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Item Women in Thomas Hardy's novels : an interpretative study : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English at Massey University(Massey University, 1970) Morrison, DorothyWhen one begins a study of the women in Hardy's novels one discovers critical views of great diversity. There are features of Hardy's work which received favourable comment then as now; his descriptions of nature for instance, and his rustic characters have appealed to most critics over the years. But his philosophical and social comment have drawn criticism ranging from the virulent to the scornful. In particular his attitude to and treatment of love and marriage relationships have been widely argued, and it is the women concerned who have been assessed in the most surprising and contradictory manner. The first critic of stature was Lionel Johnson¹Lionel Johnson, The Art of Thomas Hardy (1894). London, 1923, p.193. best known as a poet. In 1894 he wrote of Hardy's women: 'I cannot think that any of them is so powerfully conceived and drawn as are the best of the men;' but he adds that they provoke an 'amazed awe of their infinite ingenuities,' and quotes a remark of Swift's about the pleasure that a few words 'spoken plain by a parrot will give.' [FROM INTRODUCTION]Item The role of the feminine characters in the major novels of Henri Bosco : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts in French at Massey University(Massey University, 1972) Stokell, Roger JohnReaders of Bosco soon discover that they are entering a world where the visible and the invisible exist side by side and where reality meets the fantastic. Jean Lambert has called him "Un voyageur des deux mondes".¹ For notes see end of chapters To one of these worlds belong the colourful descriptions of the Provencal landscape with its sunshine and soundness of life, and to the other belongs the night with its mystery and intrigue. it is the difference for Bosco between the outer, visible world on the one hand and the inner world of the mind on the other. These two worlds exist for example in Malicroix, the one represented by the cosy Megremut settlement with its orchards and beehives in the hills of Les Puyreloubes where the family lives out its ordered life, and the other by the tiny island in the Camargue constantly given over to the whims of nature and the mysteries of the night. There is a line of demarcation, a "frontière",² which has to be crossed to pass from one world to the other and in this case it is the great watery masses of the Rhône. Martial Mégremut crosses it to take up his inheritance on the island and at once enters its secret world where the night and its happenings reign supreme. Once there he learns that according to the terms of Cornélius Malicroix's will he must spend the next three months there, without leaving, before he can take full possession of the property. So the river acts as a barrier to the outer world, and the contrast is made all the more striking when in Part Seven he finally does return to visit the warm, intimate world of the Mégremut clan. But this barrier becomes even more restricting when Martial reveals his life-long fear of rivers and their swirling water. It becomes a double barrier because he could not cross it by himself if he wanted to. [From Introduction]