Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Limitation, Subversion, And Agency: Gendered Spaces In The Works Of Margaret Mahy, Cynthia Voigt, And Dia Na Wynne Jones, Elizabeth Ann Pearce

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I argue that adolescent literature featuring female protagonists often illustrates complicated relationships between gender and space. My contention is that because of their gender, these protagonists are uniquely constrained to the home, which creates a literary pattern that has serious ideological implications. While I argue that the dominant discourse of these novels implies that girls should adhere to specific cultural norms, some of these works, however, provide room for subversion and agency, including new ways of looking at patriarchal constructions. To demonstrate these issues at work, I use the novels of three female authors from three different …