theories, this thesis will analyse representations of language, place, and identity, and argue that they are constructed in the border between Native American and American consciousness. Firstly, Tommy Pico’s Nature Poem will be read a

This thesis examines how rituals gamify war in the Hunger Games trilogy. Using a formalist lens, I argue that ritual is a rhythmic, repetitive, and looped form found in both media and real-world conflicts. By comparing the forms within the novel to those in video games and war, I explore the ethical dangers of associating war with game, while also revealing the subversive potential of ritual. The

This thesis explores the ways in which ‘‘Ides of March, 2020’’ (2020) by Didi Jackson, ‘‘Sing a Darkness’’ (2020) by Carl Phillips, and ‘‘Desert Lily’’ (2020) by Rigoberto González engage with concepts of nature and trauma. All three poems reveal poignant elaborations on human position and relationship to nature, and how nature might help the speakers dealing with the traumatic present of the pand

Lotta Lotass Fjärrskrift is a work that makes use of three different media, a 50 meter long teleprinter strip and two filmed versions, distributed in cinemas and published on internet, which are portraying how the strip is made through a teleprinter. The purpose of this study is to investigate by the use of Lars Elleström’s theory of intermediality the different connections between the three diff

This paper presents an opportunity for the uncertainty that has plagued the novel's criticism to appear as absences in the body of historical knowledge, particularly regarding the notion of life after death. Taking appearance (eg. proof of existence), as opposed to disappearance, as a universally accepted value allows this analysis to interrogate the novel's logic in relation to a variety

This paper addresses the issue of a rising class-consciousness in the mid-nineteenth century, which threatened to challenge formerly stable power positions. The focus lies specifically on parts of Charles Dickens’s literary production as several early as well as contemporary critics, such as G.K. Chesterton and Andrzej Diniejko, have ascribed his works a rather critical position in the representat

The thesis deals with the representation of fantasy in modern film with special regards to parallel-world stories. In order to demarcate parallel worlds from other types of magical worlds in fantasy stories, the thesis contains an extensive chapter of definitions. Starting out with Todorov’s and Jackson’s well-known theories on fantasy / the fantastic, the thesis turns to other approaches allowing

This thesis explores the functions of memory, collective identity, and communication of those same categories to the reader by means of the poetic form in Hanna Rajs’ poetry collection Under månen (2020). Situated or framed within a discussion on Holocaust Literature, Rajs’ poetry is considered in the light of a general historical purview of Holocaust writing, and her specific place within an auth

This thesis was written to bring attention to a group that is still largely invisible in our society - nonbinary people - and examine how nonbinary identities are characterized in children’s literature. It does so by comparing the books Månen, Varelsen och Jag and Euphoria Kids, and discusses them from the perspectives of the intended reader, trans theory, as well as “skev och monster” theory. Thi

The aesthetic and literary genre of dark academia has become popular due to its romanticisation of immersive academic learning and lifestyles. It has however been criticised for its frequent glorification of and focus on Eurocentric educational institutions which celebrate Western patriarchal exclusivity. This thesis examines in how far this is true of the genre’s prominent novels Donna Tartt’s Th