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    John Steinbeck : the Real(ist) Gothic? : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English at Massey University, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2020) Stephenson, Joanna
    There is a wealth of existing scholarship that firmly locates John Steinbeck’s fiction in the school of Realism. Yet, the tenets of the Gothic mode can be applied to several motifs encased in Steinbeck’s significant Depression-era texts The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and The Pastures of Heaven. Notably, Steinbeck employs the Gothic when demonstrating monstrosity in the increasingly modernised world, and the tension amongst marginalised groups. The national mythology of the American Dream is steadily eroding in the Thirties and transforming into a Gothic nightmare, which is telegraphed in these novels by depictions of death, violence, hopelessness, and curses. Modernity is encroaching on the American pastoral, which Steinbeck illustrates by Gothicising agricultural processes and representing machines in monstrous terms. Steinbeck’s fiction evokes the suspense and hostility of the Southern Gothic tradition with his portrayal of alienated individuals and intolerant communities.
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    The lyric "I" and the anti-confessionalism of Frederick Seidel : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2019) Upperton, Tomothy Lawrence
    This thesis investigates the anti-Confessionalist status of the lyric “I” in the poetry of Frederick Seidel and in a collection of my own poems. Seidel’s use of autobiographical details, including his own name, in his poems has been treated by critics as an invitation to identify the lyric “I” with the poet himself. His poetry has been discussed by both his admirers and his detractors in a Confessional context. To his admirers, Seidel extends the Confessional poetry tradition in exciting ways, breaking new taboos as he incorporates details from his glamorous, privileged lifestyle into his poems. To his detractors, he is a retrograde reactionary, stale and derivative. I argue that although Seidel uses Confessional strategies, and owes obvious debts to Confessional poets, his poetry is fundamentally outward rather than inward looking; it is a poetry of cultural critique, and not of personal revelation. This outward looking focus also distinguishes Seidel’s poetry from various post-avant poetics that, in their own sophisticated ways, are as concerned with the subjective, lyric “I” as Confessional poetry is. I argue that in Frederick Seidel’s poetry, the lyric “I” is of interest insofar as it provides a means of cultural critique—a way of interrogating the complicity of the individual in its engagement with capitalism in its various aspects. In the poems that comprise the creative component of my thesis, the influence of Seidel is evident in their tone, their outward focus, and their limited interest in the lyric “I.” I have attempted in these poems to get beyond the absorption with the self that I perceive to be a besetting quality in much contemporary mainstream poetry. The various post-avant poetics explored in my research seem in their own ways deeply invested in the lyric “I.” Seidel’s poems offered other possibilities, other ways of representing the subject in the world, and of critiquing that world, that I could use in my own poems.
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    The world inverted : Chuck Palahniuk's fiction as a challenge to neoliberal capitalism : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2020) Berry, Louisa
    In 2019, neoliberal capitalism and its practices appear to be so well-established in Anglo-American countries as to be almost incontestable. Much academic discourse has focused on delineating the features of neoliberal capitalism and diagnosing the effect it has on its human subjects, with many theorists arguing that it produces subjects who are individualistic, competitive and isolated. This thesis aims to determine what role, if any, fiction can play in the wider project of challenging neoliberal capitalist subjectivities. More specifically, it asks: To what extent can the work of one contemporary writer, American author Chuck Palahniuk, challenge his reader’s understanding of their own society and even prompt a transformational impulse within them? This thesis analyses nine of Palahniuk’s novels through the lenses of Marxist theory and contemporary theories of neoliberal capitalism in order to consider how fiction can alter a reader’s understanding of their society. Looking beyond representational content alone, I argue that Palahniuk’s use of stylistic features such as hyperbole, metaphor, symbolism and satire work to unveil and exaggerate aspects of neoliberal capitalism to the reader that have become so normalised that they are often viewed as inevitable or ‘common sense.’ At the same time, inbuilt moments of existential crisis and ambiguous endings work to break through the reader’s routine assumptions as to what is inevitable or important and create moments of uncertainty and doubt about neoliberal capitalism. The thesis thus argues that any transformational impulse ignited in the reader by Palahniuk’s fiction is best understood as a result of the dialectic work of content and form in tandem.