Date Approved
2007
Degree Type
Open Access Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department or School
English Language and Literature
Committee Member
Ian Wojcik-Andrews
Committee Member
Sheila Most
Abstract
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 Dainos 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 His Dark Materials, which taught the heroine to tell her “true stories.”
Recommended Citation
McCombs, Pamela Dee, "A redefined feminine from paleolithic to twenty-first century through children's literature & film" (2007). Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations. 12.
https://commons.emich.edu/theses/12