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Western Kentucky University
Melting Beeswax Bodies: The Queen Bee, the Hive, and Identity in Women's Writing
Abstract
dc:description.abstractThe works examined are poetry by Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, and Audre Lorede, novels by Starhawk, The Fifth Sacred Thing, and Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, and a drama by Elizabeth Bussey Fentress, The Honey Harvest. In looking at how the women writers construct identity using bee imagery, I propose that they actually subvert the societal devaluation of women. The beeswax bodies represent gendered constructions of how women should behave. The characters "melt" these bodies by refusing to fit the mold and by redesigning the mold to fit themselves.
Degree
thesis:*- Name thesis:degree_name
- Master of Arts
- Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
- Department of English
- Year
- 2005
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author dc:creator
-
- Johnson, Leigh
Subjects
dc:subject × 1Identifiers
dc:identifier.*- Repository record dc:identifier
- https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/503
- OAI identifier oai:identifier
- oai:digitalcommons.wku.edu:theses-1506