Digital Commons Network^™

“Taming The Maternal”: Mother-Women And The Construction Of The Maternal Body In Harriet Jacobs, Kate Chopin, And Evelyn Scott, Kelly Ann Masterson

Masters Theses

From the nineteenth century to the present day, constructions of motherhood have often run counter to the best interests of women. The repression of desire and sexuality necessitated by ideals of motherhood and maternity are detrimental to women’s awareness of and authority over their own bodies. The physical body, then, becomes problematic for these women, who find themselves trapped within bodies that are expected to behave according to popular ideals of True Womanhood. A rupture occurs between body and mind – a rupture that often results in (sometimes literal) destruction.

The fiction of women writers during the nineteenth and early …

Of This Ground: Land As Refuge In The Works Of Three Kentucky Women Writers, Nicole Marie Drewitz-Crockett

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the memoirs, novels, and short stories of three women writers whose work is heavily invested in a sense of place and privileges women’s relationships to the land: Harriette Simpson Arnow, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Barbara Kingsolver. All of these women spent their formative years in Kentucky, which for the purposes of this project classifies them as “Kentucky writers.” As a group these women offer a one possible solution to modern concerns for women: a relationship to the land as refuge. Engagement with the land as refuge provides a sense of satisfaction, a source of therapy, and a …