The access to the collection of English Theses is restricted to RWU English faculty members for curriculum purposes and is not open to the public. Please get in touch with the English Department to obtain a password for viewing or downloading a thesis.
Submissions from 2010
Tragedy on the Wine-dark Sea: Ahab as Tragic Captain, Christopher James O’Brien
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Religious Crisis in Uncle Tom ’s Cabin, Emily Pratt
From the Mundane to the Spiritual : Connection and Camaraderie in Walt Whitman’s leaves of Grass, Elise Squillante
The Symbolism of Plants and Nature: A Transcendental Critique of Puritan Values in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Danielle Zoller
Submissions from 2009
Colonized: The Everlasting Effects of White Colonialism on Indigenous People, Meaghan Attella
Good Books: The Search for a Moral Center in John Steinbeck's Fiction, Kathleen Coleman
“From 'an inborn suffer’ to 'star crossed lovers’: William Shakespeare’s take on the Medieval French Courtly Love Tradtion”, Heather Dowds
Paving the Road to Identity: Landscape’s Impact on Character Disposition in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Amanda Haskins
“'For stony limits cannot hold love out’: Examining Adult-Child Relationships in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, Criste Linkletter
“'Then I defy you, stars’: The Loci of Free Will in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and Othello“, Kelli Mecartney
“'The ends justify the means’: Erasmian- Machiavellian Synergy in William Shakespeare's Ideal Leader”, Amanda Musto
“An Intertexual Tale of Two Mercutios: Baz Luhrmann Meets William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Sara Panaccio
Scalpers, Cannibals, and Babies Hung from Bushes: Justifying Violence in Cormac McCarthy’s Landscapes, Alyssa Schankman
Romanticizing Flawed Morality in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Kurt Schlangenhauf
Tracing Footsteps: Landscape’s Construction of Character in John Irving’s The Cider House Rules, Jamie Silva
“When I Love Thee Not, / Chaos is Come Again”: “Order,” the “Norm” and the “Other” in Shakespeare's Venetian Plays., Gregory Souza
Carrying the Fire: The Rebuilding of Morality and Identity in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Sarah Stewart
Submissions from 2008
“Writing Oneself Free: ” Rewriting African American Feminine Identity in Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Ventura Adrien
"Ethereal Awakenings in Sir Orfeo: A Pagan Pilgrimage to Christian Enlightenment“, Danielle BaldassinI
“'Inside’/ 'Outside’ Courts: Ironic Inversions in Gottfried’s Tristan”, Danika Bishop
“American-Born Confused Deshi“: Marital and Farnilial Compromise in the Indian American Family, Jayda Laurel Blinn
“'Oh, it’s terrible being a woman’”: A Mexican Woman’s Struggle Against Invisibility in Sandra Cisneros’s Caramelo, Lindsay Marie Bourgeois
Weltanschauung!: Richard Wagner’s Variations on Gottfried Von Strassburg’sTristan in the Historicists’ mode, Jeff P. Brennan
“Caught between Here and There” : The Creation of the Transnational Bildungsroman in Sandra Cisneros’s Caramelo, Tavares Brian
“King Arthur and the 'Historical Imagination’: A De-Evolutionary Study”, Haleigh Bronson
“A Rose by Any Other Name”: A Cultural and Personal Perspective of Identity in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, Meghan Kathleen Burt
Confronting a Dark Past: Overcoming Abuse and Securing a Bright Future in Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News, Rachel Chasse
“From Greek Epic to Medieval Romance: Heroic Journeys across Genre,Time, and Culture”, Sarah K. Chrapek
“A dissolving and a becoming all at once:” The Progression of the Female Bildungsroman from Sandra Cisneros’s Life and The House on Mango Street to Caramelo, Jana Heath Clark
“Pagan? Christian? Both of the Above? : Narrative, Arts, Architecture, and Religious Schizophrenia in the Middle Ages", Caroline Corr
Broken Bonds: The Ties between Love and Healing In Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine, Sarah Cournoyer
Countering Christian Cosmology: Louise Erdrich’s Animation of “The Great Earth Mother” through Rushes Bear and Marie, Smith Courtney
Motherhood: Marie Kashpaw’s Love Medicine, Kathleen Elizabeth Day
Chaucer’s Wife of Bath: The Birth of Superwoman, Amy Dornfried
When the Hyphen Clashes: Contexts of Literature and Identity in Lahiri’s The Namesake, Jessica Leigh Finocchiaro
“'Too wise to woo peaceably’ : Rebellious Women in Medieval Romance and Shakespearean Comedy", Nicole Greenspun
Don’t Stand Still, Wittman: Confronting Collective Cataloging, Michelle Grimaldi
The Stranger Within: The Close Connection between Pregnancy and Foreignness in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, Mallory E. Haddon
“Am I My Brother's Keeper?: Ancient Iconographic Pairings in the Arthurian Cycle”, Amanda Harkness
The Dwarf: From Pagan Deity to Christian Deceiver, Michael Hodgson
“Allusive Echoes: Harry Potter and Hogwarts Meet King Arthur and His Court ”, White Karen
Merlin as Cultural Metaphor: Pagan Warrior to Christian Prophet, Andrew LaCroix
Miles Davis Meets Toni Morrison in a “ 'Round Midnight” Beloved, Ashley Lago
“Androcentrism and the Iconographic Holy Grail: Re-Envisioning Chr6tien de Troyes’ Perce\JaI“, Wind Laura
“The Truth About Stories is That’s All We Are”: Form and Meaning in Louise Erdrich’s Fiction, Wells Lee-Ann
The Medieval Chivalric Knight: Seeking Sexual Pleasures or Spiritual Attainment?, Tijani Mouad
