The quest for self-identity: The new epic mission of young adult fantasy literature

Samantha Wager, Purdue University

Abstract

Cicely Hamilton, Githa Sowerby, and Elizábeth Báker were British playwrights writing at the beginning of the twentieth century whose works depict, with insight and compassion, the lives of working and middle-class women and men, their frustrations and desires, and their concerns regarding marriage, work and family. Three plays in particular, Hamilton's Diana of Dobson's, Sowerby's Rutherford and Son, and Baker's Chains dramatize their authors' attempts to articulate their developing awareness of feminist issues. Set against the background of the growing feminist movement, these plays represent many of the concerns of women at this time, as well as some of the frustrations and limitations that were representative of this emerging feminist discourse. In all three of these plays, the relationship between work, marriage and motherhood in the lives of ordinary women takes primary focus, and the female characters created by these playwrights range from working, independent women to domestic mothers and housewives. All three of these narratives reflect the location of class as it is represented in the mainstream feminist discourse of the time. In particular, these plays demonstrate how the feminist movement, largely middle-class in its composition, related to, appropriated and ultimately submerged the interests and desires of working-class women in their own hegemonic narratives.

Degree

M.A.

Advisors

Alsup, Purdue University.

Subject Area

American literature

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