Date of Award
5-2022
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Degree Program
English
Department
English
Major Professor
Elizabeth Lewis
Second Advisor
Elizabeth Steeby
Third Advisor
Jade Hurter
Abstract
The Female Gothic was coined by Ellen Moers in 1976, when literary scholars noticed that the discourse of Gothic literature skewed androcentric. The Female Gothic focused on a gynocentric lens giving breadth to notable Gothic women writer’s and stories. This paper delves within this lens and asserts a newer term, Feminist Gothic, in order to focus less on the gender binary in order to include women and queer individuals while adding Djuna Barnes and Sylvia Plath to the Gothic canon. There is no other academic sources that place Barnes’ Nightwood and Plath’s The Bell Jar in conversation with each other. In utilizing key Gothic elements such as the grotesque, the abject, and the uncanny, these authors’ characters demonstrate resistance to the constraints of normativity. Their grotesque odysseys illumine patriarchal structures of imprisonment as well as reimagine the possibilities of freedom.
Recommended Citation
LeBlanc, Logan J., "“They bloom vivid and repulsive as the truth”: The Feminist Gothic in Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar" (2022). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 2972.
https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2972
Included in
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Women's Studies Commons
Rights
The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.