New Cultural Models in Women-S Fantasy Literature Sarah Jane Gamble Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University
NEW CULTURAL MODELS IN WOMEN-S FANTASY LITERATURE SARAH JANE GAMBLE SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD, DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE OCTOBER 1991 NEW CULTURAL MODELS IN WOMEN'S FANTASY LITERATURE Sarah Jane Gamble This thesis examines the way in which modern women writers use non realistic literary forms in order to create new role models of and for women. The work of six authors are analysed in detail - Angela Carter, Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Ursula Le Guin, Joanna Russ and Kate Wilhelm. I argue that they share a discontent with the conventions of classic realism, which they all regard as perpetuating ideologically-generated stereotypes of women. Accordingly, they move away from mimetic modes in order to formulate a discourse which will challenge conventional representations of the 'feminine', arriving at a new conception of the female subject. I argue that although these writers represent a range of feminist responses to the dominant order, they all arrive at a s1mil~r conviction that such an order is male-dominated. All exhibit an awareness of the work of feminist critics, creating texts which consciously interact with feminist theory. I then discuss how these authors use their art to examine the their own situation as women who write. All draw the attention to the existence of a tradition of female censorship, whereby the creative woman has experienced, in an intensified form, the repreSSion experienced by all women in a culture which privileges the male over the female. All these writers exhibit a desire to escape such a tradition, progressing towards the formulation of a utopian female subject who is free to be fully creative a project they represent metaphorically in the form of a quest.
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