A redefined feminine from paleolithic to twenty-first century through children's literature & film

<p>The intention of my critical discourse is to redefine the knowledge of the feminine that Western tradition, through “master narratives,” silenced, subverted, and deferred. My guidelines were drawn from the deconstruction of philosophical works by Jacques Derrida and redefined the unique circle of “Being and beings” to be not just God and man, but God, Goddess, and Human, the Goddess being the original feminine. I discovered the feminine beginning, through archaeomythologists Gimbutas, Dever, and Davis-Kimball, with the unearthing of female figurines, temple models, and warrior priestesses. I found examples of the feminine survival through the Dark Ages in Lithuanian <em>Dainos</em> and folktales “Queen of the Serpents,” “Ashputtle,” and “The White Cat.” In the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, the feminine is redefined through female writers like Edgeworth, Potter, and Woolf. I culminate my journey with the patriarchal feminine redefined through the fantasy film animation of Miyazaki and the “stark realism” fantasy of Pullman’s trilogy <em>His Dark Materials</em>, which taught the heroine to tell her “true stories.”</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English Language and Literature

Year

2007

Author dc:creator

• McCombs, Pamela Dee

Contributors dc:contributor

• Ian Wojcik-Andrews
• Sheila Most

• Women in literature
• Fairy tales History and criticism
• Children's literature History and criticism
• English Language and Literature

Repository record dc:identifier

https://commons.emich.edu/theses/12

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:commons.emich.edu:theses-1011