Award Date

12-1-2020

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

First Committee Member

Katherine Walker

Second Committee Member

Kelly Mays

Third Committee Member

Denise Tillery

Fourth Committee Member

Brett Levner

Number of Pages

53

Abstract

Shakespeare’s As You Like It is a comedy whose main character, Rosalind, is forced out of her home among the upper caste of society through no fault of her own, but because of an issue with her father. She moves into the pastoral unknown disguised as a man to avoid the issues that come traveling as a woman, outside the protection of the home. Along the way, she finds pleasure with the power she holds as a man. She is heard when she speaks as a man and she is given access to knowledge she would not be given as a woman. James Cameron’s Avatar centers on Jake Sully. Jake is thrust into a situation beyond his own familiarity due to events outside his control, involving a family member, like Rosalind. Jake, like Rosalind, lacks a feeling of power due to his recent paralysis. Like Rosalind, Sully feels a sense of power within his disguise and a sense of wonder at the spiritually connected, arguably pastoral world he is introduced to. Rosalind decidedly enjoys and often mentally fully becomes her male counterpart, Ganymede. Sully regains his sense of ability and purpose within his avatar and ultimately sheds his human body and takes on his avatar as a permanent identity. What do the similarities between these texts say about what is retained across genres? How does it or should it affect a contemporary discourse on Shakespeare? A further exploration into each story’s strengths, flaws, likenesses, and differences with assistance from various peer-reviewed sources will strive to answer this question. A direct compare and contrast of As You Like It and Avatar will be the main focus. Theories of cross dressing, androgyny, ecofeminism, and ecocriticism will be drawn upon to form conclusions about the relevance of such an investigation.

Keywords

androgyny; environment; environmental rhetoric; gender; renaissance; science-fiction

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | Environmental Sciences | Philosophy

File Format

pdf

File Size

754 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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