Le présent mémoire propose une analyse de l'ironie dans deux oeuvres d'auteures canadiennes-anglaises contemporaines, soit The Penelopiad de Margaret Atwood et Unless de Carol Shields. Envisagée dans son rapport au « gender », l'ironie y apparaît comme une stratégie féministe qui, par l'intermédiaire de la parodie et la métafiction, interroge et subvertit les discours qui légitiment un ordre social et symbolique fondé sur le sacrifice de la femme. S'appuyant avant tout sur les théories féministes, notre analyse fait converger les théories de l'ironie et de l'ironie au féminin, de l'« agency », du postmodernisme, de la parodie et de la métafiction. Le dialogue entre notre corpus et ces différentes approches critiques nous permet non seulement de mesurer l'impact de l'ironie sur les oeuvres en question, mais aussi de rendre compte de la portée sociale, politique et morale de la stratégie textuelle privilégiée par nos deux auteures. L'objectif d'une telle recherche est de poursuivre la réflexion sur les différents moyens textuels utilisés par les femmes pour contester le pouvoir masculin. De plus, comme l'a fait Lucie Joubert dans son ouvrage pionnier sur l'ironie au féminin, nous souhaitons mettre en évidence le lien entre ce procédé littéraire et les différents enjeux de l'écriture des femmes. Nous désirons également montrer la pertinence de porter un tel éclairage sur deux oeuvres qui, par leur utilisation particulière de l'ironie, nous permettent de repenser la notion d'engagement féministe dans la littérature et contribuent au décloisonnement et à l'évolution des formes littéraires et des discours qui s'y chevauchent. Le tour d'horizon théorique que constitue notre premier chapitre sera suivi d'un deuxième chapitre sur The Penelopiad et d'un dernier chapitre sur Unless. Au terme de notre analyse, nous serons en mesure de mieux comprendre en quoi l'ironie au féminin, comme acte de résistance à certaines conventions sociales et littéraires, participe d'un vaste projet de féminisation du paysage idéologique et des codes de la fiction. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad, Carol Shields, Unless, Ironie, Parodie, Métafiction, Féminisme, Agentivité, Postmodernisme, Littérature canadienne.

Leung, Eva. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-138). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgment --- p.iv / Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter One: --- Misrecognition / Non-Recognition / Chapter Section One: --- the lack of the first bond --- p.14 / Chapter Section Two: --- the significant others --- p.37 / Chapter Section Three: --- the other important individuals --- p.67 / Chapter Chapter Two: --- Recognition / Chapter Section One: --- recognition bringing at-homeness --- p.93 / Chapter Section Two: --- abused recognition --- p.105 / Chapter Section Three: --- recognising the strangers in the selves --- p.114 / Conclusion --- p.130 / Works Cited --- p.133

This thesis traces Margaret Atwood's uses of three major elements of fairy tales in her novels. Atwood creates a passive, fairy-tale-like heroine, but not for the purpose of showing how passivity wins the prince as in the traditional tale. Atwood also uses the binary system, which provides a moralistic structure in the fairy tale, to show the necessity of moving beyond its rigidity. In addition, Atwood's novels focus on transformation as the breaking of a spell. However, the spell to be broken arises out of the fairy tales themselves, which create unrealistic expectations. Thus, Atwood not only presents these fairy tale elements in a new setting, but she also changes their significance.

Margaret Atwood speaks about a now common and yet still predominant question of female identity. Eye images, appearing frequently, correlate with ideas of observation, perception, and reflection as the woman seeks to understand herself. Introductory material examines three female archetypes, five victim positions, and male-female worlds. Eye imagery in early poetry expresses female feelings of frustration and submission to unfair roles and expectations. Imagery in the middle poetry presents causes for male-female manipulations. In later poetry eye imagery underscores the woman's anger and desire to separate into a new self. Concluding this study is an analysis of female options. From denial and anger the poet moves to recognition of choices open to today's woman, offering a possibility of wholeness.

Yuen Siu Fung. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 157-162). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter Chapter One: --- Re-imagining Female Subjectivity beyond Bodily Inscriptions --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter Two: --- Cultural Body and Female Agency: The Transformation of Identity in Jasmine --- p.21 / Chapter Chapter Three: --- Woman and Unwoman: Reconstructing Subjectivity in The Handmaids Tale --- p.64 / Chapter Chapter Four: --- Beyond Bodily Defined Identity: Per/Re-forming Man/Woman Relationship in Nights at the Circus --- p.114 / Chapter Chapter Five: --- "In Search of Fulfilment, Satisfaction and Development" --- p.150 / Bibliography --- p.157

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This dissertation focuses on the politics of self-narration and the use of visual images and strategies in Margaret Laurence's The Diviners , Daphne Marlatt's Ana Historic and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Cat's Eye. I argue that these authors are reworking the metafictional form by using visual strategies (such as reflection, distortion and point of view) to explore the complex relationship that us created when the woman narrator when she is both subject and object of her own fictional autobiography. / I use the artistic form of anamorphosis as the overriding metaphor for discussing this relation and its manifestation in these texts. Paintings and drawings in which the anamorphic form is used depend upon strategic distortion, indirect viewing and perspective for their effect. Anamorphoses present exploded, fragmented images which, through the strategic positioning of the viewer, are reconfigured into recognizable forms. The emphasis in these works of visual art is upon the moment at which these images are reconfigured. In literary works, I argue, the emphasis is on the process of creating a distorted image and on that which is contained in the spaces that are revealed through the process of exploding that image. This metaphor allows me to explore the interdependence of the visual and written elements of self-representation in these novels and the simultaneous, shifting, mutually informing relation between a narrating, subjective "I" and a narrative "eye" (with its emphasis on the visual, on perspective, and on point of view). / The resistant, reinscriptive and interrogative strategy of "literary anamorphosis" moves these novels beyond the confines of linear, literary forms to create a distinct, feminist, narrative space in which women writing in Canada can articulate the complex politics of their positions in but not of the masculinist Master Narratives that have historically defined and controlled them.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

This thesis explores the role and representation of the natural world in a selection of Canadian dystopian novels: After the Fact (1986) by Hélène Holden, Voices in Time (1986) by Hugh MacLennan, Oryx and Crake (2004) and The Handmaid's Taie (1985) by Margaret Atwood. In order to argue that Canadian dystopian fiction varies from conventional literary dystopias because of its predominant use of nature, this thesis first examines the influence that archetypal images and symbols of nature have on specific dystopian conventions in Holden's and MacLennan's respective novels. Then, this study looks at how Atwood's critique of nature as a victim in Oryx and Crake and The Handmaid's Taie engages with ecocritic and ecofeminist ideas causing a breakdown in the generic conventions of Atwood's dystopian novels. / Cette thèse explore le rôle et la représentation de la nature dans les romans dystopiques canadiens suivants: After the Fact (1986) d'Hélène Holden, Voices in Time (1986) de Hugh MacLennan, Oryx andCrake (2004) et The Handmaid's Taie (1985) de Margaret Atwood. Ayant pour objectif de démontrer que la fiction canadienne dystopique se distingue de la littérature dystopique traditionnelle en fonction de son utilisation dominante de la nature, cette thèse examine l'influence des images, des symboles et des archétypes de la nature sur les conventions dystopiques spécifiques à After the Fact de Holden et Voices in Time de MacLennan. Ensuite, cette étude analyse la représentation de la nature comme victime dans Oryx and Crake et dans The Handmaid's Taie de Atwood qui diffère des conventions traditionnelles du roman dystopique en s'inspirant des idées découlant de l'écoféminisme et de l'écocritique.

"2002." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 207-239). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.