Clockwork Heroines: Female Characters in Steampunk Literature

<p>Steampunk is a progressive literary genre that evokes, imitates, and re-imagines the nineteenth century and favors the Industrial Revolution ideals of science and technology. In a historical framework, it mixes nineteenth-century conventions and retrofuturistic machinery with science fiction and fantasy elements. Steampunk authors are able to radically redefine socio-cultural implications that affect both past and contemporary societies. The following study explores the multitude of characteristics that define Steampunk literature as an interdisciplinary study. Chapter 1 explores the definitions and literary genres that construct Steampunk and includes a brief literary history of Steampunk works. Chapter 2 focuses on Cherie Priest’s novel Boneshaker (2009), which depicts self-sufficient females battling hardships in America’s last frontier. Chapter 3 looks at how Cassandra Clare’s Infernal Devices series (2010-2013) illustrates female identity as a performance in an age of technological progression and cultural revolutions. The female characters in Priest’s and Clare’s novels resist hegemonic conventions and create an alternative vision of nineteenth-century women.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of English

Year

2013

Author dc:creator

• Bergman, Cassie N.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Deborah Logan (Director), Kelly Reames, Jane Fife

• Victorian Literature
• British Literature
• American Literature
• Nineteenth Century
• New Woman
• Science Fiction
• Fantasy
• Neo-victorian
• Steampunk Fiction-American
• English Language and Literature
• Literature in English, British Isles
• Literature in English, North America

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1266

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.wku.edu:theses-2270