Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Feminism and literature'
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Fish, Tamara Lynn. "Feminist traces : women and feminism in college composition and communication, 1963-1992 /." Digital version accessible at:, 1998. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/main.
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Kastelein, Barbara. "Popular/post-feminism and popular literature." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1994. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/36104/.
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This thesis is concerned with the ambivalence expressed towards feminism by many women in the last decade and identifies post-feminism as a problematic through which to explore this in contemporary women's writing. It focuses on selected fictional and non-fictional texts of the 1980s and 1990s and examines the ways in which they engage with feminist concerns. Until now, post-feminism has not been studied through its articulations in popular literature. To do justice to the wide range of views held by women and avoid a defensive and pessimistic reading of commercialised mainstream culture, I have made use of intertextual readings. The methodology is derived from feminist critical theory and cultural studies in order to address the relation between feminist and non-feminist literary texts and the dynamic interchange between what have been labelled as feminist politics and mainstream or consumer women' s interests. The significance of the research lies in the identification of ways in which such works of fiction and nonfiction provide an outlet for women's voices which could serve as a basis for developing feminist criticism and politics. The thesis is divided into three chapters, the different themes of which illustrate post-feminist concerns. In the first, I address the literature of popular therapy by women. The second chapter focuses on contemporary fictional and non-fictional writings by women on sex. The final chapter examines women' s relationship to transgression through genres of crime writing. I have found that popular literary forms used by women may offer a progressive and complex reading of post-feminism. I conclude that post-feminism has drawn on popular elements of feminism and that, at the beginning of the 1990s, one may identify a reincorporation of feminism into postfeminism.
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Adebayo, Adebanke. "West African Feminism| Maneuvering the Reality of Feminism Using Osun." Thesis, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10682016.
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West African Women writers are constantly looking for ways to maneuver the patriarchal system within their indigenous cultures. To say maneuvering implies the dilemma in consciously navigating patriarchal epistemology as West African women, which in reality is not exotic to other feminist struggles outside the continent. To deal with the dilemma of constantly maneuvering, this thesis suggest for an indigenous framework. It suggests Osun –a Nigerian goddess– as a response to the theoretical problems and as a methodology to navigating a postcolonial patriarchal worldview in order to express West African feminist discourse. The specificity of Osun is essential, but the fluidity of Osun across borders cannot be undermined as it paves the way for flexibility within feminist and gender discourse and draws upon various gender oppressed experiences. The idea of specificity and fluidity is fundamental to developing Osun as West African feminist discourse because of her ability to transcend space. The combination of specificity and fluidity are necessary within any feminist discourse as it allows for women from different regions to relate and align the tenets to their specific struggles found in the diversity of Osun.
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Kerr, Joanna. "Learning from the novel : feminism, philosophy, literature." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/26656.
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Analytic philosophy since Plato has been notoriously hostile to literature, and yet in recent years, increasing numbers of philosophers within the tradition have sought to take seriously the question of how it is that literature can be philosophical. Analytic philosophy has also been noted for its hostility to women and resistance to feminism. In this thesis I seek to make connections between firstly the prejudice against, and then the potential for, the contribution of the perspectives of literature and feminism in philosophy, attempting to answer simultaneously the two questions; How can literature be philosophical? How can feminists write philosophy? In the sense that I attempt to take these questions seriously, and answer them precisely, this thesis fits into the analytic philosophical tradition. However, my response to these questions, and thus the majority of this thesis, takes the form of a non-traditional demonstration of the philosophical potential of literature presented through three feminist literary genres; autographical fiction, utopian fiction, and detective fiction. Using generic divisions seems to be an appropriate strategy for reclaiming literature as philosophical, since it suggests an identification with the Aristotelian defence of literary arts against Plato's assault. However, I will argue that these literary genres have traditionally been defined in terms which prohibit a philosophical reading. I will expose and then recover this anti-philosophical bias, particularly when it coincides with feminist genre revisions. This recovery will take the form of a philosophical reconceptualizing of each genre, and a specific comparative analysis of two texts adopted as representative of each genre as I conceive it. In this way I hope to show that it is not only possible, but highly advantageous, to learn from the novel.
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McIver, Victoria. "Psychoanalytic feminism: a systematic literature review of gender." AUT University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10292/905.
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Using a modified, systematic literature review I will examine issues of subjectivity, gender, and differnce in relation to psychoanalytic feminist theory. Psychoanalytic feminism evolved out of a reaction to classical psychoanalytic theory. In particular, the works of Chodorow (1978), Kristeva, (1977, 1989) and Benjamin (1988) were used. The literature revew will discuss the development of these theoretical perspectives and the understanding of subjectivity, gender and difference in psychoanalytic feminism and the implication this has for clinical practice.
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Young, Kathyrn M. "Withdrawn from Curriculum: Feminism and Young Adult Literature." Ohio University Honors Tutorial College / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouhonors1307377432.
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Allen-Johnstone, Claire. "Dress, feminism, and British New Woman novels." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2018. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:dd38da33-efbb-463f-86fd-9fcc1c4f707e.
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This thesis examines the close and complex relationship between dress, feminism, and British New Woman novels. It provides in-depth analysis of six New Woman novels and draws comparisons with numerous other works. The case study texts are Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm (1883) and From Man to Man: Or Perhaps Only ... (1926, posthumously), Sarah Grand's Ideala: A Study from Life (1881) and The Heavenly Twins (1893), and Grant Allen's The Woman Who Did (1895) and The Type-Writer Girl (1897). I explore why dress was so important to such novels, and examine the diverse, individual, developing, and shared ways in which authors engaged with dress as a feminist strategy and feminist concern. Areas considered include From Man to Man's use of functional clothes and dress production to celebrate female labour, Grand's interest in both dress reform and dressing to impress, Allen's shift in focus from the white-clad free lover to the sensibly-dressed working woman, and authors' use of deceptively clean clothes to address male immorality and disease. The thesis looks beyond as well as within New Woman narratives, demonstrating that writers, and publishers, were broadly concerned with dress in its various literal and more metaphorical manifestations. Focuses include self-styling, authorial cross-dressing, and bindings. Dress does not, however, always seamlessly support these texts' feminisms, I argue. For example, Grand elevated cross-class feminism, but she belittled middle-class women's taste, side-lined poor women's most pressing sartorial concerns, and dressed to impress. I also stress that dress, being so closely bound up with New Woman novels' feminisms and their ambiguities, is a revealing lens through which to read such texts, and one often capable of prompting re-readings. Attention to Allen's rejection of sartorial realism in parts of The Woman Who Did problematises the dominant conception of this novel as straightforwardly pro-free union, for instance. The thesis, as well as gesturing towards dress's centrality to the production and interpretation of literary feminisms and anti-feminisms broadly, emphasises the importance of dress to New Woman literature and its analysts, and uses dress to provide fresh readings of various novels and genre-wide issues.
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Munt, Sally Rowena. "Feminism and the crime novel." Thesis, University of Sussex, 1992. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.387221.
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Bosch, Marta (Bosch Vilarrubias). "Post-9/11 Representations of Arab Men by Arab American Women Writers: Affirmation and Resistance." Doctoral thesis, Universitat de Barcelona, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/392705.
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This dissertation provides an analysis of the representation of Arab American men in post-9/11 writings by Arab American women. This thesis contributes a new inquiry regarding Arab American literature in joining the subject of literature written by women and the study of Arab American masculinities. It delves into the construction (from both outsider and insider perspectives) of Arab American masculinities, at the same time as it expounds on the history of Arab (American) feminisms, placing Arab American women writers in a privileged space of contestation and critique in their fight against both sexism and racism. This dissertation wants to visibilize the nuanced depiction of Arab and Arab American men provided by Arab American women writers after 9/11, who have been informed by feminism since the 1990s. In their attempt to fight both sexism and racism, Arab American women provide ambivalent representations of Arab men that counter stereotypical discourses historically entrenched in the American psyche and also recurrent after 9/11. Furthermore, this thesis also intends to provide an analysis of fiction as a representation of reality, while also understanding literature as a potential conductor of change in cultural discourses. To do so, the dissertation is structured in four main parts which examine the context, reasons, and potential consequences of the specific portrayals of Arab American masculinities published by Arab American women after 9/11. The first chapter covers the historical vilification and racialization of Arab men in the United States, by taking on theories on biopolitics (Foucault), necropolitics (Mbembe, Puar), and monster-terrorist (Puar and Rai) in relation to the traumatic experience of September 11. The second deals with the discourses that aid in the social construction of Arab American identities and masculinities, with a special emphasis given to the theories of neopatriarchy (Sharabi), heterotopia (Foucault) and thirdspace (Soja, Bhaba). The construction of Arab American identities is also analyzed (David), as well as Arab American masculinities (Harpel). The third chapter examines the development and characteristics of Arab American feminisms (Hatem), as well as their influence to Arab American women writers. Finally, the fourth part takes on the theories from previous chapters and provides a literary analysis of the male characters in a group of selected novels published after 9/11. Those are: Diana Abu-Jaber's Crescent (2003), Laila Halaby's West of the Jordan (2003), Alicia Erian's Towelhead (2005), Laila Halaby's Once in A Promised Land (2007), Frances Kirallah Noble's The New Belly Dancer of the Galaxy (2007), Susan Muaddi Darraj's The Inheritance of Exile: Stories from South Philly (2007), Randa Jarrar's A Map of Home (2008), and Alia Yunis's The Night Counter (2009).Esta tesis proporciona un análisis de la representación de los hombres árabo-americanos en novelas escritas por mujeres después del 11 de septiembre. Este estudio contribuye una novedosa investigación en relación a la literatura árabo-americana al juntar el estudio de la literatura escrita por mujeres y el análisis de las masculinidades árabo-americanas. La tesis explora la construcción de las masculinidades árabo-americanas, al mismo tiempo que explica la historia de los feminismos árabo-americanos, situando a las mujeres árabo-americanas en un espacio privilegiado de contestación y crítica en su lucha contra el sexismo y contra el racismo. Esta tesis quiere visibilizar la compleja representación de los hombres árabes y árabo-americanos ofrecida por mujeres árabo-americanas después del 11 de septiembre, mujeres influenciadas por el feminismo desde los años noventa. En su lucha contra el sexismo y el racismo, estas mujeres proporcionan representaciones ambivalentes de hombres árabes que contrarrestan los discursos estereotípicos recurrentes después del 11 de septiembre y arraigados en la psique norteamericana. Además, proporciona un análisis de la ficción como representación de la realidad, entendiendo la literatura como conductor potencial de cambio en los discursos culturales. Para ello, el estudio se estructura en cuatro partes que examinan los contextos, razones y potenciales consecuencias de las representaciones específicas de las masculinidades árabo-americanas publicadas por mujeres después del 11 de septiembre. El primer capítulo cubre la vilificación y racialización históricas del hombre árabe en los Estados Unidos, tomando las teorías de “biopolitics” (Foucault), “necropolitics” (Mbembe, Puar), y “monster-terrorist” (Puar y Rai) para entender la experiencia traumática del 11 de septiembre. El segundo trata sobre los discursos que ayudan a la construcción social de las identidades y masculinidades árabo-americanas, dando especial énfasis a las teorías de “neopatriarchy” (Sharabi), “heterotopia” (Foucault) y “thirdspace” (Soja, Bhaba). La construcción de identidades árabo-americanas también es analizada, así como las masculinidades árabo-americanas. El tercer capítulo examina el desarrollo y características de los feminismos árabo-americanos, así como su influencia para las escritoras árabo-americanas. Finalmente, el cuarto capítulo recoge las teorías expuestas en los capítulos previos y proporciona un análisis literario de los personajes masculinos en un grupo de novelas publicadas después del 11 de septiembre: Crescent (2003) de Diana Abu-Jaber, West of the Jordan (2003) de Laila Halaby, Towelhead (2005) de Alicia Erian, Once in A Promised Land (2007) de Laila Halaby, The New Belly Dancer of the Galaxy (2007) de Frances Kirallah Noble, The Inheritance of Exile: Stories from South Philly (2007) de Susan Muaddi Darraj, A Map of Home (2008) de Randa Jarrar, y The Night Counter (2009) de Alia Yunis.
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Guyon, Elisabeth Louise. "The New Feminine Rhetoric: Wollstonecraft, Austen, and the Forms of Romantic-Era Feminism." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 2008. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd2324.pdf.
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Gale, Heather. "Constance Beresford-Howe's interrogation of integrative feminism." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/6537.
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This thesis analyzes Constance Beresford-Howe's novels in terms of their place in the contemporary feminist debate over women's traditional roles as mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives. Her treatment of these roles supports Andrea O'Reilly's assertion that Beresford-Howe espouses what Angela Miles has called "integrative feminism", "a feminism which affirms and celebrates women's specificity and asks not for the eradication of women's traditional roles and values but for the recognition of their importance" (O'Reilly 69). Chapter One deals with a range of feminist literary criticism and particularly with the notion of "integrative feminism" and its applicability to the novels of Beresford-Howe, as well as entertaining complementary and divergent readings of this theory offered by such critics as Germaine Greer and Judith Stacey. Chapter Two considers the portrayal of sisters, daughters, and other female "helpers" in such novels as Of this Day's Journey (1947), The Invisible Gate (1949), My Lady Greensleeves (1955), A Population of One (1977), and Prospero's Daughter (1988). Chapter Three examines the portrayal of the institutionalized roles of mother and wife in such novels as The Unreasoning Heart (1946), My Lady Greensleeves 1955), The Book of Eve (1973), and Night Studies (1985). Chapter four extends the discussion of mothers and wives, with an emphasis on the protagonist's successful redefinition of those roles in The Marriage Bed (1981) and A Serious Widow (1991).
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Evans, Matthew. "A critical stylistic analysis of the textual meanings of 'feminism', 'feminist(s)' and 'feminist' in UK national newspapers, 2000-2009." Thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2016. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/30184/.
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This thesis is a critical stylistic analysis of the meanings of the lexemes 'feminism', 'feminist(s)' and 'feminist' in UK national newspapers, 2000-2009. It uses the textual-conceptual functions set out in Jeffries (2010a) to investigate the linguistic contexts in which these lexemes occur within the data in order to assess to what extent the movement, the people who represent it, and things that are described as feminist are imbued with different textually constructed meanings. The analysis tests previous studies' findings concerning portrayals of feminism and feminists in the media. Expanding on and responding to this research, this study reports on five main findings: • 'Feminism', 'feminist(s)' and 'feminist' have positive, as well as negative, meanings. • 'Feminism' and 'feminists' are a western phenomenon, with different types in the past and present. • 'Feminism' has a complex meaning, with no single, universal definition and a variety of types. • 'Feminism' is presented as having undergone changes in meaning, as antonymous to other ideas and containing opposed meanings. • Portrayals of 'feminism' are complex, with articles recognising and contesting different meanings of the lexemes. These findings both confirm and question previous studies, which have argued that feminism and feminists are portrayed negatively in newspaper texts. It provides linguistic evidence to support claims made by other non-linguistic studies of the same genre and time period: that portrayals of feminism are 'fragmented' (Mendes, 2011a, p. 49) and that they present feminism as consisting of approved and disapproved types (Dean, 2010). I also discuss the lexemes 'feminism', 'feminist(s)' and 'feminist' in with regard to contested meaning, using critical stylistic tools to analyse how newspaper articles textually construct different meanings of the lexemes, and explicitly discuss and compare different definitions. The thesis argues that the analysis of textual meaning can be used to explore how the meanings of a lexeme or set of lexemes that 'involve ideas and values' (Williams, 1983, p. 17) are constructed in a variety of ways through the linguistic context in which they occur. I also reflect on the usefulness of the textualconceptual functions in the manual analysis of a large dataset, identifying ways in which an analysis that seeks to provide as full as possible an account of the textual construction of meaning can produce findings not possible through other means of analysis.
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Tai, Yu-Chen. "(W)holistic Feminism: Decolonial Healing in Women of Color Literature." The Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1459357822.
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Dunn, Angela Frances. "The continental drift : Anglo-American and French theories of tradition and feminism." Thesis, McGill University, 1987. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=63972.
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Flaherty, Patricia. ""Poor girl!" feminism, disability and the other in Ulysses /." Diss., Connect to the thesis, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10066/634.
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York, Regina. "Feminism, Selfhood & Emily Dickinson." TopSCHOLAR®, 1991. https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/3019.
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This paper will draw on the work of leading feminist critics and the works of Dickinson, her biographers, and her critics. No effort is being made to trace the history of feminist criticism; that has been done numerous times by critic after critic. Nor does this paper attempt to provide a concordance to critical thought on Dickinson. That, too, is unnecessary. Rather, this paper looks at the relationship between self-identity in Dickinson's poetry and the fundamental need for such a pronounced sense of identity to serve as the cornerstone of feminist criticism. Dickinson's courage to be female and the implications of that courage on her world view are at the core of neofeminist or post-feminist criticism. Dickinson exhibited an independence of mind that broke out of the boxes of cultural constraints developing a strong sense of identity as a woman and as a poet. She expressed a strong moral view of the world solidly grounded in, but often critical of, the Christian tradition. With her strong sense of self, her overarching moral vision, and her disregard for the "oughts" and "shoulds" of her culture, Dickinson held her work to a high standard of significance. Feminist criticism is only now reaching such a standard of significance. As Dickinson achieved personal wholeness and creative integrity through the integration of (not the obliteration or repression of) opposing qualities, feminist criticism, too, must have that same courage to stand firm in the face of powerful opposition and defy social and political pressures to conform. Conforming to a mediocre, and consequently powerless but socially acceptable, integrated position within mainstream criticism places feminist criticism once again on the sidelines waiting for the next popular trend to relegate it even further from the intellectual center.
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Sydeman, Melissa. "Misogynist politics : film theory, feminism and Brian De Palma." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.386520.
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Rose, Patricia Elizabeth. "The Role of medieval and matristic romance literature in spiritual feminism /." [St. Lucia, Qld.], 2001. http://www.library.uq.edu.au/pdfserve.php?image=thesisabs/absthe16284.pdf.
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Chou, Mei-ching Tammy, and 周美貞. "Feminism and the representations of teenaged girls in 20th century children's literature." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2005. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31940201.
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Chou, Mei-ching Tammy. "Feminism and the representations of teenaged girls in 20th century children's literature." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2005. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B31940201.
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Eltis, Sarah. "Anarchism, feminism and socialism in the plays of Oscar Wilde." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.241287.
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Kellar, Pinard Katrina. "Settler Feminism in Contemporary Canadian Historical Fiction." Thesis, Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/39608.
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Canada has seen a veritable explosion in the production and popularity of historical fiction in recent decades. Works by women that present a feminist revision of national narratives have played a key part in this phenomenon. This thesis discusses three contemporary Canadian historical novels: Gil Adamson’s The Outlander (2007), Ami McKay’s The Birth House (2006), and Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace (1996). By examining these novels through a settler colonial lens and with a specific interest in the critique of settler feminism, this thesis offers readings that can reveal how feminism operates within the confines of the settler fantasy. These readings suggest that women’s historical fiction offers an opportunity to consider different aspects of feminism in the settler setting and to consider different aspects of critiques of patriarchy in settler contexts. This thesis suggests that these novels present a settler women’s history that cannot be properly understood through the simplistic logic of male/female or colonizer/colonized oppositions, and that the ways the novels depict women’s interactions with patriarchal settler structures and institutions can contribute to critical understandings of a colonial history with which Canada continues to reckon.
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Dhrodia, Reshma. ""Have you met Miss Jones?": Feminism and difference in the Bridget Jones diaries." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/27125.
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Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones novels are popular with countless readers all over the world. They are "ripe for feminist interpretation and investigation" because they are "contemporary women's novels" that discuss the everyday lives of women, particularly unmarried women in the West (Whelehan 2004, 38). Imelda Whelehan argues that if the Bridget Jones novels do not "offer a 'true' reflection of contemporary single life for women, they perhaps present its tensions more boldly than ever" (2004, 30). This thesis is a feminist study of the Bridget Jones novels and the film adaptation of Bridget Jones's Diary, focussing on how discourses of feminism and otherness appear in Fielding's texts and in the film, and how the major women characters use them to interpret their own lives.
Chapter One investigates the ways in which Bridget, Sharon, and Pam Jones understand feminism and employ feminist language in Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary (1996). Chapter Two explores how characters who are Other---those who are racially and ethnically different from Bridget, her friends, and her family---create barriers between the white, heterosexual couples in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (1999). Finally, Chapter Three turns to the 2001 film adaptation of Bridget Jones's Diary in order to demonstrate how prevalent themes in the first novel, including feminism, go missing in the adaptation.
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Khoury, Nicole Michelle. "Hybrid identity and Arab/American feminism in Diana Abu-Jaber's Arabian Jazz." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2005. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/2862.
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In her novel Arabian Jazz, Diana Abu-Jaber attempts to explore the Arab American identity as something new; as an identity that exists related to, but ultimately separate from, the Arab and American identities from which it was originally created. This thesis discusses the emergence of the depiction of the Arab American female identity in the novel, examining how the characters explore issues of race, class, imperialism, and sex within both the Arab and the American cultures as those issues shape female identity. The thesis also presents a rhetorical analysis of the speeches that allow the characters a voice with respect to how identity is shaped and reshaped throughout the novel.
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MacArthur, Lori Kinder. "John Rawls, Feminism, and the Gendered Self." PDXScholar, 1995. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/5030.
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John Rawls's theory of justice, which he calls "justice as fairness," has proven to be most influential with regard to the course of contemporary political theory. In both of Rawls's books, A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism, his aim was to present a theoretically-compelling defense of deontological liberalism, and to present a set of principles by which to fairly order a just society. While Rawls's project has attracted a fair number of proponents over the years, it has also been a popular target for liberal and nonliberal critics alike. A recurrent theme among these criticisms has been an objection with Rawls's conception of the self as presented in A Theory of Justice. This thesis will focus on feminists' criticisms of Rawls's conception of persons. In general, feminists contend that Rawlsian liberalism suffers a structural gender bias resulting from Rawls's conception of the self. Rawls's notion of the self, feminists argue, rests on male or masculine attributes. I will demonstrate in the course of this thesis that feminists' charges fail on two accounts. First, feminists do not present an accurate reading of Rawls's conception of persons in either A Theory of Justice or Political Liberalism. Second, in reviewing feminist approaches to gendering the self (which is integral to their critique), it will be shown that feminists are unable to gender the self in a theoretically defensible manner. Thus, feminists cannot make the claim that the Rawlsian self is a male or masculine concept. It follows from these twin defects that feminist contentions fail to prove that Rawls's theory is gender biased.
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Sears, John. "Gothic times : feminism and postmodernism in the novels of Angela Carter." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 1993. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/1816/.
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The problematic relationship between feminism and postmodernism manifests itself, in contemporary fiction by women, as a conflict between political and aesthetic practices which is ultimately waged upon the ground of subjectivity. Angela Carter's novels offer an extended exploration of subjectivity which utilises, in many ways self consciously, the ongoing theorisation of subjectivity and related notions - notably desire, gender and power - which characterises contemporary feminist and postmodernist philosophy. This thesis offers a series of readings of Carter's novels which traces their engagement with particular aspects of the theorisation of subjectivity. It attempts to present Carter's novels as examples of how the aesthetic and the political can to a certain extent be combined, and of how feminist political practice can be both represented and problematised in the postmodernist fictional text, while postmodernist aesthetic practices are also exploited but problematised in and by that exploitation. The Introduction explores the relationship between feminist and postmodernist theories of the subject, through a survey of theorists from both 'camps' and a brief survey of contemporary women novelists, before discussing the critical neglect of Carter's fiction. Chapter 2 explores more extensively the confluence of feminist, postmodernist and psychoanalytic models of the subject and offers an exemplary reading of a short story by Carter, in order to demonstrate certain stylistic and thematic characteristics of her fiction. In particular, psychoanalytic models of subjectivity are examined. The succeeding two Chapters address Carter's early (pre-1972) novels in order to explore the development of her fictional career from its context of 1960s British fiction, and trace the progressive elaboration of certain thematic preoccupations in their nascent form. Three further Chapters individually address each novel in Carter's 'trilogy' so as to demonstrate how each text explores a particular aspect of the construction of the postmodern self. The Conclusion offers a reading of Carter's fiction as extensively engaged, both at a formal and a thematic level, with the deconstruction of conventional notions of the self in order to expose the political interests invested in those notions. Carter's last novel is also addressed in the context of this discussion, as are the ways in which Carter's fiction offers contributions to the feminist/postmodernist debate as discussed throughout the thesis. Throughout the thesis, extensive reference is made to critical and theoretical works which elucidate or impinge upon the themes addressed in Carter's novels, and Carter's own comments in interviews and in her critical texts are also utilised.
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Bertacini, Vanessa Cezarin. "A desintegração do sujeito feminino em A redoma de vidro, de Sylvia Plath /." Araraquara, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/154858.
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Orientador: Aparecido Donizete RossiBanca: Alcides Cardoso dos Santos
Banca: Carla Alexandra Ferreira
Resumo: Sylvia Plath é uma escritora norte-americana do século XX conhecida principalmente por sua poesia e por seu suicídio precoce. Em 1963, ela publica seu único romance, A redoma de vidro [The Bell Jar], em que narra a história de Esther Greenwood, jovem americana da década de 1950 que se encontra em um caminho de autoaniquilação ao se deparar com as regras sociais impostas pela ideologia patriarcal, a qual tenta impedi-la de assumir seu eu verdadeiro e desenvolver todas as suas potencialidades. O objetivo deste trabalho é entender de que forma a autora, por meio da atualização do conceito de subtexto de autoria feminina para o século XX, utiliza a temática da desintegração do sujeito feminino como estratégia de resistência ao patriarcado. Para tanto, utilizam-se os escritos de Virginia Woolf sobre o ideal do Anjo do Lar, presentes em seu ensaio "Professions for Women" (1942); de Gilbert e Gubar sobre a literatura de autoria feminina, retirados de sua obra The Madwoman in the Attic (1979); e de Elaine Showalter sobre o discurso de duas vozes empreendido pelas mulheres autoras, presentes em seus ensaios "Towards a Feminist Poetics" (1979) e "A crítica feminista no território selvagem" (1981). A partir da análise do romance, busca-se mostrar de que forma Plath denuncia os efeitos devastadores da ideologia patriarcal sobre o corpo e a mente das mulheres.
Abstract: Sylvia Plath is a twentieth-century North-American writer, mainly known by her poetry and her early suicide. In 1963, she publishes her only novel, The Bell Jar, in which she tells the story of Esther Greenwood, a young American woman from the 1950's who finds herself in a self-annihilation path when confronted by the social rules imposed by the patriarchal ideology, which tries to stop her from assuming her true self and developing all her potentialities. The aim of this work is to understand in what way the writer, through the actualization of the concept of subtext in female authorship to the twentieth century, employs the theme of female subject disintegration as a resistance strategy to patriarchy. For this purpose, we use Virginia Woolf's writings on the Angel in the House's ideal, from her essay "Professions for Women" (1942); Gilbert and Gubar's writings on the literature of female authorship, from their work The Madwoman in the Attic (1979); and Elaine Showalter's writings on the double-voiced discourse employed by women writers, from her essays "Towards a Feminist Poetics" (1979), and "Feminism Criticism in the Wilderness" (1981). From the analysis of the novel, we aim to show in which way Plath exposes the devastating effects of the patriarchal ideology on women's bodies and minds.
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Garcia, Alesia 1962. "Aztec Nation: History, inscription, and indigenista feminism in Chicana literature and political discourse." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/282854.
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In the United States in the mid-1960's, Chicano cultural nationalists mobilized a generation by recuperating the history and mythology of the pre-conquest Aztecs as strategies of political resistance. Claiming themselves la Raza de Bronce the Bronze race) in their art, literature, and political discourse, Chicano activists and intellectuals distinguished themselves racially from white America and worked toward reunifying an indigenous culture that had been fragmented by colonization and diaspora. This discursive practice of reinscribing Mexican Indian ancestry is a political act that I refer to as narrating the Aztec Nation. Indigenous movement activists across the Americas have often reclaimed their pre-colonial histories. "Aztec Nation" examines the impact of Chicano cultural nationalist revisions of Mexican indigenismo (politics and aesthetics of the post-1910 indigenous movement) upon race, class, gender, and sexuality in contemporary Chicano and Chicana literature and political discourse. In my analysis of Chicano and Chicana political manifestos, graphic art, poetry, essays, and novels, I trace various Chicano cultural nationalist expressions of indigenista ideology throughout el movimiento (the Chicano movement). In particular, I develop critical approaches for rereading Chicana literature and activist journalism published in Chicano/a movement newspapers and journals between 1969 and 1979 that emphasize Chicana faminist reinventions of indigenismo as a transnational alternative to ideological limitations within the Chicano cultural nationalist and second wave white American feminist movements. I offer a new critical term: "Chicana indigenista feminism," which recognizes a distinct Chicana feminist discourse that is characterized by an ongoing negotiation of mestiza (mixed blood) identity. My investigation begins with analyses of Chicano cultural nationalist literature and political documents from 1964 and ends with a reevaluation of chicana indigenista feminist theories posited as recently as 1994.
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Garayta, Isabel. ""Womanhandling" the text : feminism, rewriting, and translation /." Digital version accessible at:, 1998. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/main.
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Hare, Nicola Tracy. "The goddess, the witch and the bitch : three studies in the perception of women." Thesis, University of Port Elizabeth, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/278.
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In the minds of many people all over the world, women are ‘second class citizens’, standing accused of the downfall of mankind ever since Eve allegedly ate the apple. Even amongst those who do not openly denigrate women, there are many who do so in other, more subtle ways even if they are unaware of it. This study proposes to challenge such a view of women by exposing the ways in which perceptions of women are constructed by society, which frequently wants to maintain the status quo of male dominance. This study employs a feminist approach in examining this gynocentric theme, along with cultural studies which, with its focus on power relations and ways of decentring power structures, is also clearly of use. In addition, this multidisciplinary approach of cultural studies offers the possibility of studying literary texts as well as popular culture. Three specific time periods are examined, with a view to uncovering negative perceptions of women and ways that women can resist such attempts to control them. In chapter one, the focus turns to contemporary perceptions of prehistoric women and the ways that so-called ‘objective’ science has failed to represent women accurately. Similarly, ‘objective’ accounts of Goddess-worship – which frequently fail to examine this phenomenon adequately – are revisited. Alice Walker’s The Temple of My Familiar (1989) is discussed as a text which acts as a site of resistance to societally-informed perceptions. Chapter two continues this investigation by turning to the concept of the witch and its maligned association with women. Woman and witchcraft, having been associated for centuries, are investigated as a pairing which frequently results because iii of attempts to control women by androcentric society. In such situations, the practising of witchcraft can actually become a form of resistance to patriarchy. The pernicious effect of society’s need to purge itself – by witch hunts – of witches is also investigated. The Devil’s Chimney (1997) by Anne Landsman and “The prophetess” (1994) by Njabulo S. Ndebele are discussed as texts which examine fictionalised South African versions of this phenomenon. Sinead O’Connor, the Irish singer, is the ‘bitch’ discussed in chapter three. She is examined as a woman who offers strong and on-going resistance to patriarchal ways of thinking which would ‘box’ women in. This singer refuses to accept societal roles which are offered to women and so offers means of resistance to patriarchy, many of which are discussed in this chapter. This study concludes that it is the responsibility of women to resist patriarchy and to define roles for themselves. The three chapters examine various means of resistance and offer women insight into the forms of opposition they themselves can take.
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Ioannou, Maria. "Beautiful stranger : the function of the coquette in Victorian literature." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10036/72193.
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Theories of beauty normally engage with beauty in the abstract, or with reactions to beauty - beauty’s effect on others. This thesis considers how coquettish female beauty has been embodied in Victorian literature by the Brontës, Dickens, George Eliot, Christina Rossetti, and to a lesser extent women’s periodical literature. It argues that the figure of the coquette addresses antithetical discourses on the Victorian woman and assimilates them in such a way as to express a subversive beauty discourse, in which beauty consolidates differing female experiences and formulates the search for identity as a collective female effort. The coquette is linked with controversial women’s issues such as marriage failure, domestic abuse and female eroticism; the ambivalence of her relationship with the text’s heroine shows the scope and limits of female autonomy. The dialectic between rejection and acceptance in which the coquette participates in specific narrative strategies shows women engaged with women’s problems, their erotic potential, and their relationship(s) to each other. The thesis also reflects on feminist literary theory, especially current ideas on female writing, broadly defined as a search for female belonging. Recent criticism holds that the Victorian coquette operates either to show that eroticism was part of the Victorian woman’s identity, or as a passive surface upon which certain aspects of the protagonist are illuminated. This thesis argues that this is only part of the story; additionally, the issue of eroticism is installed within a framework of women’s social, political, and legal concerns, and the coquette can be read as an active site in which aspects of both the coquette and the protagonist are combined to form an innovative way of seeing the Victorian woman.
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Parra, Ericka Helena. "Discursos neofeministas en los testimonios de Elvia Alvarado, María Elena Moyano, Domitila Barrios de Chungara y María Teresa Tula, 1975-1995." [Gainesville, Fla.] : University of Florida, 2006. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/UFE0013730.
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Barlow, Jenna Elizabeth. "Womens historical fiction after feminism : discursive reconstructions of the Tudors in contemporary literature." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/86303.
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Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Historical fiction is a genre in a constant state of flux: since its inception in the nineteenth century, it has been shaped by cultural trends and has persistently responded to the way in which history is popularly conceptualised. As such, historical novels have always revealed as much about the socio-political context of their moment of production as they do about their historical settings. The advent of feminism was among the most significant movements which shaped the evolution of the women’s historical novel in the twentieth century, prompting as it did a radical shift in historiographic methodology. As feminist discourse became embedded in popular culture in the latter decades of the twentieth century, this shift in turn allowed authors of historical fiction the opportunity to reconsider the ways in which women have been traditionally represented in both historical narrative and fiction. The historical novel thus became a site for exploring the female perspective of history, a perspective that had been denied or ignored by more male-centred historical narratives. This dissertation will assess the impact wrought by the popularisation of feminist discourse on the genre of women’s historical fiction during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. An examination of a selection of contemporary women’s novels set during the Tudor era will prove particularly useful in executing this assessment, not least because of the Tudors’ unprecedented popularity as the focus of literature and film in the last decade. More significantly, the women of this period have proven to be ideal subjects for their authors to imaginatively reconstruct in the mould of third wave feminist icons in the twenty-first century. By examining how Tudor women have been represented in the contemporary historical fiction of Jean Plaidy, Philippa Gregory, Mavis Cheek, Suzannah Dunn and Emily Purdy, this dissertation will demonstrate the ways in which popular feminist discourse has impacted on the development of women’s historical fiction in the last century, focusing specifically on texts published within the last decade. Three key aspects of the genre will be assessed in detail in this regard: the author’s self-conscious feminist intervention in the characterisation of her historical heroines; the shift in the narrative perspective adopted and the deployment of postmodern literary devices; and the representation of female sexuality. The evolution of the genre as a whole will also be examined in some detail, and the shifting parameters of modern feminisms will be interrogated in order to fully understand their manifestations in popular culture.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Historiese fiksie is ’n voortdurend veranderende genre: sedert die ontstaan daarvan in die negentiende eeu is dit beïnvloed deur kulturele neigings en het dit aanhoudend bly reageer op die manier waarop die geskiedenis populêr gekonseptualiseer word. As sodanig het historiese romans altyd net soveel oor die sosiopolitieke konteks van hulle produksiemoment as oor hul historiese milieus onthul. Feminisme was een van die betekenisvolste bewegings wat gedurende die twintigste eeu die evolusie van die historiese roman vir vroue sou beïnvloed, en het sodoende aanleiding gegee tot ’n radikale verandering in historiografiese metodologie. Namate feministiese diskoers in die latere dekades van die twintigste eeu deel van die populêre kultuur geword het, het hierdie verandering op sy beurt die skrywers van historiese fiksie die geleentheid gegun om die maniere waarop vroue tradisioneel in sowel historiese narratief as fiksie uitgebeeld is, te heroorweeg. Die historiese roman het dus ’n terrein geword waarop die vroulike perspektief op die geskiedenis verken is, naamlik ’n perspektief wat deur meer manlik-gesentreerde historiese narratiewe ontken of geïgnoreer is. Hierdie verhandeling sal die impak evalueer wat die popularisering van feministiese diskoers op die genre van historiese fiksie vir vroue gemaak het tydens die twintigste en een-en-twintigste eeue. ’n Ondersoek na ’n seleksie van kontemporêre vroueromans wat in die Tudor-tydperk afspeel, is veral nuttig in hierdie verband, onder andere as gevolg van die Tudors se ongekende gewildheid as die fokus van letterkunde en film in die afgelope dekade. Wat meer veelseggend is, is dat dit blyk die vroue van hierdie tydperk was ideale subjekte wat verbeeldingryk deur hulle outeurs gerekonstrueer kon word in die vorm van derdegolf-feministiese ikone in die een-en-twintigste eeu. Deur te ondersoek hoe Tudorvroue uitgebeeld is in die kontemporêre historiese fiksie van Jean Plaidy, Philippa Gregory, Mavis Cheek, Suzannah Dunn en Emily Purdy sal hierdie verhandeling die impak demonstreer wat populêre feministiese diskoers in die afgelope eeu op die ontwikkeling van historiese fiksie vir vroue gemaak het, met die fokus spesifiek op tekste wat in die afgelope dekade gepubliseer is. In hierdie verband sal drie sleutelaspekte van die genre uitvoerig geassesseer word: die skrywer se selfbewuste feministiese ingryping in die karakterisering van haar historiese heldinne; die verskuiwing in die vertellingsperspektief en die ontplooiing van postmoderne letterkundige tegnieke; en die uitbeelding van vroulike seksualiteit. Die evolusie van die genre as geheel word ook beskou, en die veranderende parameters van moderne feminismes word ondervra sodat hul manifestasies in die populêre kultuur ten volle verstaan kan word.
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Hipolito, Helaine Aparecida [UNESP]. "Aventuras de Diófanes: as aventuras do romance português." Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/94148.
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O trabalho propõe-se a analisar a obra Aventuras de Diófanes, de Teresa Margarida da Silva e Orta, publicado em Portugal, em 1752. O romance, que teve, por mais de dois séculos, o nome de sua verdadeira autora ocultado, é um importante documento acerca dos valores de uma época marcada pela repressão e por perseguições, em uma sociedade conservadora e moralista. Julgada, sumariamente, durante muito tempo, como um texto de pouco valor literário, a obra de Teresa Margarida permaneceu relegada ao esquecimento. Em razão disso, a leitura proposta procura fazer aparecer, através da análise estritamente literária, as nuances inovadoras e mesmo transgressoras da narrativa da autora, em relação ao contexto em que vivia, e contra o qual, sutil e alegoricamente, combatia.
The aim of this paper is to analise the novel Aventuras de Diófanes, by Teresa Margarida da Silva e Orta, published in Portugal in 1752. The name of its author was concealed for more than two centuries. This is an important document concerning the portuguese society because the novel reflects the repression and persecution in a strict and moralist county. At first this novel was left aside considered a weak work. As a result of this the proposed reading intends to show by means of a strictly literary analysis the inovative and even transgressor perspective of the author’s narrative towards the period in which she lived and against which she fought subtly and alegorically.
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Turnage, Rachel Anne. "Finding the faces of our mothers every day feminism in Stephen King's "Dolores Claiborne" and "Gerald's game" /." Thesis, Montana State University, 2006. http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/2006/turnage/TurnageR0506.pdf.
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Waite, Rebecca S. L. "Katherine Anne Porter's "Old Mortality" and Virginia Woolf: A Study in Feminism." W&M ScholarWorks, 1998. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539626152.
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McVeigh, Andrea Maureen. "An examination of the utopianism and feminism of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.284362.
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Mekgwe, Pinkie Tlotlego. "Femmeninism : a stutter or a starter? gender constructions and male feminist politics in African literature." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.249108.
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Tripp, Clancy B. "Contemporary Bluestockings: Exploring the Critical and Creative Intersection of Feminism, Literature, and Media." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2015. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1078.
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This thesis uses literature, film, satire, poetry, and news rhetoric to explore the evolving face of gender in today’s society. It is framed by interviews with two women who are residents of the senior living community Pilgrim Place. Each interview brings up themes and feminist concerns that are explored in the essay that follows it.
In putting together this work I interviewed the two Pilgrim Place women, Teresa and Anne Marie, and discussed with them their concerns about contemporary feminism and feminist activism differences between our generations. These concerns are distilled into a series of essays that compare themes and concerns shared by the two women with a work of literature or media that compliments and complicates relevant issues. Half of the interviews included are verbatim transcripts of what was said, the other half are works of oral historical fiction based on interviews and subsequent research into the historical events in question. This thesis engages with the question of who owns a movement and whether the recognition of (or refusal to recognize) a history does damage to the movement. This thesis brings into conversation contemporary and modern media to illustrate the changing world of feminism in a way that celebrates the past and anticipates the future.
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Siesing, Gina Michellle. "Fictional democracies : the formation of lesbian-feminist literary publics /." Digital version accessible at:, 1999. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/main.
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Brennan, Karen Morley. "Hysteria and the scene of feminine representation." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/185047.
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In the sense that women have been hystericized by male theories about femininity, Freudian psychoanalysis has functioned as an institution which seeks women's silence. Hysteria is the dis-ease of this silence; that is to say, it is a set of eloquent symptoms--a "writing" on the body--which signify women's oppression/repression. It is within this apparent contradiction that feminine representation takes place. The figure for such representation is, therefore, hysteria: working "in the gaps," "between the lines," telling the story of patriarchy only to disrupt this story, Frida Kahlo, Anais Nin, and Kathy Acker create feminine fictions. Kahlo's autobiographical painting is inextricable from her obsession with husband Diego Rivera, just as Nin's erotica is inextricable from her relationship with Henry Miller. Likewise, Acker's postmodern production is entangled in the androcentric agenda which attempts to recuperate patriarchy by appropriating the figure of Woman. The "engine" of transference/counter-transference becomes the most viable description of the hysterical process these women employ to represent themselves. The epilogue contains original fictions which extend comment on both hysteria and feminine representation.
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Sakkos, Tiina. "Existentialism and feminism in Kezilahabi`s novel Kichwamaji." Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig, 2012. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa-94160.
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Makala hii inachambua riwaya ya pili ya mwandishi maarufu wa Kiswahili, Euphrase Kezilahabi (*1944) iitwayo Kichwamaji (1974). Inajaribu kuzingatia mikondo miwili ya uchambuzi yaani inajadili kwa ufupi nadharia ipi au mkondo upi wa kimawazo unafaa zaidi katika kuichambua riwaya hiyo: udhanaishi au ufeministi. Je, inawezekana kuunganisha yote mawili?In this essay, I would like to analyse the novel Kichwamaji (‘Empty-head’; 1974) by the well-known Tanzanian writer Euphrase Kezilahabi against the background of two philosophical theories: existentialism and feminism. I will first discuss existentialism and the existentialist elements in the novel. Then I will present feminist theory and focus on the female characters in Kichwamaji. I will argue that a feminist reading of the novel is impossible due to its predominant existentialist character
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Meyer, Denis Charles. "Monde Flottant: médiation du Japon et thématique de la féminité dansl'oeuvre de Kikou Yamata (1897-1975)." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1998. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B20906742.
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Woodward, Wendy Vilma. "Narrative and gender in the novels of Christina Stead." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 1987. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/21883.
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Bibliography: pages 205-231.This dissertation locates Christina Stead as a woman writer, who interrogates, both mimetically and poetically, the ideology of the dominant literary tradition. Because the formal narrative strategies, subtexts, and repressed discourses reveal inscriptions of Christina Stead's gender, the issues of language and power are central. A humanist feminist who anticipates a close bond between reader and text fails to overcome the problem of those narrative modes which alienate the readers of Stead's novels. Only a textual feminist who foregrounds the ideology of form recognizes that Stead's methods are dislocating in order to produce a reader who participates in the narrative process itself. For Stead, both women and men are entrapped within the prison-house of language, which becomes the locus of power struggles. The embedded artworks of four women artists, speak and write against the realism of the dominant discourse in the women's desires to assert their own sexuality, to postpone death, to connect with maternal figures, and to undermine androcentrism. These women, and others in Stead's canon, speak their difference. Male genderlects, however, attest to their dominance, endorsing an ideology of oppression in their competitiveness, their narcissism, and their theorizing. Christina Stead, herself, like the women artists she depicts, uses metaphor variously. She has metaphor convey the sexuality of the female characters and subvert the metaphorical commonplaces of the dominant tradition. Other metaphors reveal transcendent impulses, seemingly at odds with the narratives' usual deterministic ethos. In the plots and their endings Christina Stead also negotiates with the norms of the dominant literature. The formal structures correlate with the patterns of the characters' lives either in Bildungsromanen or in novels of repetition which metonymize deathly compulsions. Thus a reading which foregrounds narrative and gender, particularly in the embedded artworks, genderlects, metaphor, plot and closure, depicts a Christina Stead who has never been comprehended by masculist critics who fail to take cognizance of the woman writer's desires to combat the dominant literary tradition.
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Buchanan, Brenda Marie. "HARPER LEE’S PINK PENITENTIARY: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, GO SET A WATCHMAN AND FEMINISM." Cleveland State University / OhioLINK, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1606410740885098.
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Hedberg, Malin. "Failed Feminism? : Ursula K. Le Guin's Tehanu." Thesis, Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Education, 2008. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-1743.
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Failed Feminism?: Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel Tehanu
The purpose of this essay is to show that Ursula K. LeGuin’s fantasy novel Tehanu instead of breaking away from traditional gender roles maintains them, despite the novel’s promises of change. I begin by showing the places where the possibilities of change are indicated, and then I use feminist criticism to show that there is no change in the gender roles.
I have examined the gender roles in Tehanu, by taking a closer look at the characters and the roles they have in the plot. Numerous critics claim that this novel is Le Guin’s attempt to revise her earlier, more traditional fantasy novels in the Earthsea trilogy, and that Tehanu works as a feminist reaction to the Earthsea trilogy. However, even though Le Guin makes the traditional patriarchal gender roles apparent to the unaware reader, the protagonists have internalised the patriarchal values of their society when the novel closes, which may be fairly disappointing to the reader who brings feminist awareness to the reading of novel. The women are depicted as caregivers, and the men are portrayed as the decision-makers. The gender roles are as traditional as they can be with Ged as the man who is capable to read the wizard’s books, with Tehanu who stays with her family and does not leave with the dragons, and with Tenar as the woman who takes care of the household.
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Buckles, Christina Marie. "The transnational feminist literature of Helena Maria Viramontes." Thesis, University of Iowa, 2012. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/3269.
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In this thesis, I am interested in transnational feminist scholarship and dialogue. Through close readings of Helena Maria Viramontes's texts, I place her writing in conversation with several transnational feminist scholars and themes. I begin with home, a frequently discussed topic within transnational feminism, as the experiences of diasporic and migrant populations challenge the notion of home. I locate the multiple homes presented in Viramontes's texts, arguing that these homes are unreliable spaces for their residents. I then consider male characters and masculinity in Viramontes's stories, as these men significantly influence the homes of women. In Viramontes's later texts, some of these characters support the women in their lives, as well as embrace the multiplicity of masculinity. I also explore invisibility and hypervisibility, two themes which figure prominently within transnational feminism and Viramontes's texts. Viramontes makes visible women, workers, and youth, challenging their invisibility and hypervisibility. In my analysis, I include Viramontes's two novels, Under the Feet of Jesus (1995) and Their Dogs Came With Them (2007), as well as two short stories, "Growing" (1983) and "The Jumping Bean" (1992). By analyzing these works, which were published over a period of twenty four years, we can more intricately see Viramontes's exploration of transnational feminist themes.
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Hitchcott, Nicola Marie. "The unspoken self : feminism and cultural identity in African women's writing in French." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.321098.
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Ratcliffe, Krista L. "Words of one's own : toward a rhetoric of feminism in selected essays of Virginia Woolf and Adrienne Rich /." Connect to resource, 1988. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view.cgi?acc%5Fnum=osu1244661816.
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Lyle, Messina. "Reviving the Subject: A Feminist Argument for Mimesis in Literature." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2006. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/2204.
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For centuries we have taken for granted Aristotle's assertion that fiction must encourage emotional identification by representing life realistically. With the development of a more pluralistic society, Postmodernist writiers have come to question that assumption. Having repudiated our ancestor's notions of identity, these writers create stories whose sole purpose is to comment on other stories. However, as some feminist critics have shown us, we must each have an identity in order to have the collaborative society that is the Postmodernist's goal. Therefore, the notion that a story must make a sensory impression on us and stand on its own as a story in itself is just as valid today as it was in the past.