CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2013
| Author | Kovacs, Edit |
|---|---|
| Title | GENDERED AGENCY IN MARGARET ATWOOD'S READING OF THE "BLUEBEARD" TALE. A BUTLERIAN ANALYSIS OF BLUEBEARD'S EGG |
| Summary | This thesis examines the manifestations of “gendered agency” (Butler, 2004) in Margaret Atwood’s feminist “Bluebeard” tale in order to argue that her approach to fairy tales is anticipatory to feminist theorizing. Existing interpretations of Atwood’s work conceptualized agency along the resistance/compliance binary, leaving the concept of agency untheorized and consequently defining feminist revisions of traditional genres as simple gender reversals. I trace the competing discourses on gender in Atwood’s short story collection with the help of Judith Butler’s theories and through the method of fairy-tale discourse analysis. My main argument is that Atwood’s fairy tale revision is an attempt at social transformation in that revises the traditional “fairy-tale discourse” (Zipes, 1983), which opens up the possibilities of her heroine’s agency. I argue that Atwood, as a feminist fairy tale writer, combines the technique of “folkloristically inclusive reading” and a critique of the heteronormative discourse on gender in her contemporary tale. This thesis offers two major contributions: it revisits the relation between second-wave feminist literature and theory, including literary criticism and it contributes to feminist conceptualizations on agency. |
| Supervisor | Lukic, Jasmina |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2013/kovacs_edit.pdf |
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