Sexual Difference as Narrative Technique: Cross-Dressing, Redressing, and Undressing Female Protagonists

Throughout the twentieth century gender study has been a site of considerable social debate, stress, and change. The social forces which have destabilized gender identities are by now widely acknowledged--ranging from early twentieth century American and English feminist movements struggling for women's suffrage to the massive shifts in gender identity of the work force produced by World Wars I and II. My argument in this thesis is that the issue of gender in the modern narrative is also much less stable than critics might assume or wish, that it is indeed continually negotiated in relationship to larger social and narrative arenas. I used detailed, extended analysis of Virginia Woolf's Orlando: A Biography, a relatively neglected text by a major modern author, to show how complex the articulation of genders can be; this work becomes the tutor text whereby we see gender problematized through narrative techniques in other contemporary works.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Benzel, Kathryn Nowicki

• Literature, Modern
• Women's Studies
• Literature, American
• Literature, English

Identifier

(UMI)AAI8802982

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/69467