Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Sylvia Plath’S Fig Tree: Discourse Formation And The Production And Consumption Of Women’S Identity, Jane E. Dodge

Honors Theses

Investigating the formation of women's identities within Sylvia Plath's work, this paper seeks to understand the position of women within society during Plath's lifetime and in the wake of her death. Comparing genres of both public, private, and semi-public writing, I hinge my argument on Plath's famous fig tree passage to understand three distinct feminine identities and the inherent consumption and production that accompanies women's identity formation.

Gender, Fantasy, And Misogyny In The Age Of Innocence: A Character Study Of Newland Archer, Sonia Comstock

University Honors Theses

In this thesis, I’ll be analyzing Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence through a feminist lens, with a focus on the character of Newland Archer. Specifically, I'll examine who Archer is beyond a surface level, looking at his thoughts and fantasies and exposing his twisted, misogynistic outlook. I'll explore how his delusions affect the lives of the women around him, and how his behavior is reflective of the larger dynamic between men and women in society. Because the novel is written in close omniscient third person, the reader can both assess and align with Archer's mentality; the gap between the …

Cooper And Crummell: Dialogics Of Race And Womanhood, Elizabeth J. West

Elizabeth J West

No abstract provided.

"Reader" In Jane Eyre, Siruo Li

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis is designed to show the development of feminist power of Jane Eyre, the heroine of Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre, by examining how her reader is addressed in the totality of this novel. The main body of this thesis will follow the four parts of Jane Eyre’s different period of her life: in childhood, in Thornfield, in Moor House and in Ferndean Manor. The rhetorical instrument of addressing her reader is influenced by her speech and silence, and appears in a gradually increasing frequency in the four parts. In this sense, Jane Eyre’s female voice is also empowered …

Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales And Rescue In Sandra Cisneros's The House On Mango Street, Christina Marie Frank

ETD Archive

Within The House on Mango Street, Cisneros weaves several subtle literary allusions, mostly from fairy tales, into many of her vignettes. These subtle allusions help Cisneros create a portrait of expected feminine roles, mostly women as victims, within the patriarchal community, which, when juxtaposed with Esperanza's ideals for herself and her inner strength and drive, help distinguish her as different from those around her. Because she is different and stronger than the other women in her community, Esperanza will be able to reject the other female role models presented by both the women in her community and the women in …

Cemetery Of The Murdered Daughters: Feminism, History, And Ingeborg Bachmann, Sara Lennox

University of Massachusetts Press Books

Although Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann (1926–1973) is widely regarded as one of the most important twentieth-century authors writing in German, her novels and stories have sometimes been viewed narrowly as portraits of women as victims. In this innovative study, Sara Lennox provides a much broader perspective on Bachmann’s work, at the same time undertaking an experiment in feminist methodology.Lennox examines Bachmann’s poetry and prose in historical context, arguing that the varied feminist interpretations of her writings are the result of shifts in theoretical emphases over a period of more than three decades. Lennox then places her own essays on Bachmann …

Cooper And Crummell: Dialogics Of Race And Womanhood, Elizabeth J. West

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Skeptical Feminist Exploration Of Binary Dystopias In Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists Of Avalon, Alexandra Elizabeth Anita Lindstrom

Theses Digitization Project

In Marion Zimmer Bradley's retelling of the Arthurian legends, The Mists of Avalon, she creates two dystopic cultures: Avalon and Camelot. Contrasting Bradley's account of the legends with the traditional version, Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, reveals that Bradley's sweeping revisions of the tradition do little to create a feminist ideal. A skeptical questioning of the text's plot and characters with the Women's Movement in mind opens an interpretation of the text as a critique of feminism itself.

"Sin Decidirlo Me Volví Distinta": Gender, Deception And Development In Angeles Mastretta's ArráNcame La Vida, Luisa Samaniego

Dissertations and Theses

With this research I locate Angeles Mastretta's novel Arráncame la vida in the Bildungsroman genre, examine the particular forces influencing the protagonist's development and gain insight into her process of identity formation. This modern Bildungsroman portrays the fate of a woman in the male dominated world of post-revolutionary Mexico. I analyze how class, gender, historical moment, psychological and cultural influences are woven into the intriguing formation of the heroine, Catalina, variously constraining or propelling her forward in her quest for development.

I argue that the heroine transcends the limiting factors in her patriarchal environment, struggling against culturally sanctioned deception, confining …

"They Say She Is Veiled": A Rhetorical Analysis Of Judy Grahn's Poetry, Damaris Hawkins

Theses Digitization Project

No abstract provided.

La Protagonista En Dos Novelas Latinoamericanas Escritas Por Mujeres, Khatereh K. Sabahi

Dissertations and Theses

Este estudio hace una comparaci6n de las protagonistas de dos novelas escritas por mujeres. Analiza dos sociedades diferentes separada por el tiempo y la distancia. Trata de encontrar respuestas a las diferencias existentes, tomando en cuenta los cambios politicos, sociales y literarios que afectan a las mujeres. Ambas novelas se centran en la mujer y su lucha contra la sociedad y la incomprensi6n por parte del hombre. Se hace hincapie en el tipo diferente de sociedad en que vive cada una de las protagonistas y en el papel del hombre dentro de esta sociedad. Tambien se toma en consideraci6n la …

Ratbags On The Fringe: Exploring Feminism Through Crime, Danielle Brown

Theses : Honours

This dissertation considers how feminist crime fiction, can transform a traditionally male dominated genre. Contemporary feminist crime writers reject the codified masculine crime genre to create ever-expanding spaces for literary representation. I concentrate on three texts which are ordered as a progression. Firstly, I explore the conservative "male." writing of Jennifer Rowe in The Makeover Murders. I then go on to The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender by Marele Day which privileges a concern with the socio-political position of women and their access to socio-political power. The last text, Finola Moorhead's Still Murder, is a radical work of feminist …

On A Women's Language, Tamara Brown

Dissertations and Theses

Assessing the feminist belief that women have a perspective dramatically differing from the patriarchal perspective, and that this viewpoint is, or could be, couched in a language differing from the norm, this researcher addressed the following three questions: (1) is there a definition of a women's language? (2) does a women's language exist? and (3) if a women's language does exist, in what form does it exist? These questions engendered feminist rhetorical criticism on the work of two radical feminists well known for their interest in, and attention to, the issue of a women's language.