Chosen identities: “Claiming” in “Family”, “Bastard Out of Carolina” and “Rubyfruit Jungle”
Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to examine female agency in narrative texts. Specifically, I focus on novels by contemporary American women writers, J. California Cooper, Dorothy Allison and Rita Mae Brown who collectively open a discourse about rape, abuse, queer identity, sex, childhood, incest and illegitimacy. While these experiences are oppressive, the texts Family, Bastard Out of Carolina and Rubyfruit Jungle validate the female response to such experiences by documenting the range of resistances they present. In chapter one I argue that Family’s protagonist, Always, claims her race so as to claim agency even in the context of slavery. Chapter two argues that the actions of Bone in Bastard Out of Carolina, in regard to her masturbation scenes, are her attempt to claim her body and identity. The final chapter of this thesis argues that Rubyfruit Jungle’s Molly Bolt is a character who successfully challenges sexuality as a hierarchical institution. The following chapters argue that the way the protagonists will succeed is through developing a conscious awareness of her environment and by cultivating the desire to visibly exist as a minority in a resistant world.
Degree
M.A.
Advisors
Sagar, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Womens studies|American literature|Gender studies
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