Browsing by Subject "Femininity in literature"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Elaine's Field Theory of Femininity: A Study of Gravity and Shame in Margaret Atwood's ​Cat's Eye
    (2020) Richie, Rebecca; Stadler, Gustavus
    The Edenic trope of the fallen woman structures the original Fall as Eve's punishment for her embodied desire, for breaking the rules, and has thus permeated literature with feminine characters who are met with repeated punishment when they break social rules: death, sickness, social exclusion, and the like. Through the concept of falling women, Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye confronts the Edenic structure of the fallen woman. Atwood's falling women are punished because the reality of feminine embodiment necessarily breaks the rules of Western social order. I argue that this principle of falling emerges as a result of the shame-incurring social landscape in which Western femininity is experienced. Cat's Eye's protagonist, Elaine, marks herself in relation to femininity by a feeling of "wrongness," a feeling of shame that permeates her relationships with other women, as well as with her own body. In approaching Western femininity, the essay turns to Denise Riley's deconstruction of the concept of "woman." Elaine both literally and figuratively falls from girlhood into womanhood, a fall that marks the beginning of her disillusioned relationship with her body that is reinforced by her social landscape. The novel's structural analepsis flashes between Elaine's girlhood and her womanhood, recounting the formative experiences that structure her sense of gendered embodiment around the guiding principle of shame. This thesis identifies feminine shame as a symptom of a shaming society, thus reconceptualizing the Edenic trope that locates shame as the punishment for feminine desire. In Cat's Eye, embodied femininity itself is the original sin.
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    “Something Warmly, Infuriatingly Feminine”: Racial (Un)Gendering in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
    (2013) Zola, Alana; Zwarg, Christina, 1949-
    Ralph Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man, has often been accused of exclusively employing simplistic stereotypes in depicting its female characters; yet upon closer examination, Ellison’s female characters are not only complex but also deeply meaningful to the novel’s messages regarding race and gender identity in America. Together, Hortense Spillers, Judith Butler, and Eric Lott provide the key theoretical framework for examining the dynamic intersections of race and gender in Ellison’s novel. Spiller’s notion of the “ungendered” black woman is particularly critical for understanding the relationship between black and white femininity. All of these theorists share an approach based in history, which fits naturally with Ellison’s own use of the past as an important tool in his novel. The magnificent blonde, Mr. Norton’s daughter, Matty Lou, Mary Rambo, and Sybil stand as five of the novel’s most significant female characters and, when read together, they illustrate the journey that the Invisible Man himself undergoes in his understanding of race and gender. This selection of female characters provides a diverse array of seemingly stereotypical images that are ultimately complicated by their relationship to the protagonist. The last character, Sybil, is instrumental in the Invisible Man’s critical decision to go into “hibernation” at the end of the novel. Yet Ellison’s Invisible Man nevertheless leaves the reader with an optimistic hope for a better understanding of gender and race in the future.
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    Translating Neruda: Femininity and Sensuality Domesticated
    (2011) Mueller, Natalie
    The poetry of Pablo Neruda has now been extensively translated into English, with published versions by thirty-nine different translators. Some of these translations were made near the start of Neruda’s own career, with the earliest published in 1944, and a plenitude of translators continue to be inspired to translate his work to this day. For many readers, these translations shape their approach to Neruda’s work. As John Felstiner observes, “What has been translated, when, by whom, how well, and which versions are easily obtainable--all these questions intimately qualify the word “Neruda” in English-speaking countries.” Apart from a bilingual minority, most residents in these countries will never encounter Neruda outside the scope of translation; for them, the translations, with their inevitable if subtle changes, become Neruda. It is those changes and the Neruda created by English translation that I will be examining in this thesis, offering close readings first of five original poems in Spanish, and then of their translations by an assortment of translators.