Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

1976

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Pearce, Howard D.

Abstract

Language of spatial movement, the arbitrary placement of values on a vertical scale, operates in the fiction of James as a means of expressing central themes, as well as minor themes that "depend" from them. The placement of something on a scale, either high or low, indicates the difficulty of permanence or of "fixing" in a world where change is a necessary condition of life. In "The Lesson of the Master" the idea of perfection as the apex of the vertical scale develops conflicts and ironies. The artistnarrator in "The Real Thing" thinks in terms of the paradoxical perpendicular scale in practicing his art of illustration. In "The Birthplace" Morris Gedge manifests a more complex, ironical version of this idea in his obtuse and non-fixed values.

Extent

70 p.

Comments

Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1976.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Identifier

FADT13806

Format

pdf

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