University of SaskatchewanHARVEST
  • Login
  • Submit Your Work
  • About
    • About HARVEST
    • Guidelines
    • Browse
      • All of HARVEST
      • Communities & Collections
      • By Issue Date
      • Authors
      • Titles
      • Subjects
      • This Collection
      • By Issue Date
      • Authors
      • Titles
      • Subjects
    • My Account
      • Login
      JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.
      View Item 
      • HARVEST
      • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
      • View Item
      • HARVEST
      • Electronic Theses and Dissertations
      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
      • View Item

      Creating absence to acknowledge presence : relational subjectivity and postmodernism in Carol Shields’s 'The Stone Diaries'

      Thumbnail
      View/Open
      Winquist_The_Stone_Diaries.pdf (239.5Kb)
      Date
      2009
      Author
      Winquist, Martin Edward
      Type
      Project
      Degree Level
      Masters
      Metadata
      Show full item record
      Abstract
      This paper explores the relationship between postmodernist discourses and feminist discourses, asking, firstly, whether or not feminist political action is possible within a postmodernist theoretical climate that scrutinizes the construction of universalizing group identities, and, secondly, how political action might be undertaken in such a theoretical climate. I contend that Carol Shields, reflecting the postmodernist ideology of Jean-François Lyotard and Patricia Waugh, creates Daisy Goodwill Flett’s absence in The Stone Diaries. This absence, in turn, acts to acknowledge the gaps in knowledge that exist within self-legitimating grand narratives. It demonstrates that Daisy’s performance of these grand narratives, particularly heteronormativity, necessarily obstructs her voice and, thereby, marginalizes her ability to act politically within that narrative. The Stone Diaries, then, calls for a plural public space by exposing what remains unknown—women’s lives and narratives—within the current public space.
      Degree
      Master of Arts (M.A.)
      Department
      English
      Program
      English
      Supervisor
      Roy, Wendy
      Copyright Date
      2009
      URI
      http://hdl.handle.net/10388/etd-08142009-161849
      Subject
      gender performance
      feminine subjectivity
      Carol Shields
      The Stone Diaries
      postmodernism
      gender studies
      Collections
      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
      University of Saskatchewan

      University Library

      © University of Saskatchewan
      Contact Us | Disclaimer | Privacy