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“The Memory of the Subject and the Real Gaze: Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 37.2 (2011): 1-18. This study is Lacanian psychoanalysis in its theoretical emphases, concentrating on debates emanating from the works of Freud, Lacan, and their reader, Žižek. Focus of my study is on the idea that ‘the memory of the subject is associated with a forgetting of something that was never conscious’(Lacan, Seminar III 155). Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s reference to a past that has never been present in The Phenomenology of Perception might be said to challenge our conventional notion of memory as a past perception, and so also to complicate our understanding of what is at stake in representing the past as an object of experience. Lacan also stresses that memory involves the subject reconstructing his past(SeminarⅠ 13), instead of involving reliving past experience and feeling once again the emotions associated with that experience. In The Turn of the Screw, memory, the reconstruction of the past is closely related to the real gaze, an object of desire(‘object a’), and the real gaze articulates its inherent desire in the effect of the ghost. The ghosts exert a strange fascination on the governess. Just as Ideological State Apparatus and ritual materialize the ideology, ‘object a’ which cannot be symbolized materializes the real desire. The Turn of the Screw may serve to elucidate Lacan’s concept of ‘object a’: the point marking the dimension of what is in the subject, that is, hiding subject. This concept reminds us of the imperfect fit between language and being. In conclusion, ‘object a’ as a para-being is a manifestation of the moment at which the real desire overflows into reality, as in the governess. (Yeungnam University)

“Pearl S. Buck’s East Wind: West Wind: Women’s Oppression and Deconstruction of the Patriarchal Structure of Domination.” Studies in English Language ＆ Literature 37.2 (2011): 19-41. East Wind: West Wind (1930) is a work which is based on the patriarchal structure of domination focused as a symbol of women’s oppression. Pearl Buck points out a problem of racial prejudice between western and eastern people. Humans should not be discriminated against because of differences in their skin color and lifestyle. The differences are only mutual equality embodied in an affirmative, equal conception, not because of a vertical and negative conception. It was only the result of accepting differences that their marriage succeeded. The baby-birth is a product of the fact that they ‘re accepted it as a difference. Thus, the baby is a amalgamation of the East and the West. Pearl Buck says that people should not reject the differences they have. They should admit them, and embrace them. Ultimately, it might lead them to embrace everything in their life. She also emphasized it should not be a dominative-subordinative relationship, but a mutual, respectful, and equal relationship. What we are pursuing is finding out our form of homogeneity in a different form of heterogeneity through our whole lives. This is the right task of our life to solve the future society. In this, as we are adopting and respecting our differences, the attitude that we are going to find out a true value of life is getting closer, resulting in love and co-existence. (Sejong University)

“Influence of the Motif of Fear Upon Readers in Oliver Twist.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 37.2 (2011): 43-60. Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist is sometimes treated, or downgraded, as a Newgate novel. It is true in a sense that Dickens relies heavily on the motif of fear; however, he does not just use the motif for its own sake. He uses it to achieve a more serious intention as a social critic. When the novel was published, a lot of upper-and middle-class people complained about the grotesque scenes in which the poor and criminals of London appear. To them, those scenes seemed unrealistic and misleading, and therefore, should be avoided, or concealed. Oliver Twist, I would argue, is a novel that Dickens wrote for them, and it is his critique aimed toward them, asking them to recognize the reality as it really was, rather than something that should be avoided or ignored. The motif of fear is the narrative technique that aims to make the reader recognize the reality, and it works most effectively. Characters, including Oliver, experience fear and horror throughout the novel, but Dickens intentionally makes the impact of fear or horror remain profoundly in the consciousness of the reader. Through the motif of fear, therefore, Dickens demands the reader to achieve a new understanding of reality and thereby a more fundamental approach to the social issues of the poor, instead of simply thinking of another inhumane social system which he believes would aggravate the conditions of the poor. (Chungnam National University)

“Rape in The Bluest Eye, The Color Purple, and Push: A Reflection of American Reality.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 37.2 (2011): 61-79. This paper examines three representative novels of and by African American women--The Bluest Eye, The Color Purple, and Push--that choose rape as the subject, and lights on the evolvement and metamorphosis in the literary expressions, the approaches to the subject, and the perspectives of America. The Bluest Eye seems most despondent and pessimistic as Pecola ends up stepping into madness in the end, while the other two are more positive and progressive. The Color Purple reaches the climax of optimism as Celie relocates herself from a victim of her stepfather’s incestuous rape and her husband’s abuse to an individual of pride and autonomy. But the last novel Push reaffirms the reality of racial discrimination and injustice in America. Even though Precious moves away from the abusive parents, she still is infected with HIV and has to carry on with one child of disability and another child. This paper substantiates how Sapphire figuratively delineates the complexity and conflict of America with Precious’ life. Also, it scrutinizes the behaviors of the protagonists and other characters and explicates different descriptions of rape and their significance in the three novels. (Chonbuk National University)

“Three Approaches to Understanding Ernest Hemingway’s Novels(II): Failed Works.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 37.2 (2011): 81-101. This paper aims to analyze four works of failure by Hemingway and to suggest the reasons why these novels failed by discussing the three methods useful in understanding Hemingway’s novels. The three approaches that are suggested in this paper are the essential factors in deciding the success or failure of Hemingway’s works. The three approaches are The Moment of Truth, The Tragic Hero, and The Iceberg Theory Style. All three of these factors are present in Hemingway’s successful works. However, his works of failure lack either one or two of these factors or omitted them completely. As stated above, this paper analyzes the three factors of such failed works as For Whom the Bell Tolls, Across the River and Into the Trees, To Have and Have Not, and The Garden of Eden. For Whom the Bell Tolls is considered as a work of failure because it is not written in the Iceberg Theory Style, although it has both a moment of truth and a tragic hero. Across the River and Into the Trees, To Have and Have Not, and The Garden of Eden are all considered to be failed novels because these three works do not possess any of the three factors at all. (Woosuk University)

“Coping with change: A study on William Faulkner’s Sartoris.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 37.2 (2011): 103-24. This paper aims to analyze the various ways in which Faulknerian characters deal with change. In Sartoris, three kinds of attitudes toward change appear. First, some people, including Young Bayard and his wife, Narcy, refuse to face their changing reality. Instead, they try to escape into the past or adhere to tradition. Second, there are others who are willing to step out and avail themselves of change. Caspey, old Simon’s son, represents this category. He participated in the First World War, and returned home, baptized with the idea of racial equality. However, his new belief fails to draw the sympathy of readers, especially when he demands he get white women. Finally, there are some wise characters, such as Miss Jenny, Old Bayard, and Horace Benbow. They are neither obsessed with the past nor blindly praise change for more material prosperity. In the literature seminars at the University of Virginia, Faulkner emphasized the inevitability of change and the key role of wise people in guiding change in the right direction. However, the wise people of Sartoris are too weak to play their roles in leading change for a better tomorrow. That’s why the tone of this novel is felt tragic. (Hansung University)

“Introspection on Female Identity through Demythologizing: Queen Christina by Pam Gems.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 37.2 (2011): 125-44. This thesis study on gender issues appeared in Pam Gems’s play Queen Christina, identifying correspondence between the 17th-century queen of Sweden and the successive feminist movement. Focusing on her transformation from a masculine-identified icon of patriarchy into an untamed rebel against political and sexual conservatism, Gems reinterprets the value of the famous woman’s life and searches for the appropriation for women in the modern world. Gems, as she rejected identifying herself as a radical feminist, doesn’t privilege any specific political position. She tries to dramatize the human reality of women who have been sacrificed by the patriarchal pressures of society. For this purpose, she uses comedy, which is helpful for revealing the potential fluidity of gender boundaries. In addition, the life of the historical figure epitomizes the crisis of modern women, confusing the images of traditional feminity with the feminist assertion of equality and sexual freedom. Christina, the spokesperson for women and Gems, provides that a valid definition can only be reached through the creation of a society more suited to both sexes. (Chonbuk National University)

“Emily Dickinson’s Female Poetics.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 37.2 (2011): 145-63. This study aims at dealing with Emily Dickinson’s female poetics. The notion of a female poetics emerges from women’s own experience of literature and women’s ways of knowing and focuses on how and what the female writer creates. Understanding female experience comes to be integral to the interpretation of Dickinson’s poetry. Dickinson‘s poetry can be studied in the light of female poetics because she has been regarded as the originator of American poetry by Adrienne Rich and Suzanne Juhasz. Dickinson decided not to have her poems published because she did not want to conform to an editor’s directions. She belittled the value of publication and included her poems in letters to friends and family members, adopting the fascicles as her own form of publication to conserve her poetry in itself. She sought a new path of her own technique of poetry through dashs, ellipsis and “unfinished” last lines. Dickinson scholarship has recently proliferated with the added zest of the feminist movement in literature. This study begins with an overview of several elements of her poetics and attempts to analyze them in the light of female poetic theory. The major purpose of this study deals with certain elements of Dickinson’s female poetics, particularly style and themes. Dickinson strives to be unique among the more feminine and decorative poets of her time. So, one can develop a fuller understanding of how she defined herself as a woman poet. (Hanbat University)

“John Keats’s Creative Skepticism in Relation to William Hazlitt’s and David Hume’s Ideas.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 37.2 (2011): 165-83. In this paper John Keats’s idea of poetic self or the personal identity is explored in relation to William Hazlitt’s and David Hume’s ideas. The main argument of this paper is that Keats has expressed his creative skepticism in many of his letters and poems, and that Keats’s ideas have been influenced by Hazlitt’s and Hume’s ideas. To understand Keats’s creative skepticism more fully, Hazlitt’s ideas on self-love and natural disinterestedness will be discussed as a relevant ideas to Keats’s ideas expressed in such famous passages as “the vale of soul making” and “negative capability.” Further, Hume’s “mitigated” skepticism revealed especially in Book I of A Treatise of Human Nature will be introduced in some length as a background information. As a result of this process, I would hope that we can understand Keat’s ideas about meaning and value of being a poet in this world. (Chonbuk National University)

“The Mother’s Image of Salvation: Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude and A Moon for the Misbegotten.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 37.2 (2011): 185-204. Eugene O’Neill, through his research of modern man’s conflict and suffering, hoped to find the meaning of existence and salvation. The female characters in his plays have a cold recognition as to the reality and play an important role for the male characters and help them acquire salvation through awakening. Both Nina, a mythologized woman and an active, positive mother in Strange Interlude, through her Life Force, and Josie, a perfect woman god and Earth Mother in A Moon for the Misbegotten, through her pity, forgiveness, and love, lead the male characters of the former, who suffer from mother-complex, and Tyrone of the latter, who suffers from his mental anguish and conflict caused by his mother’s death, to salvation for the return of true reality. Nina and Josie, as a mother and a helper, play a decisive and important role leading the male characters to salvation beyond the tradition and the restriction of mask. Therefore, the female characters, in the long run, enable the male characters to draw hope, brightness, affirmation, victory, and delight from despair, darkness, negation, defeat, and sorrow. (Wonkwang University · Cheongam College)

“‘The Profounder Wisdom’ of “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 37.2 (2011): 205-23. Hawthorne emphasizes the importance of ‘sympathy’, ‘humanity’, and ‘community’ in contrast to the systematic pursuit of perfection that destroys Aylmer and Georgiana of “The Birthmark”. Aylmer desires perfection and wishes to control nature. He believes that he can attain scientific perfection but his actual goal will be the destruction of the nature. Hawthorne warns the readers that scientific perfection will be achieved only through the understanding nature not manipulating it. Hawthorne also emphasizes that the attempt to gain perfection leads a human beings to forget that he is human created by ‘humus’, the earth. That is ‘the profounder wisdom’ in “The Birthmark” of Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Howon University)

“Park, Joo Eun. “Using Movies in University-Level Liberal English Education.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 37.2 (2011): 225-47. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the use of movies as part of a liberal English curriculum at the university level. Movies and their scripts are valuable learning tools in the university English classroom. The use of movies in the university English curriculum has six merits. These merits include the increase of students’ learning interest, the improvement of students’ listening ability, students’ absorption of idiomatic expressions, the possibility of role play, the students’ unique exposure to and understanding of native English speakers’ culture, and liberal education. In this study, I focus on the liberal English curriculum at S University. I suggest a lesson procedure. It is about Screen English. The main feature of the procedure about Screen English is the use of four language skills, while focusing on listening and speaking. I have analyzed students’ learning interest and their response when I taught English using my lesson procedure. I conducted the main experimental study on each class of the lecture. Above all, my results have shown that it is more effective to use movies to teach English. In conclusion, the use of movies in a university-level English curriculum provides a unique and valuable linguistic experience, as well as liberal education for students. (Shingu University)

“Test analysis of listening and reading item characteristics for the young Learners of English.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 37.2 (2011): 249-74. Currently, high-stake standardized language tests have been designed and administrated for the young learners of English at the elementary and secondary levels in Korea. The purpose of this study is to analyze the item characteristics of two tests which were intended to measure young learners’ English listening and reading ability. In order to identify the quality of test items, the three parameter Item Response Theory (IRT) was employed. Test takers were the young learners of English at the elementary and secondary levels, and they responded 60 items for each test. The quality of individual items was calculated with respect to the item difficulty level, discrimination power, and guessing parameter. The item parameters of sub-parts of tests were compared respectively on the basis of statistical indices. The findings suggest that the means of the difficulty, discrimination, and guessing parameters in two tests were quite similar. This study, however, identified the problematic aspects of item characteristics to be considered for enhancing the quality control of parallel test forms. (Chung-Ang University)

“Understanding and Reinterpretation of English Texts based on the Countability of English Nouns(with a focus on verses in the Bible).” Studies in English Language & Literature. 37.2 (2011): 275-89. One of the key linguistic features of English nouns is countability. The countability status of English nouns varies according to a given situational context. In this study, a Korean-English explanation bible was chosen to illustrate how certain English nouns are interpreted and translated under particular contexts and situations. We can notice that, in several cases, there is room for some more in-depth explanation and discussion. It is always a good idea to read both the Korean and the English versions of the Bible. In doing so, readers of the Bible will have a better grasp of the meanings of the Bible verses and will come to know more about the biblical truth. (Keimyung University)

“Enhancing the Recognition and Retention Ability of Spoken English Expressions through Literary Work Reading.” Studies on English Language & Literature. 37.2(2011): 291-318. This study is to explore how effective it is to recognize and retain the spoken English expressions when a literary text is used for reading. There are lots of spoken expressions in a literary text. Also it is argued that literary texts[esp. prose types] contain 'the context of situation' to be useful for communicative language skills. In this study the controlled group which handled some native speaker-contrived dialogues with the target expressions and the experimental group which handled some authentic literary works with the original expressions[the same target expressions] were compared and analyzed to check out the difference of the outcome for the recognition and retention ability of spoken English expressions under the same conditions. This study that was administered in a few ways[ie., paper tests as a main way and progress observation and a questionnaire as auxiliary ways] showed that the experimental group did better than the controlled group in recognizing and retaining the spoken English expressions. So it is concluded that literary texts should be strongly recommended as a very useful tool to learn very authentic spoken English expressions for communication. (Kongju University)

“CMC in English classrooms: Beyond the language learning” Studies in English Language & Literature. 37.2 (2011): 319-46. The purpose of this study is to explore the learning opportunities that computer-mediated communication (CMC) provides for ESL students in terms of other areas of learning such as affective domains besides language learning itself. Twelve ESL students participated in a CMC activity with twelve pre-service teachers who were individual discussion partners. The qualitative method was used for deep understanding of the research inquiries. Data include electronic discussion, detailed teacher observation and student survey. Data show that most students perceived the learning experience in the CMC environment positively. The findings imply that CMC use in English classrooms can provide several benefits to ESL students beyond English language learning. This study is a call for language teachers and researchers to be more concerned about other components related to language learning in CALL classrooms. (Hannam University)