Date of Award

2014

Publisher

North Dakota State University

Document Type

Master's Paper

Degree Awarded

Master of Arts (MA)

Program

English

Department

English

College

Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences

Faculty Advisor

Mara, Miriam

Description

The present study investigates how the modern re-authoring of Punk clothing styles through the character of Lisbeth Salander in Steig Larsson’s novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, its American film adaptation, and the subsequent H&M Dragon Tattoo collection works rhetorically within fiction and reality. A close reading of the novel and hybrid semiotic analysis of the film reveal a problematic characterization of Salander that overshadows the overwhelmingly positive response to her character from readers and viewers of the film. Conclusions from a rhetorical analysis of the original H&M press release and five articles that reported on the announcement, and analysis of data from a mixed methods survey include that the tensions and complexity in the fiction can lead to a contradictory and potentially dangerous understanding of how Punk clothing styles found in the H&M Dragon Tattoo collection function rhetorically in the lived experiences of women in Western society.

Rights

NDSU Policy 190.6.2

Rights Link

https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/policy/190.pdf

Handle Identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/10365/23234

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