Muñiz-Soto, Verónica. Against the “Loi”: Counterpolitics of the Graphic Novel. MA Thesis. University of Puerto Rico, 2013. Río Piedras: UMI, 2014. Print.
Abstract:
This research states the premise that comic books are a solid contemporary example of literature, which aims to deconstruct classical notions of what literature, and a hero are. Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta and Watchmen are both examples of the thin line that divides justice and law and its interpretation of the “juste” inside popular culture. The first chapter presents the thin line between comics and graphic novels recreating a historical pathway from its genre, to its disruptive aesthetics and culminating with its insertion in the State’s propaganda machine. The second chapter has disarmed the (super)hero, has stripped him off his/her spandex and has situated him between the grey area that blurs the hero and the vigilante in order to reread those classical notions of heroism inside the genre.
Pérez, Jean-Carlo A. The Experienced Hero and the Apprentice: Mentorship and Structure in Succession Narratives. MA Thesis. University of Puerto Rico, 2014. Print.
Abstract:
This thesis project gives structure to what I have named succession narratives, a distinct paradigmatic narrative construction in stories where an experienced hero stagnant in his heroic journey relies on a surrogate apprentice to complete an unfinished mission. Based on Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, this work adopts the monomythical hero’s journey’s three main stages – ‘separation,’ ‘initiation’ and ‘return’ — and adapts them for succession narratives as ‘death,’ ‘rebirth’ and ‘individuation.’ In succession narratives, experienced heroes undergo a symbolic death that prevents them from continuing their own journeys. When surrogacy is opted, experienced heroes turned mentors train their apprentices in their Imago Dei in order to make them accomplish what they could have not completed on their own. The result is an identity foreclosure for both heroes that evidence a generation shift in heroic responsibilities. Proving that this structure functions regardless of medium, this thesis project develops a theory based on popular and highly acclaimed works of fiction, including mentor and apprentice relationships in the Star Wars saga, the graphic novel V for Vendetta, the portrayal of the Batman mythos in comic books and TV and the films Red River, The Cowboys and The Mask of Zorro. In addition, this work studies the archetypal and cultural roles of mentors and apprentices from a psychoanalytical perspective in relation to the stories they are bound in.
