Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs Liberating images: A feminist analysis of the girls’ school-story Thesis How to cite: Humphrey, Judith Ann (2000). Liberating images: A feminist analysis of the girls’ school-story. PhD thesis The Open University. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 2000 The Author Version: [not recorded] Link(s) to article on publisher’s website: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21954/ou.ro.00004a3d Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs Liberating images: A feminist analysis of the girls’ school-story Thesis How to cite: Humphrey, Judith Ann (2000). Liberating images: A feminist analysis of the girls’ school-story. PhD thesis, The Open University. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 2000 The Author Version: [not recorded] Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copy- right owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs Liberating images: A feminist analysis of the girls’ school-story Thesis How to cite: Humphrey, Judith Ann (2000). Liberating images: A feminist analysis of the girls’ school-story. PhD thesis, The Open University. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 2000 The Author Version: Version of Record Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copy- right owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk , LIBERATING IMAGES A Feminist Analysis of the Girls’ School-Story Doctor of Philosophy: The Open University Faculty of Arts: Department of Literature RESEARCH DEGREES CENTR LIBRARY AUTHORISATION FO Please return this form to the The Research Degrees Centre with the thesis to be deposited with the University Library. All students should complete Part 1. Part 2 only applies to PhD students. Degree: Pi, . D Part 1 Open University Library Authorisation [to be completed by all students] I confirm that I am willing for my thesis to be made available to readers by the Open Universit). Library, and that it may be photocopied, subject to the discretion of the Librarian. Part 2 British Library Authorisation [to be completed by PhD students only] If you want a copy of your PhD thesis to be available on loan to the British Library Thesis Service as and Ivhen it is requested, you must sipa British Library Doctoral Thesis Agreement Form. Please return it to the Research Degrees Centre \kith this form. The British Library will publicise the details of your thesis and may request a copy on loan from the University Library. Information on the presentation of the thesis is given in the Agreement Form. Please note the British Libran have requested that theses should be printed on one side only to enable them to produce a clear microfilm. The Open University Library sends the fully bound copy of theses to the British Library. The University has agreed that your participation in the British Library Thesis Service should be voluntap. Please tick either (a) or (b) to indicate your intentions. [a] WI am willing for the Open University to loan the British Library a copy of my thesis. A signed Agreement Form is attached. [b] I do not wish the Open University to loan the British Library a copy of my thesis. THESIS ABSTRACT Liberating Images :A Feminist Analysis of the Girls' School- Story Judith Ann Humphrey The thesis uses a synthesis of feminist and literary theory to analyse the way in which girls' school-stories challenge and subvert traditional societal constructs and provide images of liberation for girls and women. The literary implications of a woman-centred universe are addressed in a study of plot and character. The texts provide a challenge to traditional literary representations of passive femininity, replacing them with images of active girls and women. There is tension between the domestic discourse and the discourse of adventure, but this is overcome by stress on character. The use of an interrogative subject position and of multiple and morally complex focalisers ensures that the identifying reader can maintain a position as subject within the text without being subjected to its ideology. The liberating images of the books are seen in education, games, religion and friendship. Girls were educated either to serve or to please men; the intellectual woman was an affront to the natural order as decreed by medicine and theology. School-stories challenge this by presenting for identification girls who find study exciting and fulfilling and professional women who have chosen a life connected with learning. Games for girls fundamentally questioned the construct of frail femininity shored up by medical theories of finite energy, by Darwinism and by the eugenics movement. Religion was an significant part of life, and the texts provide a rigorous analysis of faith. The role of the Headmistress, simultaneously omnipotent and strongly maternal, subverts the traditional image of woman and of God. Women have been defined socially by their relations to men and have been seen as incomplete without them. Close fn'edship for women was defined as diseased and problematic by the sexologists working at the beginning of the century. These relationships are reclaimed in school-stories in terms of deep, abiding love. Contents Introduction P.1 Chapter One P.9 ' Third-Rate Literature' A Review of the Critical Literature Chapter Two p.34 'A Passion for Learning' The Intellectual Woman : Education in the texts Chapter Three p.71 'A Rattling Good Yarn' The Active Woman : Plot in the texts Chapter Four p.92 'Who Is Sylvia?' The Questioning Woman : Character in the Texts Chapter Five p. 116 'Playing The Game' The Strong Woman : Games in the Texts Chapter Six p. 143 'My God - It's the Head!' The God-Woman : Images of Deity and Re-visions of Power in the Texts Chapter Seven p. 183 'Love .. Love .. Love' The Woman-Loving Woman : Female Friendship in the Texts Conclusion p .207 Bibliography p.215 Introduction This thesis is not concerned with children's literature in general, or even with the place within it of the school-story. It is concerned with the way in which the subtext of the school-story, a genre which has been perceived as a purely conservative reflection of the status quo, in fact deeply challenges and subverts traditional societal constructs and provides images of liberation for girls and women. Girls' school-stories have been amongst the few texts written by women for women about women and, as such, in a patriarchal society they may be considered highly subversive. They have created a world where women are autonomous, authoritative and in control, where they are the most significant people in the universe, and where their lives, their intellectual and emotional development and their relationships with other women are prioritised. It is a world which provides alternatives to stereotypes of gender and societal constructs of femininity, and was for a long time the only challenge to what Adrienne Rich has seen as a 'universe of masculine paradigm'. Even now school-stories are woman-centred in a way matched only by lesbian fiction, which is not accessible to or acceptable to all women. The thesis examines the alternative life-views, role-models and possibilities of becoming for women which are inherent in school-stories and discloses the images which act as agents of liberation for the readers. It will: * provide a critical review of the genre; * account for the continuing popularity of an anachronistic form; * demonstrate that the genre provides an active and fore-grounded role for girls and gives autonomy and authority to women; * analyse the way in which these alternatives are accessed by the child reader; * examine the importance of school-stories to the adult reader; * investigate the ways in which school-stories challenge the traditional discourses of power in education, medicine and religion; * uncover and reclaim the liberating images contained for women and girls within the texts. 1 The project will attempt a feminist analysis, accepting Patricia Spacks' definition of this as 'any mode that approaches a text with primary concern for the nature of female experience in it, the fictional experience of characters ... the experience implicit in language and structure'.2 Within this framework the thesis will examine the roots of some of the societal constructs of femininity which have operated to distort what women are and restrict what they might become; it will address the effects on women's lives and development in the fields of education, health, sexuality, religion and relationships. It is impossible to provide an exhaustive analysis of such far-reaching modes of thought, but the analysis will be extensive enough to demonstrate the need for and importance of the liberating image. The thesis will not present school-stories in terms of children's literature. There is no attempt to relate the genre to any other form of writing for children; indeed, the fact that the texts were written for girls is only half of the story. Their unique interest lies in the power they exert over adult readers, and this fact testifies to the strength of society's constructs.