The Hero in Contemporary American Fiction

The Hero in Contemporary American Fiction PDF Author: S. Halldorson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230609783
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
This book sets out to write nothing short of a new theory of the heroic for today's world. It delves into the "why" of the hero as a natural companion piece to the "how" of the hero as written by Northrop Frye and Joseph Campbell over half a century ago. The novels of Saul Bellow and Don DeLillo serve as an anchor to the theory as it challenges our notions of what is heroic about nymphomaniacs, Holocaust survivors, spurious academics, cult followers, terrorists, celebrities, photographers and writers of novels who all attempt to claim the right to be "hero."

The Hero in Contemporary American Fiction

The Hero in Contemporary American Fiction PDF Author: S. Halldorson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230609783
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 223

Get Book

Book Description
This book sets out to write nothing short of a new theory of the heroic for today's world. It delves into the "why" of the hero as a natural companion piece to the "how" of the hero as written by Northrop Frye and Joseph Campbell over half a century ago. The novels of Saul Bellow and Don DeLillo serve as an anchor to the theory as it challenges our notions of what is heroic about nymphomaniacs, Holocaust survivors, spurious academics, cult followers, terrorists, celebrities, photographers and writers of novels who all attempt to claim the right to be "hero."

The Female Hero in American and British Literature

The Female Hero in American and British Literature PDF Author: Carol Pearson
Publisher: New York : Bowker
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description


The Anti-Hero in the American Novel

The Anti-Hero in the American Novel PDF Author: D. Simmons
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230612520
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
The Anti-Hero in the American Novel rereads major texts of the 1960s to offer an innovative re-evaluation of a set of canonical novels that moves beyond entrenched post-modern and post-structural interpretations towards an appraisal which emphasizes the specifically humanist and idealist elements of these works.

Male Armor

Male Armor PDF Author: Jon Robert Adams
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813933978
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
There is no shortage of iconic masculine imagery of the soldier in American film and literature—one only has to think of George C. Scott as Patton in front of a giant American flag, Sylvester Stallone as Rambo, or Burt Lancaster rolling around in the surf in From Here to Eternity. In Male Armor, Jon Robert Adams examines the ways in which novels, plays, and films about America’s late-twentieth-century wars reflect altering perceptions of masculinity in the culture at large. He highlights the gap between the cultural conception of masculinity and the individual experience of it, and exposes the myth of war as an experience that verifies manhood. Drawing on a wide range of work, from the war novels of Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, James Jones, and Joseph Heller to David Rabe’s play Streamers and Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead, Adams examines the evolving image of the soldier from World War I to Operation Desert Storm. In discussing these changing perceptions of masculinity, he reveals how works about war in the late twentieth century attempt to eradicate inconsistencies among American civilian conceptions of war, the military’s expectations of the soldier, and the soldier’s experience of combat. Adams argues that these inconsistencies are largely responsible not only for continuing support of the war enterprise but also for the soldiers’ difficulty in reintegration to civilian society upon their return. He intends Male Armor to provide a corrective to the public’s continued investment in the war enterprise as a guarantor both of masculinity and, by extension, of the nation.

The Absurd Hero in American Fiction

The Absurd Hero in American Fiction PDF Author: David D. Galloway
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292768788
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
When The Absurd Hero in American Fiction was first released in 1966, Granville Hicks praised it in a lead article for the Saturday Review as a sensitive and definitive study of a new trend in postwar American literature. In the years that followed, David Galloway’s analysis of the writings of John Updike, William Styron, Saul Bellow, and J. D. Salinger became a standard critical work, an indispensable tool for readers concerned with contemporary American literature. The New York Times described the book as “a seminal study of the modern literary imagination. David Galloway, himself an established novelist, later extensively revised The Absurd Hero to include authoritative discussions of more than a dozen novels which had appeared since the first revised edition was released in 1970. Among them are John Updike’s Couples, Rabbit Redux, and The Coup; William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner and Sophie’s Choice; and Saul Bellow’s Mr. Sammler’s Planet and Humboldt’s Gift. Through detailed analyses of these works, Galloway demonstrates the continuing relevance of his own provocative concept of the absurd hero and provides important insights into the literary achievements of four of America’s most influential postwar novelists.

The Hero in Contemporary American Fiction

The Hero in Contemporary American Fiction PDF Author: S. Halldorson
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781403983886
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
This book sets out to write nothing short of a new theory of the heroic for today's world. It delves into the "why" of the hero as a natural companion piece to the "how" of the hero as written by Northrop Frye and Joseph Campbell over half a century ago. The novels of Saul Bellow and Don DeLillo serve as an anchor to the theory as it challenges our notions of what is heroic about nymphomaniacs, Holocaust survivors, spurious academics, cult followers, terrorists, celebrities, photographers and writers of novels who all attempt to claim the right to be "hero."

The Absurd Hero in American Fiction

The Absurd Hero in American Fiction PDF Author: David D. Galloway
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292703554
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
Analyzes the ways in which four contemporary novelists depict the rebel and the world that rejects him. Bibliogs

American Fiction in Transition

American Fiction in Transition PDF Author: Adam Kelly
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441173749
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
American Fiction in Transition is a study of the observer-hero narrative, a highly significant but critically neglected genre of the American novel. Through the lens of this transitional genre, the book explores the 1990s in relation to debates about the end of postmodernism, and connects the decade to other transitional periods in US literature. Novels by four major contemporary writers are examined: Philip Roth, Paul Auster, E. L. Doctorow and Jeffrey Eugenides. Each novel has a similar structure: an observer-narrator tells the story of an important person in his life who has died. But each story is equally about the struggle to tell the story, to find adequate means to narrate the transitional quality of the hero's life. In playing out this narrative struggle, each novel thereby addresses the broader problem of historical transition, a problem that marks the legacy of the postmodern era in American literature and culture.

The Hero of This Book

The Hero of This Book PDF Author: Elizabeth McCracken
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062971301
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 142

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Book Description
Named a Top Ten Best Book of the Year by Time and People Named a Best Book of the Year by: Washington Post * Kirkus Reviews * New Yorker * Chicago Public Library * NPR * Oprah Daily * Philadelphia Enquirer A taut, groundbreaking, and highly acclaimed novel from bestselling and award-winning author Elizabeth McCracken, about a writer’s relationship with her larger-than-life mother—and about the very nature of writing, memory, and art Ten months after her mother’s death, the narrator of The Hero of This Book takes a trip to London. The city was a favorite of her mother’s, and as the narrator wanders the streets, she finds herself reflecting on her mother’s life and their relationship. Thoughts of the past meld with questions of the future: Back in New England, the family home is now up for sale, its considerable contents already winnowed. The narrator, a writer, recalls all that made her complicated mother extraordinary—her brilliant wit, her generosity, her unbelievable obstinacy, her sheer will in seizing life despite physical difficulties—and finds herself wondering how her mother had endured. Even though she wants to respect her mother’s nearly pathological sense of privacy, the woman must come to terms with whether making a chronicle of this remarkable life constitutes an act of love or betrayal. The Hero of This Book is a searing examination of grief and renewal, and of a deeply felt relationship between a child and her parents. What begins as a question of filial devotion ultimately becomes a lesson in what it means to write. At once comic and heartbreaking, with prose that delights at every turn, this is a novel of such piercing love and tenderness that we are reminded that art is what remains when all else falls away.

The Emergence of the American Frontier Hero 1682–1826

The Emergence of the American Frontier Hero 1682–1826 PDF Author: D. MacNeil
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230103995
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
The study follows the early evolution of the American frontier hero, from its roots in Mary Rowlandson's narration of her experiences as a prisoner during King Phillip's war through works by Unca Eliza Winkfield, Charles Brockden Brown, James Fenimore Cooper, the film-maker John Ford, and actor John Wayne.