Dorothy Allison and Eli Clare: Creating Counter-Discourse and Shaping the Body as Home in the Life-Narrative

Abstract

This project considers the role of discourse in the life-narratives of Dorothy Allison and Eli Clare, two authors who identify as queer authors from rural, white, working-class backgrounds. I argue that Allison and Clare use the life-narrative to locate and create a home for themselves in a world where there are many forces that are hostile to the understanding of identity and experience as complex and dynamic.