DOCSLIB.ORG

©2010 by Suzanne Marie Lynch. All Rights Reserved

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
©2010 by Suzanne Marie Lynch. All Rights Reserved View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship Repository ©2010 BY Suzanne Marie Lynch. All rights reserved. FROM EXILE TO TRANSCENDENCE: RACIAL MIXTURE AND THE JOURNEY OF REVISION IN THE WORKS OF LYDIA MARIA CHILD, HANNAH CRAFTS, KATE CHOPIN, JAMES WELDON JOHNSON, AND JEAN TOOMER BY SUZANNE MARIE LYNCH DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2010 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Stephanie Foote, Chair Associate Professor Alice Deck, Co-Chair Associate Professor Siobhan Somerville Professor Cary Nelson Abstract My study, entitled From Exiles to Transcendences focuses on five authors: Lydia Maria Child, Hannah Crafts, Kate Chopin, James Weldon Johnson, and Jean Toomer. It examines each author’s effort to represent the mixed-race character as a constant “process of becoming” (Hall, Questions of Identity 4). This study aims to convey the distinctiveness of the American mixed-race character in American literature and to provide a thorough reading of how this distinctiveness is portrayed and sustained throughout the scope of the selected texts. My dissertation identifies the mixed-race voice as experientially distinct from other American raced voices while acknowledging the mixed-race character as one who demonstrates a connectedness to a plurality of racial cultures. The following chapters span a period of approximately 100 years and illustrate a common concern among them, albeit from differing perspectives and influences, regarding how home and family function as fluid spaces of racial subjectivity. My study maintains a position that the above authors questioned the presumed irreversibility of an entrenched understanding of family ties; that they challenged and rescripted the historically defined self with a self that privileges experience and discovery over pre-given identities; and that they depicted their characters as evolving subjects who created themselves with name and identity as they moved toward their “process of becoming.” ii To my Mother with love and to all those who live on the thresholds of neither/nor iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks to my best friend Robert Funk whose emotional support helped get me through the many challenges I faced during the writing of this project. Thanks to my mother who made sure I never lost sight of my goals and to whom I owe so much more than this simple dedication can provide; and thanks to my advisors for their guidance and patience. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: 1 Chapter 1: Exiles and Revisions: Lydia Maria Child’s “Alternative” Republic 37 Chapter 2: Defining Hannah Crafts through the Reversals of Language, Womanhood, and Reason 75 Chapter 3: Disinheriting Whiteness in Chopin’s “Désirée’s Baby” 107 Chapter 4: “The Thrill of Discovery” Told Through the Borderland Voice of James Weldon Johnson’s Ex-Colored Man 135 Chapter 5: Consciousness of “Being” in Jean Toomer’s Poetry 174 Works Cited: 206 Biography: 222 v Introduction Although the mixed-race character has garnered much attention in the last two decades, my dissertation argues that this attention has been limited in scope. While serious consideration has been given to recognizing race as a construction of economics and/or as an identity category that is much more fluid than it is stable, I argue that much of this emphasis does not go far enough to make clear the distinctiveness of the mixed-race character as an American icon. But more importantly, I argue that the lack of attention to the manner in which this distinctiveness is portrayed and sustained though individual texts, more often than not eclipses the effort of some reformist authors who use these characters to suggest new ways of thinking about race. My dissertation thus illustrates how the mark of difference for mixed-race characters, which often comes in the form of an invisible racial sign or as uncommon racial experiences, becomes its own specific challenge for these characters who occupy a world where identity and racial history are inextricably intertwined. In an effort to demonstrate how an agenda of racially-mixed characters differs from that of the unmixed and to interpret the significance of this difference as it relates to the study of race in American literature, my project examines the work of five writers. These writers I argue look at the interconnection of cultures and races as an act that holds the potential to transform and refigure the construction of families and identities through a lens of character self-conception. My analysis of these authors’ texts concludes that the efforts of these writers to 1 acknowledge America’s racial diversity might be seen as their way of envisioning a new American culture that grants racially plural subjects an element of power and agency while simultaneously illustrating the possibilities of restructuring the social fabric of America that positions mixed-race subjects as inferior and dangerous. In contrast to Judith Berzon’s theory that characterizes these characters as singular subjects who experience a racial awareness that often comes through a signifying moment of realization,1 I approach these subjects as fluid and evolving constructions. Rather than viewing them as static identities that so easily lend themselves to readings that depict mixed-race characters as subjects cataclysmically vulnerable to the occurrence of change, I see these characters as subjects who illustrate change as a constant “process of becoming” (Hall, Questions 4), or as Kathleen Pfeiffer argues, as subjects who engage in racial and cultural diversity from the experience of “individuation.”2 Throughout the following chapters, I argue that this “process of becoming” and/or “individuation” is specifically useful in characterizing the experiences and constructedness of the mixed-race character. It is this approach to “becoming” that I rely on in my interrogation of the scholarship of this character who I contend has traditionally and restrictively been subsumed in 1 Judith Berzon, who draws heavily on the work of Everett Stonequist in her ground-breaking book Neither Black Nor White: The Mulatto Character (1978), states “virtually all fictional characters who undergo “the crisis experience” also undergo a profound social and psychological change in their lives” (120). In referring to the mixed-race character, she goes on to say that this experience includes the character’s “discovery that he belongs to a despised minority and that his identity and place within the lower caste are problematic.” 2 Pfeiffer explains this concept as a liberation from racial restrictions and an act of “self- actualization.” 2 the culture of blackness by various scholars who more often than not chose to read these characters as “crisis” characters (Berzon 122).3 I offer instead that if we view these characters as the cross-racial/cross-cultural/cross-experiential characters who defy racial expectations and embrace plurality, we might come to understand how they might function to provide a substantive counter discourse to those discourses that Julie Cary Nerad identify as “reinforcing biological definitions of race” (817) despite the effort by scholars to “destabilize the idea [of race] as a biological and authentic identity” (817). My work, which is heavily indebted to theorists such as Paul Gilroy, who argues for a “renewed critique of race thinking” (8) and Stuart Hall, who advances the idea that we are always in the “process of becoming” (“Cinematic Representations” 70), seeks specifically to explore the distinctiveness of the mixed- race character as illustrated by their authors. My goal is to bring visibility to characters of racial mixture by reclaiming them from their submersion in the races of others, a position that I claim has contributed to the overlooking of their authors’ unique contribution to American history and literature. The static, one-dimensional view of these characters as racial betrayers, which is so common to their reading,4 implicitly obscures the existence of the positive and substantive contributions their 3 Berzon makes the claim that the mixed-race character almost always experiences an “existential crisis of redefining himself” (122) and it is this “trauma” that provides the basis for his reconstituted identity. 4 For examples of these readings, see Robert Stepto’s discussion of Johnson’s Autobiography, George Hutchinson’s discussion of how Toomer and his work has been characterized in “Jean Toomer and the American racial Discourse,” and Barbara Christian’s discussion of the near white character in Black Women Novelists. 3 authors attempted to voice about the means by which their characters “rescue liberty” from an oppressive system (Child Romance 424). I argue that the mixed- race character, much like the early “literary domestics” of whom Mary Kelley states that “historians and critics have not known how to either characterize them or place them properly in history” (ix), falls subject to a similar treatment of “effacement.” Through a discussion of selected texts by Lydia Maria Child, Hannah Crafts, Kate Chopin, James Weldon Johnson, and Jean Toomer, I demonstrate how the work of these writers might be read as a type of platform for a revised discourse about race during a time when the Civil War and Reconstructive aftermath led to contentious racial debates, which often found their foothold in the discourses of religion and science. My dissertation approaches these writers as social reformers (or, more accurately, in the case of Chopin, social reporters) who use their characters to argue in favor of a personal racial agency free of historical confinements. In other words, my dissertation takes the position that the works of these selected authors represent a section of voices that examine and argue in favor of the idea of operating outside and beyond established racial paradigms.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Proverbs 11:1 May 20, 2020 Pare
    1 “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.” - - Proverbs 11:1 ​ May 20, 2020 Parents and Students, Because the administration has directed that no official project or writing assignment be attached to summer reading, I am not changing it much from what I had last year for Honors and AP students.. Honestly, if your student is reading anything and enjoying it, that’s great! The connection between reading and academic success -- both now and on standardized tests, writing, and post secondary learning -- is overwhelming! I recommend (and this is advice I have to take myself!) branching out from one’s favorite genre for variety and to discover additional types of writing to enjoy. Other than recommendations from people you know who have studied or read the works, an easy option for choosing a book is to look up an excerpt of the novel/drama. That way, you know the level of difficulty as well as the author’s style and language. Almost all good literature contains less-than-savory elements -- language, sinful behavior, sometimes even an overt or subtle skewed world view. With that disclaimer comes the fact that most, if not all good literature that I have read doesn’t glorify sin but punishes it in some way. Christian family review sites also exist, including the following: Redeemed Reader, Focus on the Family, Plugged In, and Common Sense Media. Below is a lengthy article by Bob Jones University that deals with potentially objectionable material from a biblical worldview in a thorough manner.
    [Show full text]
  • Women's History Is Everywhere: 10 Ideas for Celebrating in Communities
    Women’s History is Everywhere: 10 Ideas for Celebrating In Communities A How-To Community Handbook Prepared by The President’s Commission on the Celebration of Women in American History “Just think of the ideas, the inventions, the social movements that have so dramatically altered our society. Now, many of those movements and ideas we can trace to our own founding, our founding documents: the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And we can then follow those ideas as they move toward Seneca Falls, where 150 years ago, women struggled to articulate what their rights should be. From women’s struggle to gain the right to vote to gaining the access that we needed in the halls of academia, to pursuing the jobs and business opportunities we were qualified for, to competing on the field of sports, we have seen many breathtaking changes. Whether we know the names of the women who have done these acts because they stand in history, or we see them in the television or the newspaper coverage, we know that for everyone whose name we know there are countless women who are engaged every day in the ordinary, but remarkable, acts of citizenship.” —- Hillary Rodham Clinton, March 15, 1999 Women’s History is Everywhere: 10 Ideas for Celebrating In Communities A How-To Community Handbook prepared by the President’s Commission on the Celebration of Women in American History Commission Co-Chairs: Ann Lewis and Beth Newburger Commission Members: Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, J. Michael Cook, Dr. Barbara Goldsmith, LaDonna Harris, Gloria Johnson, Dr. Elaine Kim, Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Kate Chopin Biography.Pdf
    Chopin, Kate, 1851-1904 from Literature Online biography Kate Chopin (1850-1904) was an American writer who came to prominence at the fin de siècle with her short stories, many about Louisiana life. She was admired in her lifetime chiefly for her 'charming' depictions of 'local colour', and the work now regarded as her great achievement, the novel The Awakening (1899), was accorded a decidedly mixed reception. Since the late 1960s this novel has come to be regarded as a classic of American literature and is a staple of literature and women's studies university courses, though it is not yet very familiar to general readers. Bearing in mind The Awakening , the story of a woman's sense of oppression in conventional marriage and her burning desire (not uncomplicatedly fulfilled) for liberty, modern critics tend to value most highly those of Chopin's short stories that, in her lifetime, were regarded as distasteful and even unrespectable, dealing with sexuality and the less than fairytale aspects of relationships between the sexes. Chopin was not a campaigning author, for all that she foregrounded socially uncomfortable issues in a way that was considered 'advanced': though some of her characters chafe at conventional expectations, she carefully presented herself as a mother and homemaker, writing only in the interstices of domestic responsibilities; and her treatment of class and race is not always as enlightened as her modern critics would like. Sue Asbee has commented that 'there is a sense in which it is disappointing that such a forward- thinking woman campaigned for nobody's rights'.
    [Show full text]
  • The Awakening by Kate Chopin Spring 2010 MFAH Book Club Selection Discussion Questions (Written and Adapted from Various Sources)
    The Awakening By Kate Chopin Spring 2010 MFAH Book Club Selection Discussion Questions (written and adapted from various sources) 1. Discuss the title of the book. What does The Awakening mean? 2. Discuss Edna’s marriage to Léonce. Why did she marry him? What is he like as a husband? 3. How are mothers and artists portrayed in the novel? How would you describe Edna as a mother? As an artist? 4. Background characters, such as the young lovers and lady in black at the shore, appear at the same points in the novel. Why are they significant? 5. What role does the sea play in The Awakening? Why might Chopin have chosen to begin the novel at the Louisiana coast and then move the action into the city of New Orleans? 6. What is the meaning of Edna’s first successful attempt to swim in the ocean? 7. How do the flashbacks to Edna’s past function throughout the novel? How does her father compare to the other men in her life? 8. Why does Edna get involved with Alcée Arobin? 9. When this novel was originally published, it outraged critics and readers. It was accused of committing “unutterable crimes against polite society.” One critic stated that it should be labeled “poison.” Why did it cause such a stir? Even readers today have mixed views about Edna – She has been described as everything from sensual to sexually repressed, selfish to stifled. What makes her such a complex character? 10. Discuss the various images of birds that appear throughout the novel.
    [Show full text]
  • 2021-2022 Graduate Handbook
    A M E R I C A N S T U D I E S D E P A R T M E N T S A I N T L O U I S U N I V E R S I T Y G R A D U A T E H A N D B O O K 2 0 2 1 – 2 0 2 2 Table of Contents SECTION I. ABOUT AMERICAN STUDIES AT SLU 1: Welcome to the Department 3 2: Faculty and Staff Contact Information 4 3. Graduate Student Profiles 5 4. History of American Studies at SLU 16 5. Ongoing Department Events 20 SECTION II. GRADUATE DEGREE REQUIREMENTS 6. Requirements for MA in American Studies 26 7. Requirements for Accelerated BA/MA in American Studies 29 8. Requirements for MA-to-PhD in American Studies 33 9. Requirements for Graduate Certificate in American Studies 39 10. Translation Exam Guidelines 41 11. Dissertation Proposal Guidelines 42 12. Student Responsibilities and Annual Graduate Student Review 44 SECTION III. ASSISTANTSHIPS AND RESEARCH FUNDING 13. Departmental Graduate Assistantship and Fellowship Information 47 14. American Studies Alumni Research Fund 50 15. SLU Dissertation Fellowship: American Studies Nomination Procedure 52 16. Internal Funding Opportunities for American Studies Graduate Students 54 SECTION IV. FURTHER STUDENT RESOURCES 17. Graduate Internships in American Studies 58 18. Directory of Campus Resources 59 19. Selected Professional Resources 63 Appendix: SLU American Studies Dissertations, 1965–Present 66 2 SECTION I ABOUT AMERICAN STUDIES AT SLU 3 1. Welcome to the Department Welcome to the graduate program in American Studies at Saint Louis University! Our department is committed to excellence and originality in research, teaching, and service.
    [Show full text]
  • Kate Chopin and Feminism: the Significance of Water
    Kate Chopin and Feminism: the Significance of Water 1* Brittany Groves B.A. Candidate, Department of English, California State University Stanislaus, 1 University Circle, Turlock, CA 95382 Received 16 April 2019; accepted May 2019 Abstract Late nineteenth century writer Kate Chopin in her time was commonly recognized as a regionalist or realist author, focusing on the lifestyle and setting of the Louisiana region. An author’s intentions are extremely important.The way a writer crafts a story is telling of how that person views the world they are in. Because of this, although she did not directly advocate for it, she should be considered a feminist writer as well. Chopin’s writing tells the story of women claiming their own independence in the only ways they can in patriarchal society. Within that, she uses water in many of her stories as a representation of independence and baptism into a new way of life. Most of the female characters who have an experience with water, also act in a way that goes against the societal norm for each situation. Even though Chopin made her career through the use of regionalism and realism (Chopin and Levine et al. 441), it does not take away from the fact that she was representing women in her stories as fighting for their independence in their own ways. While regionalism and realism are very important parts to understanding Chopin as a writer, the fact that she, in her own way, advocates for women to have their own agency is also a huge part of her writing.
    [Show full text]
  • Literature for Composition Reading and Writing Arguments About Essays, Stories, Poems, and Plays
    BARN.2138.bkfm.i-xxvi_BARN.2138.bkfm.i-xxvi 2/27/13 1:27 PM Page i INSTRUCTOR’S HANDBOOK TO ACCOMPANY Literature for Composition Reading and Writing Arguments About Essays, Stories, Poems, and Plays TENTH EDITION Edited by Sylvan Barnet Tufts University William Burto University of Massachusetts at Lowell William E. Cain Wellesley College Boston Columbus Indianapolis New York San Francisco Upper Saddle River Amsterdam Cape Town Dubai London Madrid Milan Munich Paris Montreal Toronto Delhi Mexico City São Paulo Sydney Hong Kong Seoul Singapore Taipei Tokyo BARN.2138.bkfm.i-xxvi_BARN.2138.bkfm.i-xxvi 2/27/13 1:27 PM Page ii Vice President and Editor in Chief: Joseph P. Terry Senior Supplements Editor: Donna Campion Electronic Page Makeup: Grapevine Publishing Services, Inc. Instructor’s Handbook to Accompany Literature for Composition: Essays, Stories, Poems, and Plays, Tenth Edition, by Sylvan Barnet, William Burto, and William E. Cain. Copyright © 2014, 2011, 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Instructors may re- produce portions of this book for classroom use only. All other reproductions are strictly prohibited without prior permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10–online–15 14 13 12 ISBN 10: 0-321-84213-8 www.pearsonhighered.com ISBN 13: 978-0-321-84213-8 BARN.2138.bkfm.i-xxvi_BARN.2138.bkfm.i-xxvi 2/27/13 1:27 PM Page iii Contents Preface xv Using the “Short Views” and the “Overviews” xvii Guide to MyLiteratureLabTM xix The First Day 1 PART I Getting Started: From Response to Argument CHAPTER 1 How to Write an Effective Essay: A Crash Course 4 CHAPTER 2 The Writer as Reader 5 KATE CHOPIN Ripe Figs 5 LYDIA DAVIS City People 6 RAY BRADBURY August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains 7 MICHELE SERROS Senior Picture Day 8 GUY DE MAUPASSANT The Necklace 9 GUY DE MAUPASSANT Hautot and Son 13 T.
    [Show full text]
  • A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen
    A DOLL’S HOUSE by Henrik Ibsen THE AUTHOR Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) grew up in a poor family in Norway. After being apprenticed to an apothecary in his teens, he began the study of medicine, but soon turned to play writing. His early plays gained little popular recognition, but in 1863 he went to Italy on a scholarship, and here began writing the plays, including Peer Gynt, that were to make him the most famous playwright in the history of Norway. His early plays were in verse, but beginning in 1877, he turned to prose plays, producing, among others, A Doll’s House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People, and The Wild Duck. He became the director of the Norwegian National Theater in Christiania, the town in which he died in 1906. A Doll’s House (1879) is one of Ibsen’s social problem plays. The basic plot was based on the sad life of Laura Kieler, a journalist friend of Ibsen, who, after saving her husband in much the same way Nora does, was rejected by him and committed to an insane asylum. The play was received with shock in many places where it was first performed. Some critics even blamed Ibsen for the rising divorce rate in Norway following the play’s performance. Though many categorize it as feminist play, Ibsen denied being a feminist. He did write, however, “a woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.” Nora, the protagonist of the play, has spent her entire life living in a man’s world, shaping herself first to please her father and later her husband.
    [Show full text]
  • Reading Beyond Modern Feminism: Kate Chopin's the Awakening
    The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English Volume 10 | Issue 1 Article 5 2008 Reading Beyond Modern Feminism: Kate Chopin’s The wA akening Christina R. Williams Winthrop University Rock Hill, South Carolina Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/tor Part of the American Literature Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, and the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation Williams, Christina R. (2008) "Reading Beyond Modern Feminism: Kate Chopin’s The wA akening," The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English: Vol. 10 : Iss. 1 , Article 5. Available at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/tor/vol10/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in The sO wald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Reading Beyond Modern Feminism: Kate Chopin’s The wA akening This article is available in The sO wald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/tor/vol10/iss1/5 53 Reading Beyond Modern Feminism: Kate Chopin’s The Awakening Christina R. Williams Winthrop University Rock Hill, South Carolina lthough Kate Chopin published The Awakening in A1899, her text did not gain acceptance in the American literary canon until the late twentieth century, corresponding with the rise of feminist criticism as a mode of literary discourse.
    [Show full text]
  • It's a Man's World
    It’s a Man’s World Re-examination of the Female Perspective in Chopin’s “Désirée’s Baby” and “The Story of an Hour” Adisa Ahmetspahić University of Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina Damir Kahrić University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina Abstract. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the portrayal of the female perspective in a largely male-dominated society of the Old South in Kate Chopin’s short stories: “Désirée’s Baby” and “The Story of an Hour”. The paper relies on the new historicist approach for the analysis of race and gender in Chopin’s “Désirée’s Baby” and marriage as a burden in “The Story of an Hour”. The paper concludes that the aforementioned issues did not only cause the re-inscription and interrogation of the female perspective but a major proliferation in the works of Kate Chopin as one of the predecessors to feminist writing. Keywords: Chopin, gender, new historicism, “Désirée’s Baby”, “The Story of an Hour” Introduction The world of the Old South within the territories of the United States of America portrays a large number of stories worth telling. However, not many of these tales perpetuate a happy ending, and moreover, many entwine aspects of racial and/or gender inequality on various levels. This phenomenon can be observed in a number of works which are considered a part of the American literary canon. In many of these pieces, a character’s gender or skin-hue will dictate their development or even the eventual fate within the boundaries of the narrative framework.
    [Show full text]
  • A Portrait of the Lady in Modern American Literature
    A Portrait of the Lady in Modern American Literature A Portrait of the Lady in Modern American Literature Poor Little Rich Girl Edited by Aimee Pozorski A Portrait of the Lady in Modern American Literature: Poor Little Rich Girl Edited by Aimee Pozorski This book first published 2018 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2018 by Aimee Pozorski and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-0574-X ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0574-2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ................................................................................. viii Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1 Poor Little Rich Girl: A Portrait of the Lady in Modern American Literature Aimee Pozorski and M. J. Martinez Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 13 Julia Dallow’s “Constitution”: Paint, Pow(d)er and Politics in The Tragic Muse Aimee Pozorski Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 33 Reopening the Door to Romance: A Reading
    [Show full text]
  • Selfhood, Sex and Spirituality in the Writings of Olive Schreiner
    Durham E-Theses Outspoken dreams: Selfhood, sex and spirituality in the writings of Olive Schreiner Martin, Claire How to cite: Martin, Claire (1986) Outspoken dreams: Selfhood, sex and spirituality in the writings of Olive Schreiner, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/6860/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk Claire Martin, Outspoken Dreams : Selfhood, Sex and Spirituality in the Writings of Olive Schreiner. ABSTRACT This study of the life and work of Olive Schreiner explores the tensions inherent in her political and artistic vision. It assesses the importance both of her continual movement towards a unifying spirituality and of her relentless, often fragmentary, self-exploration. Using her three novels, the allegories, her non-fictional work and her extensive personal corres• pondence, I examine Schreiner's sense of identity and gender and their relationship to her feminism, and her emphasis on a re-evaluation of sexual relationships within the major themes of her writing.
    [Show full text]