Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2003

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Faraci, Mary

Abstract

Joyce Carol Oates's novel them and Wallace Stevens's poetry can be examined in light of Oates's critical essay "Against Nature." These fictions illustrate Oates's idea of Nature not existing as a noun, Nature, but as an experience which we attempt to understand through language. Indirectly, Oates calls on other authors and theorists to argue for a redefinition of Nature. She comes to conclude that what we call "Nature" in reality exists as Nature-as-experience. Once we fully understand Nature-as-experience, we can utilize those principles to understand a relatively new occurrence in history and literature: the manmade city. In them, the city, in much the same way as Nature, becomes City-as-experience and in fact lives in the experience of the character Maureen.

Extent

70 p.

Comments

Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2003.|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Identifier

FADT13011

Format

pdf

Download

Share

COinS