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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Femininity in literature'

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Published: 4 June 2021
Last updated: 31 July 2024

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1

McGill, Anna. "Magic and Femininity as Power in Medieval Literature." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2015. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/293.

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It is undeniable that literature reflects much about the society that produces it. The give-and-take relationship between a society and its literature is especially interesting when medieval texts are considered. Because most medieval plots and characters are variants of existing stories, the ways that the portrayals change has the potential to reveal much about the differences between medieval societies separated by distance and time. Changes to the treatment of these recurring characters and their stories can reveal how the attitudes of medieval society changed over time. Perceptions of magic and attitudes toward its female practitioners, both real and fictional, changed drastically throughout the Middle Ages among clergy members and the ruling class. Historically, as attitudes toward women became more negative, they were increasingly prohibited from receiving a formal education and from gaining or maintaining positions traditionally associated with feminine magical power, such as healer, midwife, or wise woman. As the power of the Church grew and attitudes changed throughout the Middle Ages, women’s power in almost all areas of life experienced a proportional decrease. Using a combination of historical and literary sources, this paper will explore whether this decrease in power is evident in literary portrayals of magical female characters in medieval literature. Specifically, it will examine the agency and potency, or the intrinsic motivation and effectiveness within the story, respectively, of female characters within medieval narratives, comparing the characters to their earlier iterations. This research will offer a unique perspective on the roles of magical women in medieval literature.
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2

Light, Alison. "Forever England : femininity, literature, and conservatism between the wars /." London ; New York : Routledge, 1991. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0648/91000587-d.html.

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3

Marshall, Courtney Denine. "Sisters in crime black femininity, law, and literature in American culture /." Diss., Restricted to subscribing institutions, 2009. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1971758521&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=1564&RQT=309&VName=PQD.

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4

Clair, Erin C. "Death becomes her modernism, femininity, and the erotics of death /." Diss., Columbia, Mo. : University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10355/5973.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007.
The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on March 6, 2008) Includes bibliographical references.
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Kolb, Alexandra Isabel. "Performing femininity : cross-currents of dance and literature in German modernism." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.615623.

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6

Beden, Nadja. "Femininity and Masculinity in Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding." Thesis, Mittuniversitetet, Institutionen för humaniora, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:miun:diva-13976.

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7

Masterson, Fiona. "Bare-faced cheek : authenticity, femininity and cosmetics in English Romantic-era print culture." Thesis, University of Kent, 2014. https://kar.kent.ac.uk/47663/.

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“Bare-Faced Cheek: Authenticity, Femininity and Cosmetics in English Romantic-Era Print Culture” examines the rhetoric that surrounded women’s use of cosmetics in Romantic-era England through the focus of prevailing notions of authenticity and a Romantic valorisation of nature over artifice. The rhetoric that surrounded women’s use of cosmetics in Romantic-era England was as contentious as it was dichotic when the moralising dogma of literature of conduct came to clash with the commercial agenda of advertising rhetoric and notions of beauty, taste and women’s proper place in the social order became subjects of deliberation and debate. The significance of cosmetics in the Romantic era shifted from that of courtly display and fashionable visibility to that of tasteful moderation and restrained decorum. This, in turn, elicited a furious anti-cosmetic backlash that spoke of women’s use of cosmetics in terms of vanity, duplicity and fraudulence. The increasing medicalisation of the female body and the dissemination of that knowledge through a burgeoning print trade meant that such accusations could be accompanied by dire warnings of the deleterious nature of many lead, mercury and arsenical-based preparations that were being prepared, manufactured and promoted by a coterie of hucksters, quacks and charlatans. However, the very burgeoning print culture that gave voice to such allegations and cautions also provided a sounding-board for other voices such as the newly emerging sub-genre of the beauty manual that presented cosmetics as benign, effectual and the sign of a healthy regard for the beauty bestowed upon humanity by God. Furthermore, the rise of periodical publications designed particularly with a female readership in mind provided a forum for discussion of matters cosmetical and regular features within such publications promoted the cosmetic benefits of skincare and the effectual preservation of beauty. Advertisers also made good use of such publications as places to promote their goods as anodynely effective and discretely undetectable: an effective weapon against the ravages of time and the vagaries of nature. Cosmetics under such auspices became not only admissible but laudable, a service to both society and domestic harmony through their mollifying ability to beautify the female face. Paradoxically then, the key to using cosmetics successfully within Romantic-era England was to learn the art of appearing authentic, natural and untouched by the dubiety of feminine ‘arts’. In a print culture conflicted over the permissibility of cosmetics within the secretive realm of the female toilette the figure of the cosmetically enhanced female was thus, one that came to be used figuratively by female novelists of the time to raise questions about: the validity of authenticity within the lives of contemporary women; the contingent nature of femininity in a society that increasingly sought to confine women within an idealised cultural script; the crushing intensity of a powerful social scrutiny; and the hegemonically disruptive potential of elective female transgression. Hence, cosmetic artifice within the works of the women authors I investigate becomes a metaphor for the over-arching artifice inherent within the social construction of Romantic-era woman. Moreover, the self-control required for her to assimilate herself as naturally virtuous, diffident and unworldly points to the cosmetic artistry required to make her naturally beautiful.
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8

Light, Alison. "Modernity and the conservative imagination : fiction and femininity between the wars." Thesis, University of Sussex, 1990. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.335219.

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9

Neufeld, Christine Marie. "Xanthippe's sisters : orality and femininity in the later Middle Ages." Thesis, McGill University, 2001. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=38251.

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This dissertation contributes to medieval feminist scholarship by forging new insights into the relationship between gender theory and developing notions of orality and textuality in late medieval Europe. I examine three conventional satirical depictions of women as deviant speakers in medieval literature---as loquacious gossips, scolding shrews and cursing witches---to reveal how medieval perceptions of oral and textual discursive modes influenced literary representations of women. The dissertation demonstrates that our comprehension of the literary battle between the sexes requires a recognition and understanding of how discursive modes were gendered in a culture increasingly defining itself in terms of textuality. My work pursues the juxtaposition of the rational, literate male and the irrational, oral female across a wide range of texts, from Dunbar and Chaucer's courtly literature, to more socially diffused works, such as carols, sermon exempla and the Deluge mystery plays, as well as texts, like Margery Kempe's autobiography and witchcraft documents, that pertain to historical women. I demonstrate the social impact of this convention by anchoring these literary texts in their socio-historical context. The significance of my identification of this nexus of orality and femininity is that I am able to delineate an ideology profoundly affecting the way women's speech and writings have been received and perceived for centuries. This notion of gendered discourse can also redefine how we perceive medieval literature. Mikhail Bakhtin's discursive principles---ideas that stem from his application of the dynamics of oral communication and performance to the literary text---help to liberate new meanings from old texts by allowing us to read against the grain of convention. Both Bakhtin's theory of dialogism and Walter Ong's summary of the psychodynamics of orality suggest that orally influenced discourse is less interested in monolithic truth than in the art of tellin
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10

Shane, Elisabeth Ann. "Sex, crimes, and common sense: framing femininity from sensation to sexology." Diss., University of Iowa, 2012. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/1901.

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My dissertation tracks the production of "common sense" about female sexuality and psychology in nineteenth-century sensational British literature. I move from the sensation novel's heyday, represented by Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone (1868) and Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret (1862), through the fin-de-siècle Gothic literary revival with Bram Stoker's Dracula(1895), and conclude with a reading of the representation of aberrant female sexuality in the emergent science of nineteenth-century sexology. For Victorian readers, few things could have seemed further removed from sensation literature--from lurid crime novels to sordid news stories to sexualized science--than common sense. Yet, my project illustrates the role of sensational literature in provoking the dark millennial fantasies that passed as common sense and often animated theories of femininity expressed in late-Victorian science. Common sense retains its rhetorical force through the assumption that its premises arise naturally and apply universally. But if we take a historical view, a troubling pattern emerges: common sense has often worked to preserve reactionary views of femininity. For example, in the nineteenth century, common sense led medical professionals to the belief that a woman's reproductive system left her constitutionally more susceptible to "hysteria." define common sense as the product of the frequent iteration of a particular train of associative logic that results in the naturalization and legitimation of claims about reality, even if those claims are both sensationalized and arbitrary. The rhetorical force of common sense requires the perpetual obscuration of its origins. The elusive and frustrating quality of common sense as a cognitive category derives from its ability, in Stuart Hall's words, to "represent itself as the 'traditional wisdom or truth of the ages,' [when] in fact, it is deeply a product of history, 'part of the historical process'" ("Gramsci's Relevance" 431). Hall describes this type of associative relationship between disparate figures often exemplified in the logic of common sense as "an articulation." What Hall refers to as an "articulation" might also be called, when viewed through the lens of literary theory, a "metonymic chain," wherein the literal term for one thing is applied to another with which it becomes linked, articulated. Both terms—articulation and metonymic chain—effectively describe the illusion of necessary correspondence in mere arbitrary association. My translation of this cultural phenomenon into the framework of literary analysis allows for a precise description of the rhetorical transformations involved in conjuring common sense. With frequent iteration, metonymic association may appear to be based on some more substantial similarity—not circumstantial, but necessary; not the product of sensationalism, but the inevitable conclusion derived from and constituting common sense. Common sense regarding female sexuality has frequently been preserved through sensationalism; but paradoxically, sensationalism is often most effective when its characteristic paranoia seems somehow self-evidently justified, even rational. In other words, sensationalism works best to consolidate the paranoid patterns of associative logic informing the nineteenth-century figuration of femininity when it appears not to be working at all—when sensationalism takes on the weight of common sense.
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11

Benson, Linda G. Trites Roberta Seelinger. "The constructed child femininity in Beverly Cleary's Ramona series /." Normal, Ill. Illinois State University, 1997. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/ilstu/fullcit?p9804928.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 1997.
Title from title page screen, viewed June 9, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Roberta Seelinger Trites (chair), Jan C. Susina, Heather Brodie Graves. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 227-247) and abstract. Also available in print.
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12

Johnson, Larry D. Jr. "Dismantling and (Re) constructing notions of masculinity and femininity in African women literature." DigitalCommons@Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center, 2011. http://digitalcommons.auctr.edu/dissertations/240.

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This study examines gender (re)presentation in three carefully selected works: Brown Girl, Brownstones; The Color Purple; and When Rocks Dance. Employing the scholarship of women writers of the Diaspora, I contend that the works dismantle and (re)construct gender identities. Where traditional notions of sexuality depict men as masculine and women as feminine, this analysis interrogates and subverts the traditional paradigm. Methodologically, the dissertation combines literary analysis, post-colonial studies, and gender schema theory into an interdisciplinary approach. I begin by exploring gender construction to establish a theoretical perspective for characters who reject traditional heteronormative paradigms. I then extend recent critical discussions on gender and post-colonialism by examining the relationships between the men and women in each literary text. I contend that traditional notion of characters as homosexual or lesbian is dismantled and (re)constructed, thereby resulting in characters who embrace their femininity or masculinity in a more balanced construction of personality, which is the key to their self-actualization.
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13

Dolan, Josephine Mary. "National heroines : representing femininity and the past in popular film and literature 1930-1955." Thesis, Lancaster University, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.242825.

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14

Bowen, Scarlett K. "The labor of femininity : working women in eighteenth-century British prose /." Digital version accessible at:, 1998. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/fullcit?p9837908.

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15

Boardman, Kay. "Representations of femininity, domesticity, sexuality, work and independence in mid-Victorian women's magazines." Thesis, University of Strathclyde, 1994. http://oleg.lib.strath.ac.uk:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=21301.

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This study explores representations of femininity, domesticity, sexuality, work and independence in mid-Victorian women's periodicals. Through close readings of a whole range of publications produced for and by women between 1845 and 1880 the study aims to explore the relationship between text and culture, and to consider the relevance of class as an important determinant of social knowledge and value. Starting from a discussion of methodological and theoretical concerns the study moves on to look at representations of the sign woman in popular, fashion, drawingroom and evangelical magazines. A final chapter explores the way in which a woman-centred discourse is developed in feminist journals and considers the significance of class as a marker of respectability. The wider concern of the study is with debates about the relationship between gender and class, the women's magazine as a popular signifying practice, and the highly mediated relationship between text and culture.
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Lake, Crystal B. ""Some peculiar construction of the object" the colonization of femininity in picturesque aesthetics /." Morgantown, W. Va. : [West Virginia University Libraries], 2003. http://etd.wvu.edu/templates/showETD.cfm?recnum=3088.

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Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2003.
Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 58 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 52-55).
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17

Suico, Theresa Go. "Privileged high school girls' responses to depictions of femininity in popular young adult literature." Thesis, Boston University, 2013. https://hdl.handle.net/2144/11058.

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Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University
Young adult literature has been a subject of contention for educators, adolescent psychologists, and critics for decades. Although some commentators maintain that young adult literature can be educationally and developmentally beneficial for adolescent readers, others argue that it often contains negative and potentially harmful messages that could influence its readers during a time when they are most vulnerable. Despite the claims on both sides, little substantive research exists on how older adolescent girls, the intended audience for these books, respond to the texts. This qualitative study examined three popular works of young adult literature to identify the overlapping messages they have regarding the depiction of adolescent females. Five adolescent girls, ages 14-17, read the books and met with the researcher in a series of one-on-one interviews to discuss their responses to the books, specifically the depiction of female characters. The participants also completed journal entries on the books and surveys on their reading habits and responses to the specific characters from the books in the study. The findings indicate these participants interpreted the books in distinctive ways based on their experiences and in keeping with prior research on adolescent development and reader response. The participants also took a critical approach to the books to find parallels to their own lives.
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18

Rojas, Yuko. "Space and female consciousness in Virginia Woolf's fiction: idealist and phenomenologicalperspectives." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2003. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31245882.

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Hansson, Josefina. "The Hidden Femininity of The Hobbit : the Gendering of Bilbo Baggins." Thesis, Högskolan Kristianstad, Fakulteten för lärarutbildning, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hkr:diva-20726.

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This essay argues that the protagonist of The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins can be considered to be a female character in a male form. By applying feminist literary criticism this essay map out the traditional gender roles in society along with the traditional gender roles in Middle Earth in order to investigate Bilbo’s female characteristics, the similarities between him and women in patriarchal society as well as the female imagery present in The Hobbit. The results show that Bilbo Baggins’ characteristics such as emotionality, sensitivity and compassion corresponds more to the traditional female gender norms than that of the male gender norms. The results also indicate the similarities between Bilbo’s experiences and that of women in a patriarchal society, such as the attention to being respectable and difficulties working in a male-dominated field.
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Borhan, Burcu. "Gendered narratives in Victorian literature identity formation in empire-focused children's literature /." Fairfax, VA : George Mason University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1920/3246.

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Thesis (M.A,)--George Mason University, 2008.
Vita: p. 101. Thesis director: Amelia Rutledge. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Aug. 27, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-100). Also issued in print.
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Poulos, Samantha. "“Who cares about pretty?”: Examining the construction and performance of femininity in Young Adult literature." Thesis, University of Sydney, 2020. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/23704.

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This thesis investigates the feminist project of revaluing the feminine and seeks to understand the seemingly dichotomous relationship between femininity and strength as presented in young adult (YA) literature. Through a close reading of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series and Veronica Roth’s Divergent series this thesis examines, using Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, how femininity is constructed and performed and why, and then explores how to understand femininity outside of a hierarchical gender binary. A framework of Eve Sedgwick’s paranoid and reparative reading is used to look suspiciously at these texts while also allowing space to examine how they offer new understandings of femininity. This thesis argues that YA literature is a unique fictional space that can reflect and subvert contemporary theories of gender, feminism, and identity. It then offers a historical overview of feminist and gender theory to examine hierarchical binaries that position femininity as Other. It later challenges postfeminist and neoliberal discourses that promote choice feminism as a way of performing femininity as a personal choice, rather than questioning greater social structures. The narration of protagonists Katniss Everdeen and Tris Prior reveal the mechanisms through which gender is performed and valued in these books. Irigaray’s theories of masquerade and mimicry are invoked to examine how these characters understand themselves and their relationship to femininity. The thesis then questions the nature of identity and how identity and gender can be created in a dystopic society, later looking at what new futures can be created to allow for imagining gender and identity outside gender binaries. The primary objective of this thesis is to examine how the Hunger Games and Divergent series represent and value femininity, to understand what that says about contemporary feminist theory, and then imagine how femininity can exist beyond a hierarchical gender binary.
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Arosteguy, Katie O'Donnell. "The clothes do make the woman : the politics of fashioning femininity in contemporary American Chick lit." Pullman, Wash. : Washington State University, 2009. http://www.dissertations.wsu.edu/Dissertations/Spring2009/k_arosteguy_040109.pdf.

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Greenwood, Amanda. "Representations of femininity in the novels of Edna O'Brien, 1960-1996." Thesis, University of Hull, 1999. http://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:3887.

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Purkiss, Diane. "Gender, power and the body : some figurations of femininity in Milton and seventeenth-century women's writing." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1991. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:9f4386a3-ec54-4ef2-aaf7-ffb09ee4439e.

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This thesis deals with gender, the body and political power in the seventeenth century through readings of selected nonliterary texts set against readings of the writings of Milton and seventeenth-century women. Milton's poems and even his prose have most often been contextualized with reference to the higher reaches of literary history; here they are placed in more unfamiliar contexts: certain seventeenth-century women's writings, the emerging discourses of feminine conduct, and the discourses of 'news' produced in and around the Civil War. I show how both Milton and women writers struggle to come to terms with the implications of the new and powerful ideological formulations which result from the explosion of print culture which produces these texts.
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Klein, Deborah Rochelle. "Negotiating femininity, ethnicity and history : representations of Ruth First in South African struggle narratives." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/19000.

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An exploration of South African historiography through the prism of representations of activist writer Ruth First (1925-1982) forms the focus of this thesis. Ignored in South African canonical histories during the apartheid era, Ruth First is frequently portrayed as an icon of the struggle in current accounts about the past. The dissertation is ordered by five central discussions: gender, political activism, Jewishness, maternal behaviour and the role of the individual in the community. With reference to her non-fiction writing, autobiographical accounts by her daughters and her contemporaries, photographic exhibitions and transcriptions of amnesty hearings to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (amongst other works), I trace Ruth First's presentation of identity through communications of dress, posture and language. I examine too the production of her image across time in South African culture. Imprisoned under the infamous Ninety-Day law in 1963, Ruth First subsequently wrote a memoir titled 117 Days: An Account of Confinement and Interrogation under South African Ninety-Day Detention Law (1965), which became known as a classic of the genre. Caught between her commitments to racial equality and a life of social privilege, between the demands of motherhood and her sociological research work in Africa, between performances of a white femininity and the suppressed ramifications of a difficult ethnic past, Ruth First shuttles between unsatisfactory subject positions. I propose here that Ruth First strains against the representative mantle which she is made to wear in post-apartheid tributes to the past, and which she herself sometimes donned as a lifetime member of the South African Communist Party, and later the African National Congress. As the daughter of poor Yiddish-speaking Jews from Lithuania, I propose that Ruth First is marked by a history of dislocation, immigration and revolutionary activity which she refused to acknowledge. I undertake my own historiographical exercise through which I re-situate Ruth First within an alternate heritage of Jewish activist women. An understanding of the historiographical process as a series of continuous adjustments of the past to politicized positions in the present underlies my examination. Includes bibliographical references (p. 308-326).
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Koch, Kimberly Jean. "Negotiating triple consciousness for August Wilson's female characters." Click here for download, 2009. http://proquest.umi.com.ps2.villanova.edu/pqdweb?did=1934736101&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=3260&RQT=309&VName=PQD.

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Parris, Brandy. "Emotional labor, women's work, and sentimental capital in nineteenth-century American fiction /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9316.

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Hiew, Cha Kie, and 邱佳琪. "Confusion and exploration." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2010. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B45689921.

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Vaporidis, Florindia. "The feminine archetypes as symbolic representations in Strate Myriveles' trilogy of war." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2000. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/27767.

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This thesis is an endeavour to examine and analyse Myriveles’ ‘Trilogy of War’ within the framework of Jungian Archetypal Analysis. More specifically, we mainly focus on and explore the function of the feminine archetypal images/symbols as they appear in the Trilogy of War.
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Porteous, Holly. "Reading femininity, beauty and consumption in Russian women's magazines." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2014. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5775/.

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Western-origin women’s lifestyle magazines have enjoyed great success in post-Soviet Russia, and represent part of the globalisation of the post-Soviet media landscape. Existing studies of post-Soviet Russian women’s magazines have tended to focus on either magazine content or reader interpretations, their role in the media marketplace, or representations of themes such as glamour culture or conspicuous consumption. Based on a discourse analysis of the three Russian women’s lifestyle magazines Elle, Liza and Cosmopolitan, and interviews with 39 Russian women, the thesis interrogates femininity norms in contemporary Russia. This thesis addresses a gap in the literature in foregrounding a feminist approach to a combined analysis of both the content of the magazines, and how readers decode the magazines. Portrayals of embodied femininity in women’s magazines are a chief focus, in addition to reader decodings of these portrayals. The thesis shows how certain forms of aesthetic and cultural capital are linked to femininity, and how women’s magazines discursively construct normative femininity via portraying these forms of cultural capital as necessary for women. It also relates particular ways of performing femininity, such as conspicuous consumption and beauty labour, to wider patriarchal discourses in Russian society. Furthermore, the thesis engages with pertinent debates around cultural globalisation in relation to post-Soviet media and culture, and addresses both change and continuity in post-Soviet gender norms; not only from the Soviet era into the present, but across an oft-perceived East/West axis via the horizontalization and glocalisation of culture. The thesis discusses two main aspects of change: 1) the role now played by conspicuous consumption in social constructions of normative femininity; and 2) the expectation of ever increasing resources women are now expected to devote to beauty labour as part of performing normative femininity. However, I also argue that it is appropriate from a gender studies perspective to highlight Russian society as patriarchal as well as post-socialist. As such, I highlight the cross-cultural experiences women in contemporary Russia women share with women in other parts of the world. Accordingly, the research suggests that women’s lifestyle magazines in the post-Soviet era have drawn on more established gender discourses in Soviet-Russian society as a means of facilitating the introduction of relatively new norms and practices, particularly linked to a culture of conspicuous consumption.
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Babinec, Lisa Suzanne. "Cultural constructs : the representation of femininity in the novels of Emma Tennant, Margaret Elphinstone, and Janice Galloway." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1994. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/4466/.

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This thesis proffers a detailed study, not an overview or a survey, of three contemporary Scottish women writers and six novels; moreover, the thesis attempts to decentre the Anglocentric British literary establishment. The primary theoretical approach drawn on in the analysis is feminism; the tenets of postcolonialism, poststructuralism, postmodernism, and the avant-garde are also integrated. Original and unpublished comments taken from personal interviews conducted with Tennant, Elphinstone, and Galloway are interwoven with textual interpretation throughout the thesis; this detailed new information confirms the critical conclusions drawn in all six novels. Chapter One reviews the field of Scottish literature and identifies a variety of critical approaches to the study of Scottish literature. At the same time, the review of literature defines a gap in the current field of research in Scottish literature and, in particular, Scottish women's writing. The chapter offers alternate critical approaches to Scottish literature and concludes with a brief overview of the six novels which make-up the thesis. Chapters Two, Three, and four offer in-depth examinations of Emma Tennant's novels The Bad Sister, Sisters and Strangers: A Mortal Tale, and Faustine. The analysis explores how Tennant exposes the way in which ideology and cultural institutions condition and limit women's access to positive female roles and self-hood. The discussion reveals how social discourses and the media construct women as powerless subjects who are often compelled to collude with their 'oppression'. An investigation into narrative techniques like orality and intertextuality discloses how Tennant calls into question the very nature of literature and how her writing offers a feminist postmodern challenge to conventional representations of womenhood and femininity in literature.
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Browning, Sheila Rose Takeuchi Naoko. "Pretty little girl warriors : a study of images of femininity in Japanese Sailor Moon comics /." free to MU campus, to others for purchase, 2004. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/mo/fullcit?p1426050.

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Davis, Alexander Tyrrell. "An examination of the notions of #masculinity' and #femininity' in the poetry and prose of Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 1990. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.242469.

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Mavromatis, Stefanos. "Rational Femininity and Emotional Masculinity in Golding’s Lord of the Flies." Thesis, Högskolan Kristianstad, Fakulteten för lärarutbildning, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hkr:diva-22124.

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This paper argues that in Golding’s Lord of the Flies feminine thinking is rational and masculine thinking is emotional. This essay provides historical background that presents the general patriarchal view of femininity during 20th century England of being seen as the inferior-emotional gender with intellectual limitations. By examining gender roles during the era that the setting of the novel takes place, what the terms feminine and masculine thinking indicate and by applying these terms, this paper categorises Piggy’s, Ralph’s and Jack’s behaviour and way of thinking. Furthermore, this paper argues that feminine thinking and feminine group-oriented logical behaviour are more advantageous, while the masculine individualistic emotionally driven thinking and behaviour cause some key problems. This essay’s goal is not to claim the superiority of one gender over the other but to question some of the masculine actions that Ralph and Jack engage in, by comparing them to the feminine actions that Ralph and Piggy engage in.
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Wandland, Louise. ""We Couldn't Fathom Them at All" : The Complex Representation of Femininity in Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides." Thesis, Högskolan i Halmstad, Sektionen för humaniora (HUM), 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-15931.

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Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides tells the story of adolescent boys gazing at the five Lisbon sisters, who captivate the entire neighborhood with their blond hair and youthful beauty. The young women are positioned as objects, merely to be gazed upon by the male narrators, who by watching them seek to gain knowledge of life and death. Therefore, the novel risks adhering to a traditional, patriarchal theme, where men are the active subjects and women are the passive objects. By reading against the grain and focusing on the sisters' stories told in glimpses through the narrators' voices, however, it emerges that The Virgin Suicides carries a feminist message that runs counter to the objectification and silencing of the young women.
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Cedergren, Michaela. "Madness or Femininity – A Woman's Options : A Feminist Analysis of Mental Illness in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar." Thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Engelska, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-35908.

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Harper, Mark C. "The violent act of femininity sexual politics, narrative futility, and gender performativity in the blood melodramas of Francois Truffaut /." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2006. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3210040.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Comparative Literature, 2006.
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-03, Section: A, page: 0756. Adviser: Joan Hawkins. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed March 16, 2007)."
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McFaden, Gwen M. "Fending off feminization : erecting gender/ed boundaries and preserving masculinity in 1930s British fiction." Virtual Press, 2002. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1247890.

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Adverse economic and social conditions during the 1930s prompted fears that Britain and its populace were becoming feminized. Mass unemployment, the collapse of the older forms of masculinist industry, and the sudden expansion of London's consumer culture were three major events that contributed to perceptions of declining masculinity and rampant feminization. Unemployment, it was feared, transformed muscular, self-reliant laborers into emasculate, dependent idlers. The demise of industry (coal mining, ship building, and iron/steel working) turned symbolic garrisons of imperial strength and power into derelict wastelands. London's consumerism in the form of cheap goods and escapist entertainment was thought to pacify and enfeeble the (male) inhabitants. These three pivotal events fueled apprehensions about the breakdown in traditional, patriarchal structures and heightened sensitivities to and furthered the use of masculine/feminine dichotomies within public discourse.The aim of my dissertation is to explore the ways in which complex networks of gender anxieties resonate in 1930s British fiction through the establishment and erosion of rhetorical gender/ed boundaries. Although fears regarding the political landscape, social unrest, and war were instrumental in shaping the literary responses of the decade, those fears were also informed by and articulated through a gender-conscious rhetoric. Emasculation imagery worked in concert with the complementary feminization imagery to capture the popular imagination. Apprehensions about women's potential to disrupt traditional boundaries (sexualized women, i.e. women taking men's jobs) merged with generalized fears of the feminine (constructed Woman, i.e. an undefined fear femaleness), and both were inscribed with the power to disrupt, threaten, and subsume. These "discourses of gender and gendered discourses," to adopt Lyn Pykett's phrase, played an integral part in shaping how the 1930s populace interpreted their rapidly changing world. By promoting gender to the center of my interpretive paradigm, I aim to identify how representations of the private realm interact with and contribute to the public/political narrative thrusts.
Department of English
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Tullis, Brittany Nicole. "Constructions of femininity in Latin/o American comics : redefining womanhood via the male-authored comic." Diss., University of Iowa, 2014. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/4777.

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This dissertation examines constructions of femininity in three male-authored Latin/o American comics: Gabriel Vargas' La Familia Burrón (Mexico, 1948-2009), Quino's Mafalda (Argentina, 1964-1973), and Love and Rockets (Los Bros. Hernandez, 1981-1996; 2000-present). After first establishing an analytical context from which to explore these works, discussing contemporary trends in national comics production as well as the ways in which femininity has been prescriptively constructed in each particular time and place, I then analyze the ways in which each author questions, challenges, and/or completely reconstructs their own version of "graphic femininity." As the following chapters will show, each articulation of femininity as constructed within the three serial comics under examination here takes different forms in each comic under analysis; while female characters in one title might embody a socially idealized model of femininity such as the "angel in the house," or the cult of "true womanhood", characters in other comics (or even within the same title) might play inverse roles, defying the mandates of the role assigned to them by contemporary society and ideological institutions such as compulsory heterosexuality or patriarchal power. A variety of models of feminine behavior and subjectivity are present in the panels of these comics, but in contrast with other contemporary constructions of femininity in cultural texts, products and sociopolitical discourse, they are presented critically rather than prescriptively, depicted in ways that disrupt the limits of femininity as it has traditionally been construed and, in some cases, offer visions of alternative, liberating paths.
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Saldarriaga, Patricia. "Poética del cuerpo femenino en el Primero sueño de sor Juana Inés de la Cruz /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/8294.

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Ireson, Lucinda. "Cracked mirrors and petrifying vision : negotiating femininity as spectacle within the Victorian cultural sphere." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2014. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/4796/.

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Taking as it basis the longstanding alignment of men with an active, eroticised gaze and women with visual spectacle within Western culture, this thesis demonstrates the prevalence of this model during the Victorian era, adopting an interdisciplinary approach so as to convey the varied means by which the gendering of vision was propagated and encouraged. Chapter One provides an overview of gender and visual politics in the Victorian age, subsequently analysing a selection of texts that highlight this gendered dichotomy of vision. Chapter Two focuses on the theoretical and developmental underpinnings of this dichotomy, drawing upon both Freudian and object relations theory. Chapters Three and Four centre on women’s poetic responses to this imbalance, beginning by discussing texts that convey awareness and discontent before moving on to examine more complex portrayals of psychological trauma. Chapter Five unites these interdisciplinary threads to explore women’s attempts to break away from their status as objects of vision, referring to poetic and artistic texts as well as women’s real life experiences. The thesis concludes that, though women were not wholly oppressed, they were subject to significant strictures; principally, the enduring, pervasive presence of an objectifying mode of vision aligned with the male.
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Queen, Melissa A. "The Seven Incarnations of a Debutante." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1366116350.

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Bicket, Juliet Linden. "Bringers of epiphany depictions of the feminine in the shorter fiction of George Mackay Brown /." Connect to e-thesis record to view abstract. Move to record for print version, 2008. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/328/.

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Thesis (MPhil(R)) - University of Glasgow, 2008.
MPhil(R) thesis submitted to the Department of Scottish Literature, Faculty of Arts, University of Glasgow, 2008. Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.
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Sá, Sheila Pelegri de. "Ecos de Lilith: um olhar para a construção da feminilidade em romances portugueses pós-revolução." Universidade de São Paulo, 2009. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8150/tde-08022010-120401/.

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O exame da narrativa ficcional permite a abordagem, para além do universo da teoria literária, de questões discursivas que refletem índices históricos, sociológicos e antropológicos, dentre os quais a construção da identidade de gênero. Neste sentido, o instrumental psicanalítico favorece a análise do sistema de referentes que constitui a feminilidade. Interessa, aqui, refletir acerca da feminilidade contemporânea inserida no contexto português do período ditatorial e construída discursivamente no período pós-revolucionário. Tal feminilidade apresenta-se avessa, muitas vezes, aos valores sedimentados no pensamento ocidental judaicocristão, que atribuem à mulher uma posição inferior, passiva e no limite castrada. Ao enfocar personagens femininas presentes em alguns exemplares da prosa portuguesa das últimas três décadas, pretende-se localizar um outro paradigma, que corre à margem dos padrões sociais vigentes: o da mulher libertária, independente, ativa, enfim, que rompe o compromisso com as regras da família, sociedade e religião. Cabe observar que quatro das personagens ora abordadas são discursivamente constituídas a partir de uma perspectiva masculina, tanto do ponto de vista do foco narrativo, quanto do ponto de vista autoral. O contraponto se dá com a escolha de uma personagem feminina fruto da perspectiva autoral feminina. Para a realização da abordagem proposta, são percorridos cinco romances, a saber: Balada da Praia dos cães e Alexandra Alpha, de José Cardoso Pires, Vícios e Virtudes e Pedro e Paula, de Helder Macedo e A Costa dos Murmúrios, de Lidia Jorge.
The investigation of fictional narrative leads to an approach beyond the universe of literary theory, discursive issues representing historical, sociological and anthropological insights, among which the genre identity may be cited. In this way, the psychoanalytical tools enable the analysis of the referring systems which constitute the femininity. This work reflects upon the contemporaneous femininity which has been inserted in the Portuguese context within the dictatorship period, and built up discursively in a post-revolutionary era. Most times this femininity proves itself to be contrary to the moral values established by the western Jewish Christian thoughts; such values set women mostly to an inferior, passive, submissive and castrated position. By focusing on female characters in the Portuguese prose from the last three decades, another paradigm is brought up, mainly sideways to the imposed common social patterns: the libertarian, active and independent woman is brought to life, the one who breaks away from rules imposed by family, society and religion. It is relevant to observe that four of such characters are discursively constituted from a male perspective, within the narrative and authorial focus. The counterpoint is set in the choice of a female character, based on a feminine authorial perspective. For this proposed approach to take place, five novels have been fully taken into consideration: Ballad of Dogs Beach and Alexandra Alpha, from José Cardoso Pires, Virtue and Vices and Peter and Paula, by Helder Macedo and The Murmuring Coast, by Lidia Jorge.
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Macklin, Victoria Ursula. "The power of the breast and cane : how literary mother-figures challenged social constructions of femininity 1787-1825." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2013. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/4221/.

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This study seeks to explore how social constructions of femininity during the Romantic Period were challenged in literature by proto-feminists in such a way as to form a revised feminine ideal of which both radical and conservative women could approve. It is an exploration of both nurturing (the figurative breast) and punitive maternal power (the figurative cane) as portrayed in Mary Wollstonecraft’s novellas, Mary and Maria, Amelia Opie’s Adeline Mowbray, and Charlotte Smith’s Celestina. As these three authors’ social circles overlapped, they shared many of the same convictions, facilitating the analysis of the style and method of expressing these ideals. It is indisputable that women of the period were allotted some authority over their own children. However, the avenues of self-empowerment open to childless women have hitherto been overlooked. According to novels of the time, did women have any power over their own destinies? Did they have any socially acceptable power over men? This study’s aim is to discover if maternal authority was posed as an empowering tool for all women by tracing how it is being defined by Wollstonecraft in Thoughts on the Education of Daughters through an evolution from the overtly didactic style of works written for teachers and children (such as her Original Stories from Real Life) to the slightly more covert style of her two novellas, Mary and Maria. The similarity between the treatments of these two very different readers is carried forward through the examination of the other two authors (Opie’s Tales of the Pemberton Family and Adeline Mowbray; and Smith’s Rural Walks and Celestina). This study has found that all three authors commend the wielding of maternal power to their readers. The maternal voice of these authors and the portrayal of more traditional maternal roles in their didactic works for children and teachers draw parallels between this persuasive style and the style of the works written for adults seeking entertainment (rather than enlightenment). The authors’ treatment of these two categories of readers traces the use of maternal power as a tool for influencing the perception of the social status quo and indeed suggests a reification of maternal authority in order to empower the contemporary reader. Through copious examples in all of the texts, maternal power (even punitive power) is shown to be innocuous enough to challenge social constructions of femininity within the confines of prescribed socially acceptable behaviour detailed by the novelists themselves. These novelists therefore offer the reader an alternative interpretation of maternity by liberating the act of mothering from the biological state, in order to examine social maternity and its implications for proto-feminism.
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Saletta, Ester. "Die Imagination des Weiblichen Schnitzlers Fräulein Else in der österreichischen Literatur der Zwischenkriegszeit." Wien Köln Weimar Böhlau, 2004. http://deposit.ddb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?id=2745649&prov=M&dok_var=1&dok_ext=htm.

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Bergstrand, Julia. "Mina, the "Angel", and Lucy, the "Monster" : two sides of femininity in Bram Stoker's Dracula." Thesis, Högskolan Kristianstad, Fakulteten för lärarutbildning, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hkr:diva-20723.

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This paper analyses the characters Mina and Lucy in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, showing how they are juxtaposed in terms of femininity. By using feminist criticism and the concepts of the angel in the house, monstrous femininity, and the virgin/whore dichotomy, this paper explores how Mina represents the self-sacrificing, supportive, and wifely angel in the house, while Lucy represents the sexual, disobedient, and powerful monstrous female. This is analyzed through Mina’s interactions with the men, as well as through her view on femininity, and through Lucy’s interactions with the men and with Mina. This paper then explores how these differing gender roles lead to different outcomes for the two women. Mina is excluded but is able to be purified from vampirism while still alive. In contrast, Lucy, being a threat to British Victorian femininity, has to be killed and mutilated before her memory can be purified. How well the women fit into the male community’s view of the Victorian female ideal, with Mina fitting it the best, is found to be the reason for why Lucy suffers a worse fate than Mina.
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Lundhall, Rebecca. "Evil Women in Harry Potter : Breaking Gender Expectations and Representations of Evil." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för språkstudier, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-137110.

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With a focus on gender expectations, this qualitative study analyses how Bellatrix Lestrange and Dolores Umbridge in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series represent evil. Through close reading the first and the final three books of the series using the feminist criticism perspective performativity, the aim of this study is to highlight how the evil women in the series are portrayed in comparison to both good characters of both sexes as well as evil men. The results show that while the evil women represent evil in the ways that they break their gender expectations, the good men also represent goodness in the way that they break their gender expectations. Thus, they are not evil because they deviate from these expectations, but because the gendered traits these women embody are connected to evil and, in turn, help make the reader perceive them as such.
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Weber-Fève, Stacey A. "There's no place like home homemaking, making home, and femininity in contemporary women's filmmaking and the literature of the Métropol and the Maghreb /." Columbus, Ohio : Ohio State University, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=osu1148746370.

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Weber-Fève, Stacey A. "There's no place like home: homemaking, making home, and femininity in contemporary women's filmmaking and the literature of the MÉTROPOL and the MAGHREB." The Ohio State University, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1148746370.

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