I Shall Live as Me: The Dismantlement of Suppressive Structures in Contemporary Female Gothic Texts
| dc.contributor.advisor | Oppelt, Riaan | en_ZA |
| dc.contributor.author | Da Mata, Antonia Katelyn | en_ZA |
| dc.contributor.other | Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of English. | en_ZA |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-01-30T10:03:31Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-01-30T10:03:31Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024-12 | |
| dc.description | Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2024. | en_ZA |
| dc.description.abstract | In this thesis, the continued yet contested relevance of the Female Gothic in literature privileging women characters is investigated. Ellen Moers, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar contributed groundbreaking insight to what is known as the Female Gothic. Generally, Female Gothic literature explores pressures and anxieties experienced by women within domestic spaces under patriarchal control. Due to perceptions of it being outdated, the term “Female Gothic” is contested in literary studies but remains relative for narratives which focus on a young woman’s maturation and an implicit anxiety surrounding her sexuality. The “separate spheres” was an ideology during the Victorian period that separated women and men in society. Women occupied the domestic space and were expected to be submissive to the husband or male figure. Through an analysis of Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892), I study how the domestic space is a source of anxiety for women protagonists in early stages of marriage. Gilman’s short story is posited, in this reading, as a foundational text influential on others following in its wake and the thesis dedicates itself to selections in this vein. Gilman’s story addresses the suppressive nature of “separate spheres” and how women being controlled and confined within the domestic space is undesirable. Through Linda Hutcheon’s A Theory of Adaptation as well as Adrienne Rich’s arguments for constant re-visions of feminist literature, I study the ways writers attempt to re-visit and re-write Gilman’s unnamed protagonist and free her from the Female Gothic situation. The study focuses on three groups of women: the young bride, governess, and girl. The governess and young bride share anxieties regarding sexuality within the domestic space despite occupying different roles within the household. Using the texts, The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020), Rebecca (1938), and Fingersmith (2002), I argue how writers and creators use the technique of adaptation and provide possibilities for queer readings to attempt to alleviate the protagonist from the Female Gothic situation. These texts offer alternative femininities for the protagonist. Mostly, they provide narratives that show women as beings of autonomy and volition. However, with the analysis of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962), I conclude that the most promising way to alleviate the Female Gothic situation for a woman is to write narratives about a protagonist before the point of maturation. The child narrator challenges prescriptive codes of the “separate spheres” by writing a girl with different priorities to motherhood or marriage. Girlhood offers new narrative arcs within the Female Gothic. With a wider possibility on what it is to be a woman, we can rethink the types of women and stories we read within the Female Gothic. | en_ZA |
| dc.description.version | Masters | en_ZA |
| dc.format.extent | 103 pages | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/131628 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_ZA |
| dc.publisher | Stellenbosch University | en_ZA |
| dc.rights.holder | Stellenbosch University | en_ZA |
| dc.title | I Shall Live as Me: The Dismantlement of Suppressive Structures in Contemporary Female Gothic Texts | en_ZA |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_ZA |