Reconciling “private” and “public” selves: Narratives of solitude in works by H.D., Rhys, Sarton, and Hejinian

Lisette Therese Schillig, Purdue University

Abstract

This dissertation examines the experience of solitude from a feminist perspective. Through an analysis of specific works by four twentieth-century women writers, a conception of solitude is developed that moves beyond traditional, male-defined associations and literary representations in the Western canon, representations in which the figure of the white male in solitude looms large. If solitude is restricted to physical, “masculine,” and racially white associations, women's experiences of solitude go largely unrecognized. Paying special attention to social constructions of gender, racial, ethnic, sexual, and class identity that women confront as women, the dissertation re-imagines solitude as a psychological space informed by material conditions in which women maneuver between who they are as “subject,” and who they are as “object” of public scrutiny. Aware of their marginalized status, the narrators/characters examined here seek solitude as a way to apprehend, question, and re-conceive structures of relation—of self to selves, of self to others, and of self to the variety of social scripts that transfix them. Manifestations of solitude in the following works are addressed in detail: H.D.'s Helen in Egypt (1961), Jean Rhys's Voyage in the Dark (1934) and Good Morning, Midnight (1938), May Sarton's Journal of a Solitude (1973) and The House by the Sea (1977), and Lyn Hejinian's My Life. In an effort to illuminate the tension between the “private” and the “public” that exists at the core of solitude, key themes develop across the chapters, including: solitude as constructed around encounter, both in terms of the “other” and the “self”; solitude as a psychological as well as physical state; solitude as a kind of writing that challenges the limitations of language to represent subjectivity fully; and finally, solitude as a process of separation and engagement that breaks down the binary between “private” and “public,” and establishes solitude as a matter of relation as well as autonomy. In setting out these themes, the dissertation seeks to open up a wider space for discussion not only about women's experiences of solitude, but about the complex nature of solitude in general.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Sagar, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Literature|Comparative literature|Caribbean literature|American literature|Womens studies

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