Access to the collection of English theses from 2023 and earlier is restricted to RWU English faculty members for curriculum-related purposes and is not available to the public. To view or download a thesis, please contact the English Department to obtain a password.
Submissions from 2005
Jobs Build Character: Richard Wright and Anne Moody's Childhood Jobs Shape Their Southern Views, Amanda Burns
Thomas Sutpen and Faulkner's Southern Male, Andrew Dugan
"Nome, I ain't a good man:" Religious Symbolism portrays Flannery O'Connor's message of Christianity in A Good Man is Hard to Find, Amanda Johnson
The Effect of the Black Community on the Advancement of Richard Wright in His Autobiography Black Boy, Matthew Kimmel
"Ghosts of the Past": The Repetition of Sin in William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!, Paul Landry
Richard Wright's Black Boy: Christianity verses Intellectualism, Merritt Lee
A Good Man Is Hard To Find,' but the Bad Ones Are Plentiful: Flannery O'Connor's Evil Man, Caroline Michaud
"Choking to death in Centreville": Anne Moody's Feminist Triumph in Coming of Age in Mississippi, Sarah Murrett
A Study of the Male Characters' Adherence to the Madonna/Whore Complex in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, Jillian Vieira
"Evil Spirits": Incidental Consequences in Anne Moody's Autobiography Coming of Age in Mississippi, Lindsay Worcester
Submissions from 2004
The Voice of a Twentieth Century "Field Slave": The Appeal of Malcolm X, Matthew Boissonneault
Freeing the Descendants of Ham: The Religious Struggle of James Baldwin, Jill Bolstridge
Angstrom's Air Ball: An Ex-Athlete's Dysfunction in John Updike's Rabbit, Run, Erin Bowen
"The God I don't Believe In:" Examining the Shifting Views of Religion in the Literature of the 1960's., Leah Chertok-Ackerman
"Under a Man's Thumb": Sexual Oppression and It's Devastating Consequences in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, Callie Graham
Colonel Cathcart and Milo Minderbinder: Evil and the Military-Industrial Complex in Catch-22, Emily Harrison
A Hero's Homecoming? The Effects of Vietnam in David Rabe's Sticks and Bones, Mattea Heller
"Pretend you are drowining": Esther Greenwood's Journey into Depression in The Bell Jar, Erin Hughes
The American Family in the Literature of the 1960s, Paul Johnson II
The World of Eudora Welty's Wasteland, Sarah Lowry
"I remembered that I had never cried for my father's death": Unrequited Grief in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, Paige McKinney
"My friends call me Yo-Yo": Yossarian's Search for Morality in Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Jason Pedicone
"There is a world of women beyond Janice." The Quest for the Ideal Housewife in John Updike's Rabbit, Run., Jennifer Pond
"'The bell jar hung, suspended': Destructive Depression Therapies in The Bell Jar", Gaelin Ristino
"I believe in God again": Religious Affirmation in Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Kathryn Roddy
"Yossarian? What the hell kind of name is Yossarian?" Names and Identity in Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Alexis Rustigian
"Patched, retreaded and approved for the road": Esther Greenwood's Ultimate Cure in The Bell Jar, Meagan Sage
The Masculine Mystique: Harry's "Problem with No Name" in John Updike's Rabbit, Run, Katie Tumiel
"To the person in the bell jar . . . The world itself is the bad dream": Sylvia Plath's Critique of the Therapies in The Bell Jar, Melanie Wolfert
"The world itself is the bad dream": Esther Greenwood's Suffocation Beneath the 1950s Bell Jar, Maura Wolk
Submissions from 2003
“Hank’s Failed Techno-Utopia”: The Detrimental Effects of 19th Century Technology and Politics in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Joshua Brennan
“Bois-Guilbert, the Templar Knight: Villain or Modern Anti-Hero of Ivanhoe”, Jon Elwell
The Inevitable Damnation of Womanhood A Feminist Analysis of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, Marybeth Gordon
Sexy Versus Sweet: Portrayals of Elaine and Vivien in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “ The Idylls of the King“, Emily Jamba
Robin Hood: The True Hero of Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, Jessica Lewis
FalIIng Short ot the Royal ldeal: SIr Walter Scott’s Portrayal of Once and Future Kings in Ivanhoe, Melissa Mondor
From Paige to Page: The Influence of the Failare of the Paige Typeset Machine in Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, Vincent Picone
Wounding the Past: Twain’s Attack on Medievalism and Antebellum Society in Connecticut Yankee, Rachel Selby
Submissions from 2002
From Horses to Bicycles: A Study of Twain’s View of Technology in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Ariana Carlone
“Merlin and Vivien“: The Incapacitating Consequences of Lustful Sex in the Nineteenth Century, Lauren S. Ferri
“The Man Behind The Women”: The Role and Evolution of Women in Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, Dena V. Greenhut
“Fair and Foul? The Nature of Justice and Tennyson’s Vixen Vivien”, Rose Incampo
Tennyson’s “Medieval“ Moral Voice within Idylls of The King, Catherine E. Leopold
“Rebecca and Isaac: Scott’s View of Medieval Jews”, Elizabeth A. Rapoza
Mark Twain’s Religious Commentary In The Medieval Setting of A Conn%ticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Jane Reilley
The Past is Now and the Now is Past: A Postmodern Analysis of Cultural Dominance in Ivanhoe and The Fair Maid of Perth, Rebecca Steele
Bullet Holes Through the Armor of Medievalism: Mark TwainFs Use of Black Humor in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Vanessa Toro
The Revolutionary and the Reformist: Romantic Visions of Robin Hood in Keats and Scott, Rebecca Wechsler
Submissions from 1999
Images of Fire and Ice/Water in Jane Eyre, Amy Berardinelli
