Locating, Spatializing, and Depicting Evil Christie Lynn Daniels University of Texas at El Paso, [email protected]

University of Texas at El Paso DigitalCommons@UTEP Open Access Theses & Dissertations 2010-01-01 Remapping Evil: Locating, Spatializing, and Depicting Evil Christie Lynn Daniels University of Texas at El Paso, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd Part of the Rhetoric Commons Recommended Citation Daniels, Christie Lynn, "Remapping Evil: Locating, Spatializing, and Depicting Evil" (2010). Open Access Theses & Dissertations. 2666. https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd/2666 This is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UTEP. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UTEP. For more information, please contact [email protected]. REMAPPING EVIL: LOCATING, SPATIALIZING, AND DEPICTING MORALITY CHRISTIE LYNN DANIELS Department of English APPROVED: Carlos Salinas, Ph.D., Chair Beth Brunk-Chavez, Ph.D. Lex Williford Patricia D. Witherspoon, Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School Copyright © by Christie Lynn Daniels 2010 Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my mother who instilled in me a love of reading and never ending curiosity; to my father who taught me tenacity and perseverance; to my daughter Helena Catherine who gives meaning and purpose to everything I do; and, finally, to Dorian whose love, support, smiles, and hugs have seen me through these last four years, and their culmination—this dissertation. REMAPPING EVIL: LOCATING, SPATIALIZING, AND DEPICTING MORALITY by CHRISTIE DANIELS, B.A. DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at El Paso in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO August 2010 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr. Carlos Salinas for his endless patience and support throughout the writing of this dissertation. His guidance and feedback were extremely valuable and indispensable. Also, I would like to thank Dr. Beth Brunk-Chavez for her support in both the writing of this dissertation and as well as in my duties with the First-Year Composition program. Additionally, I would like to acknowledge the contributions of the faculty of the Rhetoric and Writing Studies program, particularly Dr. Helen Foster, Dr. Carol Clark, Dr. Elaine Fredericksen, and Dr. Kate Mangelsdorf for their expertise, support, and guidance. Finally, I would also like to thank my colleagues, Dr. Brian McNely, Marohang Limbu, Theresa Donovan, Lucia Dura, and Phanindra Upadhyaya. v Abstract This dissertation expands upon critical studies of difference by exploring one particular ideological construct and how its use propagates, maintains, and exacerbates ubiquitously existent social inequalities. The concept of evil has been employed in a way that marginalizes and villainizes individuals, groups, and even entire communities. Moreover, when they are deployed in a visual medium, the ideas and concepts conveyed are often not interrogated as closely as a written work would be. As a result, the guiding question of inquiry for this project is: How have western notions of good and evil been deployed and employed as a mechanism of hegemony and marginalization? In order to answer this question, this dissertation is primarily concerned with the visual depiction of morality. That is, it seeks to examine how good and evil are depicted images and how those depictions are ideologically-based. As a starting point, I examine textual representations of evil and posit ―the text‖ as a hegemonic and established object of study and the visual as often dismissed as non-academic, trivial, or frivolous. Consequently, I argue that images and visuals in popular culture represent an important tool for imparting ideology. This project represents a marrying of many rhetorical areas of inquiry by examining a core but accessible object of study. The perceived good/evil dichotomy is one that plays itself out in a variety of societal arenas. Particularly, graphic novels, whose adaptations form one of the more recent trends in popular film, provide fertile ground for the interrogation of societal values and mores. As such, pop culture artifacts represent an important area of study due to their ready acceptance by the public often without resistance or critical engagement. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgements .........................................................................................................................v Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... vi List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... ix Chapter 1: Surveying the Terrain: Introduction and Overview ...................................................1 Research Methodology ........................................................................................................11 Mapping the Route: Chapter Previews ...............................................................................14 Chapter 2: Following Directions: Textual Representations of Evil ..........................................18 Hegemony, Power, and Marginalization ............................................................................19 Religion and Evil .................................................................................................................24 Sor Juana and the Erosion of Evil.......................................................................................28 The Novel and the Depiction of Evil ..................................................................................35 Implications ..........................................................................................................................48 Chapter 3: Taking a Left: The Graphic Novel as the Textual-Visual Bridge ...........................50 Overview ..............................................................................................................................50 Verbal Elements ...................................................................................................................59 Visual Analysis ....................................................................................................................61 Watchmen .............................................................................................................................66 A Question of Techne ..........................................................................................................71 Color .....................................................................................................................................74 Chapter 4: Further Down the Road: Translating the Graphic Novel to Film ............................83 Rhetorical Explorations of Film .........................................................................................83 The Visual Rhetorical Analysis of Film .............................................................................89 Conclusion ..........................................................................................................................105 Chapter 5: New Excursions: Remapping First-Year Composition ..........................................106 Multimodality and Composition .......................................................................................108 Remapping First Year Composition at UTEP ..................................................................114 Tweaking English 1311 .....................................................................................................120 Conclusion ..........................................................................................................................129 vii Works Cited ................................................................................................................................131 Vita .............................................................................................................................................138 viii List of Figures Figure 1.1: The Techno-rhetorical Triad .................................................................................... 12 Figure 2.1: Impetus map for The Portrait of a Lady ................................................................. 38 Figure 2.2: Environment map for The Portrait of a Lady ......................................................... 39 Figure 2.3: Impetus map for Midnight’s Children ..................................................................... 41 Figure 2.4: Environment map for Midnight’s Children ............................................................ 43 Figure 2.5: Impetus map for Ceremony ...................................................................................... 47 Figure 2.6: Environment map for Ceremony ............................................................................. 47 Figure 3.1: Substance Map for Sin City ..................................................................................... 62 Figure 3.2: Impetus Map for Sin City ......................................................................................... 64 Figure 3.3: Environment Map for Sin City ................................................................................. 65 Figure 3.4: Substance Map for Watchmen ................................................................................

Load more