Department of English
IAS 493
Senior Capstone
January 2012
Dr. Nancy Dayton
English Literature
Stephanie Binion
Carrying Bones: Identity, Narrative, and
Metanarrative in Country of My Skull and Song of
Solomon
In both Country of My Skull and Song of Solomon,
the sociological construct of narrative and
metanarrative sets up a dynamic which can be
used to analyze identity formation for individuals
as well as for entire cultures. In both texts, the
community constructs, creates, and sustains the
metanarratives which shape individual’s identities.
This paper explores the way bones function in both
texts as an image for how individuals relate to the
past in this process of re-creating new identities.
For new identities to be reconstructed, the larger
metanarrative of white supremacy which formed
their initial personal narratives must be rejected
and a new one adopted. In Country of my Skull,
the metanarrative of apartheid is replaced with the
African humanist concept of Ubuntu, and in Song
of Solomon, the metanarrative of slavery is
replaced with African American folk.
Kate Camara
English Literature
Forming one’s racial identity is a difficult task. It is
even more difficult when a person belongs to more
than one race. The world often thinks mixed
families represent true equality, and they do not
struggle with race issues but live above them in a
sense. This is especially assumed of those who
share black and white heritage. When a child is
both black and white, or biracial, the world thinks
that race will never be an issue for him or her. The
world could not be more wrong. Biracial individuals
are sometimes the unhealthiest when it comes to
race. In Nella Larsen’s Passing and James
McBride’s The Color of Water the characters have
differing stances when it comes to their races,
some choose to ignore entire sides of their
identity, while others explore their full identity.
Through these stories it is evident that a truly
healthy individual is one who acknowledges every
part of their racial identity.
James Daniels
English Creative Writing
This project is the opening act of a planned novel,
and takes place primarily in and around a cabin in
a forest in a valley in Upstate New York. In this
cabin, a human named Jenny, and her unnamed
demon lover find sanctuary; the demon from his
struggles to build reconciliation between angels
and demons, and Jenny from the remnants of her
own unhappy childhood. The demon is sent away
on a mysterious mission, telling Jenny he will
return in a few weeks. About a month later, the
demon has still not returned. Jenny’s cabin is
burned down, and she must flee to the caves, the
world of darkness and demons, to escape from a
murderous cult.
English Literature
Diana Duncan
Freudian theory is used to illuminate the different
psychological stages Dorian Gray in The Picture of
Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and William
Wordsworth in his autobiographical poem Tintern
Abbey find themselves in. The progression through
id, ego, and superego are influenced by the pain
and beauty both men experience and the
memories they have stored up. Dorian chooses to
deny the existence of his memory while
Wordsworth delves deep into his, furthering his
growth. There is also the inclusion of Wilde’s letter
“De Profundis” which maps out Wilde’s own
movement from the Dorian-like id stage to a more
stable psychological state similar to that of
Wordsworth in Tintern Abbey.
English Literature
Hannah Ehrsam
Title: "The Lady's Dressing Room" and "My Last
Duchess": Swift's and Browning's Construction of
the Ideal Woman in 18th Century and Victoria Era
Literature
This paper will examine the construction and
deconstruction of the ideal woman in 18th Century
and Victorian literature. It gives a brief historical
overview of both time periods and how women's
roles changed during those time periods. In
addition to the construction and deconstruction
process, there are two distinctions made when
analyzing Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess"
and Jonathan Swift's "The Lady's Dressing Room":
the author's view of the "ideal" woman and the
speaker's view of the "ideal" woman. This paper
first analyzes each poem separately, identifying
the construction and deconstruction processes.
Second, it analyzes how the authors and their
writing styles affected the construction of the
"ideal" woman.
Natalie Friar
English Education
Most people would probably not place William
Shakespeare and Jane Austen in the same
category, but there are some areas in which they
are very similar. They both write about love and
relationships on a regular basis and in the case of
this paper, they wrote about four sets of couples
that went through very similar circumstances,
ending with very similar results. In Shakespeare’s
Much Ado about Nothing and Austen’s Pride and
Prejudice, the characters of Hero and Claudio,
Jane and Mr. Bingley, Beatrice and Benedick, and
Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy all go through stages of
falling and love and trials before they finally are
married at story’s end. There are two categories
of couples with two couples in each. There are
similarities between Beatrice, Benedick, Elizabeth,
and Mr. Darcy and there are similarities between
Hero, Claudio, Jane, and Mr. Bingley. The
characters are different in their own ways but they
all display enough similarities to show how alike
Shakespeare and Austen were in their writing of
these particular stories.
English Education
Mario Gonzalez
This paper focuses on the different ways that
Shakespeare and Byron use comedy to draw the
audience away from tragic emotions within A
Midsummer Night’s Dream and Don Juan. It
juxtaposes the tragic narratives of the texts with
the comedic forms with which they are delivered.
The paper first analyzes how both texts actually
establish a tragic rather than comedic narrative. It
then deconstructs the variety of ways
Shakespeare creates comedic tone through the
four love characters of Lysander, Demetrius,
Helena, and Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, and how Lord Byron creates comedy
through the narrator of Don Juan.
Thad Harmon
English Creative Writing
A poetry collection intent on exploring both the
private and social dimensions of ‘the spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings.’ Poems are collected
according to the themes of loss, self and fantasy,
the current state of things, and the craft itself.
Postmodernism and its effects on the poet
constitute a major current of the collection’s force,
along with the nature of individual identity with
respect to external, societal factors.
English Education
Jessica Johnson
This paper utilizes character studies in order
to examine the complexities of each author’s
presentation of the concepts of good and evil in
Frankenstein and the Harry Potter series. In each
of these works, characters are not presented as
purely “good” or “evil,” but are shown to have
elements of both goodness and evil in them. The
paper studies each author’s lack of purely “good”
or “evil” characters and examines the authorial
intent of these presentations. A strong focus is on
each author’s attempt to create sympathy for socalled “evil” characters. The paper also explores
each author’s seeming view of the cause of evil
based on her presentation of good and evil
through character development. This paper
ultimately attempts to explain why each author
presented the concepts of good and evil in the way
she did within the context of her characters.
Norah Kundrat
English Creative Writing
A young girl, Martana Volpari, moves to the Italian
province of Umbria where she stays with her
father and grandparents. After her father is killed
tragically in a wild boar hunting accident, she
adopts an orphaned piglet and raises it. The two
are practically inseparable as they grow up
together and travel around bucolic Italy. They go
on many adventures and even befriend an
eccentric old ceramicist. But Martana is tormented
by nightmarish visions, and her boar often seems
the only anchor in reality. The darkness intensifies
when she moves to Venice and comes into conflict
with her godfather.
Robbie Maakestad
English Creative Writing
Old Men with Dislocated Femurs
Old Men with Dislocated Femurs is a creative
non-fiction story about a hike the author took with
three friends around the Sea of Galilee in 24
hours. Robbie Maakestad had the privilege of
studying in Jerusalem in the spring of 2011 and on
a free weekend, with little rhyme or reason (and
with minimal planning) he and his buddies decided
to attempt a trek around the sea. Each of the
hikers told an account of a crazy event from their
past to kill time while they walked, and a retelling
of their stories is contained in this piece amidst
the details of the hike; thus, it is a narrative
frame-tale. The adventure turned out to be much
more eventful than any of the hikers had
anticipated – the name is derived from a selfdescription of how one of the guys felt midway
through the hike. This piece takes a look at the
difficulty that a person can overcome and how a
seemingly insignificant event in someone’s life can
inspire him or her.
Randy Magnuson
English Education
This paper was an analysis of two characters from
American literature: Jay Gatsby of The Great
Gatsby, and Eliot Rosewater from God Bless You
Mr. Rosewater. Analysis of these characters was
centered around the selfless, unconditional love
that each shows to his beloved, be it a single
person or a group of people. Not only were the
characters themselves examined, but also the
inherently selfish nature of society and how it
stifles altruistic love. These themes were studied
in the context of American modernism (The Great
Gatsby) and postmodernism (God Bless You Mr.
Rosewater), incorporating core ideas and styles
from these periods. Although the love given by
Gatsby and Rosewater is abused and
misunderstood by those around them, it is
ultimately argued that each was correct in his
endeavors, and that one person acting out of
selfless love can make a difference, even in a
rapacious, self-centered society.
English Literature
Bailey McElravy
Obscure Birth and Conspicuous Beauty: Identity
Construction in "Evelina" and "Lady Audley's
Secret"
This paper adds to current academic
conversations regarding the contents and function
of sentimental and sensational fiction the process
of identity construction. Using Frances Burney's
sentimental novel "Evelina" and Mary Elizabeth
Braddon's sensational novel "Lady Audley's
Secret," this paper identifies the existence of a
woman of obscure birth and conspicuous beauty in
each of the novels. This construction of identity
rests upon the privileging of either birth or beauty
and illustrates the disparity between them in
regard to agency and sources of identity.
Examination of these two popular novels and the
heroines' respective journeys to identity reflect the
goals of both sentimental and sensational fiction.
Mary Tait
English Creative Writing
Burns is based on a Scottish fairytale ballad called
Tam Lin, specifically on a version transcribed by
the Scottish poet Robert Burns. The tale follows a
girl who meets an enchanted man in the forest by
the name of Tam Lin, and her interactions and
eventual rescue of him from the fairy queen who
holds him prisoner. This is the first of three
sections that retell the ballad’s story, based on the
ballad’s first two scenes. Set in the time of the
wars for Scottish independence, it strays a bit
from the actual story of the ballad, though it still
contains many of the themes, symbols, characters
and plot elements of the original tale. In Burns the
girl’s name is Casey, and she is the third daughter
of a nobleman in southern Scotland. Expecting a
near engagement to a neighboring nobleman’s
son, her plans are disrupted when she assists a
wounded Scottish soldier in the woods named Tam
Lin. When rumors spread and her family’s
reputation is threatened she must decide whether
to risk her social standing for the life she wants or
to live how she has been asked.
English Literature
Brittany Unruh
Senior Project
How a character treats “the Other” signifies
his or her growth and development. The primary
characters in Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People and
Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden Party” begin
with varied perspectives of the liminal space that
exists between themselves, wealthy whites, and
“the Other.” However, through role reversals and
direct exposure, each character’s original view of
liminal space as well as their perceptions of “the
Other” are put to the test. Mansfield and Gordimer
leave the endings of these pieces ambiguous so as
to place the burden of deciphering right and wrong
behavior to the reader. July, the subject of the
title of Gordimer’s novel, is the only primary, nonwhite character from the two works and his
struggles with double-consciousness as well as
mimicry illuminate the problems and struggles
that “the Other” must deal with when he is a
minority living in the space of the majority.