Title: THE PORTRAYAL OF FEMALE CHARACTERS IN THE WORK OF THREE CONTEMPORARY WRITERS OF THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA: MESA SELIMOVIC, IVAN ARALICA, SLOBODAN SELENiC Author: ALDIJANASiSiC Degree: PhD School: SCHOOL OF SLAVONIC AND EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES Advisor: HAWKESWORTH, CELIA E. ProQuest Number: U551474 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest U551474 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 A bstract This dissertation deals with the novels of three contemporary writers whose work was published during the 20th century in the former Yugoslavia: Ivan Aralica (Croatia), Slobodan Selenid (Serbia) and Mega Selimovid (Bosnia and Hercegovina). Within the framework of a feminist approach, the main objective is to evaduate to what extent certain stereotypes in the portrayal of female characters still determine writing and reading in the literatures of the former Yugoslavia at the end of the 20th century. The first half of this dissertation explores the development of the feminist movement and its literary thought within the boundaries of the ‘Western’ world as well as within the boundaries of the former Yugoslavia. The aim is to create a starting point for the analysis of the work of these three authors. The second half of the dissertation examines the work of I. Aralica, S. Selenid and M. Selimovié, focusing particularly on their main themes, the portrayal of their male and femelle characters and the way they interact with each other. I have endeavoured to show in this study how the female characters portrayed in these novels find the conditions of overwhelmingly patriarchal societies imposed upon them. Also, my aim was to demonstrate how, by silencing their voices, by isolating them, using them only in order to strengthen the roles of their male characters and observing them solely within ‘given’ roles, these three representative male authors themselves contributed to the marginalization of women’s roles in the Uteratures of the former Yugoslavia at the end of this century. C on ten ts Introduction 4 1. Feminist Literary Criticism The Origins of Feminist Thinking 12 Feminism and Literature (1960s - 1980s) 14 Feminist Criticism in the 1980s 19 Women’s Writing 23 2. Development of Women’s Movements in the former Yugoslavia (from the end of the 19th century up to the present days) Before the Revolution 27 Revolution and Post Revolution 31 New Feminists 43 3. Images of Women in Literature 47 Yugoslav Made Critics on Images of women in Uterature 67 4. MeSa Selim ovié Themes 73 Male characters 93 Female characters 121 5. Ivan Aralica Themes 145 Male characters 167 Female characters 186 6. Slobodan Selenié Themes 209 Male chciracters 235 Female characters 268 7. Conclussion 296 8. Bibliography 298 Introduction If we describe a literary work as a record of the imagination, we can see women in literature as subjects of these reflections. But, in order to create a female figure, an author consciously uses langueige and shapes his/her female chcuncters. It is the author’s mind that decides what would be a female role. The author becomes the creator of female behaviour, the one who associates a certain kind of behaviour with women. Once these images connect with the outside world and approach readers - they become a reality for themselves and involved in the process of shaping consciousness. They become a link between a reader and author, an instrument of influence. At this point, a novel stops being just entertainment, a neutral guide to the outside world. It is no longer simply a record of the author’s imagination, or a companion helping us to perceive a ‘supposed reality’. The role of the novel now becomes important as a source of beliefs and suggestions. For women readers, literature was always one of a limited number of socially acceptable ways in which at least certain women could reach out to a wider world than the domestic one. Consequently, an analysis of what novels tell us about female characters and how they do it becomes important. This is the starting point for the present thesis. In addition, by examining the ways in which female characters are portrayed in the novels of three contemporary writers of the former Yugoslavia, Meâa Sehmovié, Ivan Arahca and Slobodan Selenié, this thesis sets out to explore the extent to which these female characters are active, speaking subjects. It seeks to examine the way these texts elaborate women’s notions of themselves and their potential. Furthermore, as the three writers come from different pEirts of the former Yugoslavia, and from different cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds, the thesis explores the distinct differences and similarities in their portrayal of female characters. As a first step, however, in order to cast more light on the conditions which patriarchal societies impose on female characters in these novels and to estabhsh the relation between them and the texts, it is necessary to seek a proper understanding of the general themes developed by the respective writers in their works. The thesis therefore undertakes an analysis of the main subjects treated in their work. Additionally, as an integral part of this ancdysis and in order to draw a parcdlel with the representation of female characters, the thesis also examines the writers’ treatment of their male characters and the degree to which they are relevant subjects in shaping an understanding of their hterary ambitions. The analysis of the work of the three selected writers draws on the experience of feminist hterary criticism. Consequently, the first part of the thesis places hterary criticism of the former Yugoslavia in the context of feminist hterary criticism. It does not seek to comment on the relative value of Anglo-American and French feminist criticism. but it takes as its starting point the idea that a writer’s response to his/her personal experience of reality, the language used and characters portrayed, influence and modify a reader’s understanding of ‘supposed reality’. Also, in reflecting on Anglo-American-French feminist criticism, it seems important to point out that in seeking to discover a female literary tradition, feminist critics ought to ask themselves: who is the woman they are referring to? Their concern needs to reach beyond Western academia and to explore female cultures outside the Anglo-American-French World. For instance, Elaine Showalter’s essay, 'A Criticism of Our Own: Autonomy and Assimilation in Afro-American and feminist literary theory’i , w as w ritten in th e year of the demolition of The Wall. In a sense the text then becomes an invitation for ‘The Other Woman’ to step in, particularly as it emerges that no part of the essay mentions Eastern Europe, or the rest of the world. In her examination of the historical development of Afro-AmericEm and feminist criticism, Showalter clearly demonstrates that she is aware of the importance of ‘shared experience’ for the further development of feminist literarv criticism in general. But, she fails to appreciate that her expression shared experience’ refers only to the Anglo - American - F rench environment. As far as feminist criticism is concerned, Showalter urges feminists to continue research into women’s literary history emd insists on the re-reading of texts for a better understanding of female identity. But once again, she refers to Western women’s literary history and Western female identity. Further on, searching for a framework and a direction for future development on the surface of‘otherness’, Showalter does not accept mainstream’ literary theory and she refuses to be 1 R. R. Warhol and D.P.Herndl (ed.) Feminisms - an anthology of literary theory and criticism. Rutgers University Press, USA, 1991 marginalised. Yet, at the same time she fails to take account of ‘The Other Women’, women outsidedominant cultures. Just as no one introduced and no one even alluded to the young woman translator at the conference described at the beginning of Showalter's essay, so she herself fails to acknowledge the distinct presence of women outside her own culture. Or maybe she has chosen to ignore them existence as ‘inferior or flawed’. Elaine Showalter is not the only Western feminist to demonstrate a visible degree of insensitivity within her reasoning about female identity. Using expressions created by economically dominant cultures such as‘Third World woman’ or ‘First World feminists’, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, in her essay Trench Feminism in an International F ram e'2 , fails to break away from the linguistic marginalization of‘otherness’. However, at least she acknowledges that the success of the feminist idea depends on the recognition of its own heterogeneity and that the survival of the feminist idea depends on the ability of feminists to recognise differences, and most importantly - to accept them and to leam from them. Spivak stresses: The academic feminist must learn to learn from them (Third World women) to speak to them, to suspect that their access to the political and sexual scene is not merely to be corrected by our superior theory and enlightened compassion.^ Indeed, in order to deliver a full understanding of female identity, woman’s achievements in history and the credibihty of her experience, one m ust respond to the intellectual challenge of learning from ‘otherness’ as well.