Academic literature on the topic 'Villain'

The Good Villain is the first 100 pages of a novel in progress. The novel is a parody of the biography genre and a satire of American culture, specifically Southern American culture. The biographer, David Johnson, travels to Starkville, Mississippi to interview and interrogate fictional author, Avis James, and his friends and family. The critical introduction of the same name describes how authors Lewis Carroll, Edgar Allan Poe, and Vladimir Nabokov have influenced the novel in terms of the whimsical, the grotesque, and the humorous.

<p>WILLIAMS, SUNDEE KATHERINE. Jack Johnson: Victim or Villain. (Under the direction of Dr. Linda McMurry, Dr. Pamela Tyler, and Dr. Walter Jackson.)Jack Johnson reigned as the first African-American heavyweight champion of the world from 1908 until 1915. Unfortunately, unlike future African-American athletes such as Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson, Jack Johnson infuriated Americans of all ages, classes, races, and sexes with his arrogant attitude; his expensive and usually imported automobiles, champagne, and cigars; his designer clothes and jewelry; his frequent trips to Europe, usually in the company of at least one beautiful white woman; his inclination to gamble and race sports cars; and his many well-publicized nights of dancing and playing jazz on his prized seven foot bass fiddle. However, his worst offenses, during his reign as heavyweight champion, were his two marriages to and numerous affairs with white women. The purpose of the research has been to place Jack Johnson within the context of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century culture, economics, law, politics, race, and sex. The influences of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century American commercialization, immigration, industrialization, and urbanization on perceptions of femininity, masculinity, sexuality, and violence are investigated; and the implications of Jack Johnson?s defiance of racial and sexual constraints on the African-American community are interpreted.<P>

Thesis (M.F.A.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2005.<br>Thesis research directed by: Dept. of English. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.

Over the course of theatre's history, villains had stereotypical traits: revenge, greed, and power. Contemporary villains, though, evoke more empathy and sympathy from audiences than classic villains. In an effort to understand the roots of villainous behavior in contemporary characters, this thesis surveys a few notable classic villains to help compare the classic to the contemporary. While holding on to qualities of the classic stereotypes, contemporary playwrights create frequent moments of sympathy and empathy for villains who appeal to audiences' desires to connect, justify, and understand the reasons for their villainies. This thesis investigates despicable yet empathetic villains in three plays: Tony Kushner's Angels in America, Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane, and Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's Assassins. An analysis of the playwrights' manipulation of characters and traits, as well as audience expectations, provides a theory on the new villain type and the lessons that can be learned.

A neglected area of research within criminality has been that of the actual experience of the offence for the offender. The social science literature contains only scattered evidence of what it means, feels, sounds or looks like to commit a particular crime. Katz (1988) in his work Seductions of Crime proposed that empirical research has to focus on the foreground, rather than the background of crime and that the emotional significance of crimes needs to be considered more fully in order to understand the psychological processes that sustain and encourage cnme. This research examines and proposes a model of Criminal Narrative Experience (CNE) by exploring the emotions that criminals experience and the narrative roles that they act out across a broad range of crimes. Hypotheses and a series of questions were derived from the Circumplex of Emotions (Russell, 1997), Frye (1957), Narrative Theory (McAdams, 1988) and its link with Investigative Psychology (Canter, 1994). The analysis was based on 120 cases. Convicted for a variety of crimes, incarcerated criminals were interviewed and the data were subjected to Smallest Space Analysis (SSA). Results showed that the emotions reflected the circumplex structure of emotions postulated by Russell (1997) for non-criminal experiences. Thus, it was possible to identify four themes in relation to emotions: Elation. Calm. Distress. and Depression. However, they showed a stronger distinction between pleasure and displeasure than for the normal range of noncriminal experiences. with Russell's 'arousal' dimension being less clearly differentiated. In addition, criminals' emotions were found to be more intense than these of a "normal" population. Concerning criminal narrative roles four distinct themes were identified. These themes are: Adventurer. Professional. Revenger and Victim that reflect Frye's (1957) four story forms (Mythoi): Comedy, Irony, Romance and Tragedy. Further analysis showed that the emotional experiences are thematically significantly associated to the narrative roles, a finding that was supported both by statistical tests and Smallest Space Analysis. When both emotions and narrative roles were subjected to SSA four themes of Criminal Narrative Experience (CNE) were identified: Elated Adventurer, Calm Professional, Distressed Revenger and Depressed Victim from which scales with very high alpha reliability scores could be derived. Offenders' criminal history using the 042 Self-Report Offending Questionnaire (Youngs, 2001) was examined in relation to their Criminal Narrative Experience. Smallest Space Analysis showed that the d42 offending behaviours could be differentiated according to four themes: Violence, Dishonesty, Antisocial and Planning. Statistical tests revealed that the Elated Adventurer theme is significantly correlated with the offending behaviours of Planning, Dishonest and Antisocial while the Calm Professional with Planning. By examining differences between the index cnme and Criminal Narrative Experience analysis showed that different subsets of crimes were more likely to be associated with different emotions and narrative roles. The themes that reflect Criminal Narrative Experience were found to differentiate between different types of crimes. In broad terms, Elated Adventurer and Calm Professional were found to be associated with property offences (theft, burglary and robbery) and be experienced more pleasant than Distressed Revenger and Depressed Victim that were found to be associated with crimes against the person (sex offences, violence and murder) and experienced unpleasant. The implications of these findings for understanding crime on the basis of the Criminal Narrative Experience (CNE) are discussed. Important future directions for the study of crime are outlined.

Fantasy has featured in our culture since the beginning of times. From ancient mythology to futuristic Sci-Fi, stories have been filled with fantastic characters and settings. Disguised under the cover of the fantastic there is a heavy load of symbolism being conveyed through structures called archetypes. The idea of archetype as a symbolic structure which is repeated countlessly over time and space was identified and studied by the psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung and these archetypes can be recognized in many forms of art or even in dreams. Fantasy usually has archetypes as its basic structure. The symbols expressed as archetypes are supposedly understandable through cultures, and yet, each culture may express the same archetype in different ways. An important archetype that too often features in fantastical stories is that of the hero. Joseph Campbell has explored it, based on Jung's archetype theory, and called the pattern that composes heroes worldwide the Monomyth or the hero journey. This journey can be clearly seen in stories from ancient folk-tale and mythology to contemporary works, which is the case of the Harry Potter series. A literary phenomenon of the 21st century, the Harry Potter series tells the story of a boy wizard and his journey into herohood. In every hero journey, its pinnacle is reached in the confrontation with an arch(e)-villain. Every step in the journey bears a symbolic significance and the villain as part of that journey follows the rule. The villain is mostly the force to which the hero has to oppose, he is also a representation of the unknown; therefore this character is usually presented without a past or reason to be. However, the villain in the Harry Potter series, Lord Voldemort, lives his own journey; one which is incredibly similar to the archetypal journey lived by the hero, Harry. This thesis studies the archetype of villains in fantasy literature and the journey of the hero as it can be related to the villain in the Harry Potter series. This study is based on the archetypal the ory of C. G. Jung and on the pattern traced for the hero by Campbell. The journeys of both villain and hero are compared for the proposition of a contemporary understanding of the villain archetype.<br>XXX

The role of Claudius in Shakespeare s The Tragedy of Hamlet has traditionally been affixed with the label of villain, coupled with a presumption of malice. This prejudice has plagued the role, relegating it to shallow melodrama throughout the majority of the play s 440 odd-year history. Although it has now become more commonplace to see him portrayed as a capable, intelligent, even initially likable king, this has only been the case for the past 50 years or so, and even so the label of villain and the assumption of malice persist and prevail even in contemporary practice. While the author is reluctant to insist on the benevolence of the King as imperative, they do contend that Claudius should not be portrayed as a villain. Doing so undermines the primary conflict - that of Hamlet vs. Claudius - cripples the possibilities for exploration of the King as a role, hinders the potential for Hamlet s journey, and absolves the viewer of active engagement by playing directly into expectations. Within this thesis, consideration of historical analysis and editorial tradition are utilized in order to demonstrate a progressively encompassing disregard that has led to the role s neglect. An account of the 2006 University of Central Florida Conservatory Theatre production is used to validate the necessity of avoiding a villainous portrayal of the King. A brief description of the author s ideal Claudius explores the realm of possibility opened by such non-villainous portrayal, and potential for the role s complexity is examined through a thorough voice/text analysis and brief discussion of Jaques Lecoq s movement equilibrium theory via appendices.<br>M.F.A.<br>Department of Theatre<br>Arts and Humanities<br>Theatre MFA

Playing the Villain argues that the portrayal and punishment of terrorists in the Western media perpetuates colonialist attitudes, due to the visual connections between these modern images and past or fictional representations of iconic, punished villains. A theory of scapegoating related to intervisuality supports this argument, by explaining that as a ritual dependent on and developed by cultural history and mythology, scapegoating requires engagement with recognisable visual motifs that repeat and perpetuate Western, colonialist attitudes. Underlying, repeated narrative patterns ensure that the scapegoating ritual functions in a way that is cathartic and builds national unity following social crisis. This need for catharsis requires that there be a scapegoated villain whose demise may be celebrated, and that the villain is objectified and fetishised through visual representation and spectacle.