This thesis makes a case for literature as a legitimate historical source and argues that literature provides a historical snapshot of social change. The Dutch bakvisroman, a girls’ book about...Show moreThis thesis makes a case for literature as a legitimate historical source and argues that literature provides a historical snapshot of social change. The Dutch bakvisroman, a girls’ book about rebellious girls who are partially tamed at the end of the story, is selected as a case study. The research question therefore is: How does the Dutch bakvisroman negotiate social change from 1894-1921? First, it is analysed via close reading how five such books deal with accepted, controversial and unaccepted gender and class norms - Tine van Berken’s Een Klaverblad van Vier (1894) and De Dochters van den Generaal (1897); Top Naeff’s Schoolidyllen (1900); and Cissy van Marxveldt’s De H.B.S.-Tijd van Joop ter Heul (1919) and Joop ter Heul’s Problemen (1921). How the books are a product of social change is explored by looking into the lives of the women writers, analysing their gender and class attitudes. Lastly, how the books are an agent of social change is explained by discussing the readers’ experience, delving into its reception by pedagogues, but also its reception by girls and boys via memoirs and diaries. By historicising the books, it becomes clear why the bakvisromans perpetuate class norms while being ambivalent towards gender norms, as well as what readers actually internalised from the books.Show less
This thesis questions how discursive practices in different adaptations of the same fairy tale: Little Red Riding Hood, reflect social and ideological values of their time and place, with regard to...Show moreThis thesis questions how discursive practices in different adaptations of the same fairy tale: Little Red Riding Hood, reflect social and ideological values of their time and place, with regard to gender ideologies and gender representation. This analysis is guided by poststructural theories of feminism that consider gender as a socially produced category, predominantly through language. This allows for the reading of “girlhood”, as a contested category involving various and often competing discourses of femininity. Additionally, this research relies on critical discourse analysis, which allows for a close reading of the authors’ linguistic choices that are potentially significant, as they encode and promulgate particular ideologies.Show less
