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Madwomen Agents: Common Experiences in British Imperial, Postcolonial, and Bedouin Women’s Writing

Alshammari, Shahd (2014) Madwomen Agents: Common Experiences in British Imperial, Postcolonial, and Bedouin Women’s Writing. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Kent,. (KAR id:47601)

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Abstract

Abstract

British imperial culture and indigenous patriarchy both work to subjugate women. There is very little room for resistance. Madness as protest is a dominant theme in Victorian literature as well as late twentieth-century postcolonial writing by women. This thesis refashions our understanding of the madwoman trope by investigating writers’ use of it to capture the diverse experiences of ‘other’ madwomen. Instead of a strictly Eurocentric approach to female protagonists’ experiences of madness, the thesis places British imperial literary culture in the nineteenth century alongside postcolonial writing by women, whether in the Caribbean (Dominica), South Asia (India) or the Middle East and North Africa (Jordan and Egypt). Jeans Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, Fadia Faqir’s Pillars of Salt and Miral Al-Tahawy’s The Tent are placed alongside Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. A transnational approach is necessary to establish commonality between Eastern and Western women’s literary experiences of madness. Such commonality persistently emerges, once one is alert to its possibility, despite the often obvious differences between literary madwomen’s experiences in a transnational frame. The relationship between madness and empire, madness and patriarchy, and madwomen as agents of resistance is exemplified throughout the thesis by closely analysing each literary text.

Item Type: Thesis (Doctor of Philosophy (PhD))
Thesis advisor: Landry, Donna
Thesis advisor: Bolaki, Stella
Uncontrolled keywords: literature, women's studies, postcolonial, Bedouin, madness, disability, english
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Women
J Political Science > JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration
P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General)
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of English
Depositing User: Users 1 not found.
Date Deposited: 10 Mar 2015 01:00 UTC
Last Modified: 09 Dec 2022 07:13 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/47601 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Alshammari, Shahd.

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