https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148414 Fri, 28 Aug 2026 18:06:04 GMT 2026-08-28T18:06:04Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148606 Title: Breakdown or Breakthrough? : madness and selfhood in The Awakening, Tender is the Night, and ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ Abstract: Female madness is a common trope in nineteenth and twentieth century literature. Readings of this trope vary in their interpretation of whether women going mad – thus being othered a second time – is empowering and subversive, or instead a state of ultimate defeat in which the madwoman cannot fight back against her oppressors. This dissertation will underline the ways in which the perception of madness is socially constructed to serve patriarchal thinking, and consequently to better understand madness as either power or powerlessness within the context of wider societal othering. The second chapter traces the connection between madness, selfhood, and motherhood, arguing that when madness is pushed upon the woman, she often loses a coherent sense of self, exacerbating madness, or else is not able to find her self until she explores those actions which society considers mad. The third chapter will bring these ideas into the context of readings of madness as either escape or defeat, in turn foregrounding how readings and theories surrounding these ideas come short in identifying with only one side of the argument. This analysis takes place in the context of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night (1934), and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ (1892). All three texts feature a central female character who experiences some form of madness either in the context of behaving in ways which are inappropriate because she is a woman, thus earning her the label of mad, or mental illness intensified by patriarchal definitions of womanhood, which often necessitate the aforementioned fragmentation of the self. This dissertation is informed by seminal texts on madness and the female hysteric, including the works of Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Elaine Showalter, Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Marta Caminero-Santangelo, and Michel Foucault, among others, to show the consequences of female oppression and the way this manifests in the texts under discussion. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.) Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148606 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148605 Title: Time and disaster in Don DeLillo and Maurice Blanchot Abstract: Don DeLillo (1936 – ) is regarded as a significant American writer whose body of work is strongly connected to contemporary theory and philosophy. This dissertation will analyse two of his recent works, Point Omega (2010) and The Silence (2020) using Maurice Blanchot’s (1907 – 2003) literary theory. The introduction will identify the shared ground between DeLillo and Blanchot as well as the merits of such an analysis. Here, the roots of both writer’s thought will be established, foregrounding their shared concerns regarding language, its limitations, role in contemporary life, and effects on the perception of the world and time. Point Omega will be discussed in the first chapter, where DeLillo’s portrayal of an encounter with art will be considered using Blanchot’s discourse on the Orphic space and passivity. The line of argument on the theme of art will continue, this time focusing on literary form, utilising Blanchot’s distinction between poetic and mundane language to emphasize DeLillo’s political concerns, as exemplified in the protagonist Richard Elster. This chapter will conclude by tracing the dwindling belief in the titular Omega Point as a consequence of encountering death, drawing a parallel to Blanchot’s idea of the unavowable human community. The second chapter will investigate The Silence and the process of collapse through the transformation of language. Here, DeLillo’s narrativization of the interim period preceding the catastrophe left out of the fabula will be discussed, for which purpose Blanchot’s concepts of the Disaster and the philosophy of waiting will be employed. The conclusion will establish the continuity and transformation of the concerns interrogated in both works. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.) Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148605 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148570 Title: The impact of generative artificial intelligence on students’ academic writing Abstract: This dissertation investigates the impact of generative AI tools on university students’ academic writing styles, alongside the cognitive and affective dimensions of the writing process, within the context of English for Academic Purposes (EAP). The study explores students’ writing habits and dependency on AI, addressing concerns linked to AI use, like a decline in independent thinking, original authorial voice, and authentic expression. A qualitiative analysis compares pre and post-AI writing tasks, by applying a corpus-informed analyses of textual choices. In tandem, cognitive and affective dimensions are explored through Think-Aloud Protocols and verbal retrospective interviews to understand students’ attitudes and perceptions of AI use. The results show that AI increases word count and writing fluency while reducing time on task, indicating lower planning-stage cognitive load. However, a higher number of pauses during AI use suggest increased metacognitive evaluation. Textually, AI assisted writing shifts towards a more formal, structured academic voice, marked by reduced lexical diversity and diminshed authorial voice. Thereby, AI reconfigures writing behaviours by increasing writing output and reflective processing, with cognitive demand translating from planning to evaluation. Although students’ confidence appears enhanced, this costs originality and voice. Therefore, the findings reveal the need for a more mindful approach towards AI in academia, as it promotes a standardised framework that limits individual variation. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.) Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148570 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148569 Title: Complementary characters and delusions : the dialogically generated absurd in Winnie-the-Pooh, Tristram Shandy, and Waiting for Godot Abstract: What is it that makes the interactions between certain characters seem so Absurd? In this research this question is tackled through the character pairs of Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet from Winnie-the-Pooh, Uncle Toby Shandy and Corporal Trim from Tristram Shandy, and Vladimir and Estragon from Waiting for Godot, as they are analysed in their relationship with the literary Absurd. Each duo is examined not only in the context of the entire text from which they originate but in curated examples of their direct interactions and actions, most importantly through their dialogue. Instead of a qualitative approach to squaring a text in the tradition of the Absurd through, for example, the traits of humour or meaninglessness, this research proposes that it is in character relations that absurdities are both generated and brought to attention. Martin Esslin’s Theatre of the Absurd and Neil Cornwell’s The Absurd in Literature are used as encyclopedic references through which most traditionally understood facets of absurdity are explicated. It is, however, through the critical texts of Gilles Deleuze, Mikhail Bakhtin and Roman Jakobson that hitherto underexplored aspects of the literary Absurd are expanded upon in relation to character dialogue and dialogic interaction, on topics of sense and nonsense, the implications of puppet theatre, and the case of communicative/non-communicative functions. Each theorist’s work furthers the case of the generation of the absurd in the dialogues between pairs of characters that, ultimately, mistake linguistically constructed phantoms for logical entities. This phantasmic quality at the root of character misunderstandings is at the heart of this research, one which is confirmed or denied through events in the main text, such as in Winnie-the-Pooh and Tristram Shandy, or through the non-appearance of an entity, such as in Waiting for Godot. Each of the chosen canonical works explore a different era of literature and come with their own caveats, read in their relation to the absurdities of their characters. As such, these caveats, such as the presence of Christopher Robin in Winnie-the-Pooh for example, provide a commentary on the Absurd as a whole. It is the gradual movement away from the traditional characteristics of the absurd and into the techniques of Absurd literature that is the defining and most important facet of this research, allowing one to more tangibly locate and examine incongruencies as they appear on the textual, tangible level of dialogue and the character worldview that it presupposes. Description: B.A. (Hons)(Melit.) Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148569 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z