This thesis discusses Virginia Woolf's feminist thought and Joanna Russ's feminist thought and argues the influence Woolf has had on Russ's feminist science fiction writing.
I will start by touching on the existing scholarship centering around the language use of the authors in question, from a literary and linguistic point of view. Additionally, I will look at the...Show moreI will start by touching on the existing scholarship centering around the language use of the authors in question, from a literary and linguistic point of view. Additionally, I will look at the previous studies on these authors’ perspective on women, as expressed in their work. Then I will discuss the methodology with which I researched the gendering of the modal verbs used by these authors. Next, using a corpus tool, I will review the resulting collocations, clusters, and concordance lists and analyse these findings in terms of the deontic modality associated with the female characters. Finally, I will try to establish if the male and female authors differ in the type and amount of modal verbs used to represent female characters.Show less
This thesis is an analysis of two modernist texts, Virginia Woolf’s 'Mrs. Dalloway' and Jean Rhys’ 'Good Morning, Midnight', as a means of exploring how the contrasting states of solitude and...Show moreThis thesis is an analysis of two modernist texts, Virginia Woolf’s 'Mrs. Dalloway' and Jean Rhys’ 'Good Morning, Midnight', as a means of exploring how the contrasting states of solitude and sociality influence self-concept. As both of these texts engage with concepts of selfhood amid themes of social engagement and social isolation, they make ideal candidates for an investigation of this kind. The intentions of this thesis are, firstly, to show how the texts reveal that perceptions of self can be moulded by these contrasting states of sociality and solitude, and, secondly, to highlight the novels’ depictions of the consequences of each state. Because the perceptions of self these states generate manifest themselves in real-world behaviour and essentially influence self-creation, it is worth considering these consequences as represented by a literary movement which so carefully scrutinised the dichotomies of perception and reality, and self and other. By employing a psychological approach to character analyses of selected figures in the texts, this research will cast light on these characters’ personal relationships with sociality and solitude, consequently revealing how their lives, and their understandings of themselves, are positively and negatively influenced by each.Show less
In literature, madness has frequently been used by female writers as a guise, or as Elaine Showalter refers to it, a mask, to express the inexpressible. Using Showalter's term of the 'mask of...Show moreIn literature, madness has frequently been used by female writers as a guise, or as Elaine Showalter refers to it, a mask, to express the inexpressible. Using Showalter's term of the 'mask of madness', this thesis explores the image of madness and its link to self expression in three contemporary novels by female authors. Through a close reading of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925), Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing (1972), and Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects (2006) – novels all featuring protagonists exhibiting signs of mental illness – this thesis examines how the image of madness can feature as a response to oppression, and how it can be used as a tool for societal criticism.Show less
In this thesis I aim to provide a close reading of the influence of societal forces on characters' conceptions of themselves in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. To do so, I consider how Clarissa...Show moreIn this thesis I aim to provide a close reading of the influence of societal forces on characters' conceptions of themselves in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. To do so, I consider how Clarissa Dalloway, Peter Walsh and Elizabeth Dalloway are affected by the enigma that is the perfect hostess, Mrs. Richard Dalloway.Show less
Exploring the intimate links between text and skin, this thesis examines the ways in which Virginia Woolf and Ali Smith approach tactile experience within the touch-transforming contexts from which...Show moreExploring the intimate links between text and skin, this thesis examines the ways in which Virginia Woolf and Ali Smith approach tactile experience within the touch-transforming contexts from which their novels The Waves (1931) and How to be Both (2014) emerge. Drawing on the first sustained study that investigates literature and tactility since the publication of seminal works on touch by thinkers of deconstruction such as Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy, it looks at the two texts from the perspective of a tactful reading. Engaging with the texts with close attention and from a distance, it argues that tactile experience not only resides in the contact of skin on skin, but also in the space between skin and skin. Looking primarily at how the writers give expression to a touch that transforms and a touch that reaches out both in and through their texts, it also draws attention to the way that memory, the shared thematic concern of the novels, too exhibits moments of change and nearness. Finally, this thesis seeks to open up a discussion on the limits and possibilities of a tactful approach and relates it to the potential it offers to the reading of recent innovative literary projects that respond to some of today’s most poignant issues regarding tactility, digital technology and human connection. Inspired by the astounding and intimate sensory surrounds of Ann Hamilton’s large-scale multi-media installation the event of a thread (2012), it demonstrates an attention to the presence of the tactile, and perhaps most importantly, an attention to the presence of each other.Show less
Research master thesis | Literary Studies (research) (MA)
open access
In the The Waves (1931) Virginia Woolf is approaching the possibilities of true knowledge in fiction. She does so both on the level of content and form. Bernard, one of the novel’s speakers, has an...Show moreIn the The Waves (1931) Virginia Woolf is approaching the possibilities of true knowledge in fiction. She does so both on the level of content and form. Bernard, one of the novel’s speakers, has an epiphany while shaving as a middle-aged man. He discovers that time has changed. Time no longer indicates the possibility of the future, but rather the missed possibilities of the past. This new experience of time results in Bernard losing his urge to describe the world. Instead Bernard attempts a different mode of narration in order to communicate and grasp his new experience of life. Bernard’s problem with representation is also Woolf’s problem. The Waves is similarly qua its form an experimental piece of fiction that is following the rhythm of the sea rather than a traditional plot structure. By doing so Woolf is posing the same questions to fiction as Bernard: How is it possible to describe the world objectively? The thesis is investigating this question by extensively using Ann Banfield’s book The Phantom Table (2000).Show less
