What program should I use to open DOS files in WordPerfect, circa version 5.1? In Windows I have tried Notepad and I got this. It is really old — it cites something from 1979.
That is why it is in DOS. It is a talk I gave because someone wanted to put me in a 19th century slot at a conference, and it was what I was secretly interested in, but I did not develop it further as I was working on a completely different dissertation project.
This was in the 80s so it is quite a dated abstract but this is where my “evoke-and-elide thesis,” which I am still interested in, comes from. Now I have gone through DOS files and I have found the abstract. But look at the garbled print. I have a lot of good things in DOS, everything until about 1997.
Axé.
Identity and Difference in ÃÃMarÀ1ÀaÄă
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Responding to what, following Terry Eagleton,Ö s ` ÍTerry Eagleton, “Ideology, Fiction, Narrative,” ÃÃSocialÄÄ ÃÃTextÄÄ (Summer 1979): 62©80. s Ö I shall call the novel’s ÃÃcognitiveÄÄ discourse©©its self©presentation as a sentimental love story embodying the defini¬tions of nobility and innocence it takes from its predecessors ÃÃPaul et VirginieÄÄ and ÃÃAtalaÄÄ©©the poet GutiÀ)Àrrez NÀÀjera called Jorge Isaacs’ ÃÃMarÀ1ÀaÄÄ (1867) “un libro casto, un libro sano, un libro honrado.”Ö ] È 0 ÍJorge Isaacs, ÃÃMarÀ1ÀaÄÄ (MÀ)Àxico: PorrÀCÀa, 1984), frontispiece.] Ö A reading of the novel at this level, however, does not account for the constellation of half©submerged anxieties about sex, cultural identity, race and class relations which informs its structure. In this paper I attempt to excavate this ÃÃemotiveÄÄ discourse and to show how it works to inscribe but also to destabilize the values of a patriarchal and slave©owning society in the text of this novel.
Á ÁThe narrative, told in the first person by the hero, EfraÀ1Àn, revolves around his ill©fated adolescent romance with his adopted sister, MarÀ1Àa. Its shape and style seem to be generated out of a strong compul¬sion to present a coherent, unified world. TheÔ `” ° 0* ( (@@ Ô plantation where most of the action takes place is represen¬ted as a kind of patriarchal Eden, in which slaves, small farmers, and large landowners contribute mutually to each others’ happiness and well©being. EfraÀ1Àn takes great pains to insist that this world functions harmo¬niously; he insists upon the moral rectitude, the commitment to justice, and the sincere Christian faith of his wealthy landowning family. Á ÈÈ7 Á
Á ÁIn this context the heroine, MarÀ1Àa, plays a pivotal role. As mirror of virtue and feminine submission, she affirms EfraÀ1Àn’s position as hero and conscience of the novel. Her much©touted “purity” (including the fervor of her faith and her obvious association with the Virgin) serves to confirm the purity of the motives and actions of her adopted family and the society they symbolize. Finally, MarÀ1Àa, who has converted from Judaism to Christianity, is at least metaphorically a woman of mixed race. As such, she can be seen as the positive emblem of a new, “authentically American” society. Thus MarÀ1Àa is in a strong sense the stone on which the world that the novel presents is founded; interes¬tingly, this world is founded in an act of embracing, and then erasing, “impurity” or cultural difference.ÃÃÄÄ Á ÁIn fact, MarÀ1Àa’s double nature as Christian and Jew, as well as virgin and lover, sister and wife, reveals the dualistic structures upon which this novel is based. The novel’s effort to unite these dualities or at least to keep them in balance©©to make the Other revert back to the Same©©masks a deeper series of con¬tradictions which, in my reading, are the novel’s repressedÔ ’ 0* ( (@@ Ô preoccupations. These are the contradictions of class and race that are the real foundations of a slave©owning society. Thus, the treatment of sexuality and the Jewish leitmotif in the character MarÀ1Àa function to elide the issues this novel inscribes within itself but dares not face: first, the denial of slavery as the basis of the world ÃÃMarÀ1ÀaÄÄ evokes, and more generally, a secret uneasiness about the possibility of founding a society that is both plural and based on an erasure of difference.
Áàìì* Áƒ
coldhearted scientist وداد 
What is the file’s format? Can you give the full filename or filename extension? And is that all the text, here in this post, or only a sample?
Thank you, Wogglebug! There are many of these files, some long, and they are in .wpd. WordPerfect 5.1 or 5.2 for DOS. I really work in Linux now which is the next wrinkle in all of this, although I have a PC at work and access to Macs. I am guessing the new WordPerfect might open them … but I was hoping I could open them into .txt.
Do you have access to Word? Several sources agree that this method should work:
1) Start Word.
2) Go to File – Open, and set it to show all file types.
3) Select a .wpd and open it.
Then you can save the document as a file type that your current software can edit.
The key is that Notepad does not parse formatting, but Word can parse many common types of formatting. You just have to launch the program first and use the Open dialog box; trying to double-click on the file will not work.
Fantastic!!! I will try this!!! Thank you soooo much!!!