The portrayal of the university professor in the American short story, 1940-1959

The purpose of this study was to survey a wide sampling of American short stories from the years 1940-1959 which employ the college professor as a character to determine (1) if any discernible patterns of character portrayal could be discovered and (2) whether the image of the fictional college professor was static or dynamic. Some consideration was also given to the differences found to exist between the image of the professor in the fiction of the 1920's and 1930's and his image in the fiction of the period selected, and to the parallel between the professor's fictional and nonfictional images.The decades of the 1940's and 1950's were selected for this study primarily because these years represent a period of transition for the college short story in America. The fiction of the 1920's and 30's usually presented to readers a melodramatic and/or stereotyped image of the university professor. Very few stories dealt with the professor or the university environment in a realistic way.Thesis (D. Ed.