The central problem of this thesis is the situation of women in Reza De Wet's dramatic-oeuvre, and their yearning to escape from unacceptable circumstances. Chapter 1 deals with the historical background of the changing position of women in South African history, and indicates De Wet's dramatic oeuvre as the climax of this genre in the eighties. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with the female characters of Vrystaat-trilogie and Trits: Mis, Mirakel, Drif. Within the central problem, this study focuses on an ongoing liberation process which reaches its climax in Trits. Chapter 4 (A Russian trilogy) investigates the inner liberation process of female characters before and after the Russian Revolution, and focuses on their yearning for a better future. The conclusion of this thesis is that De Wet, by making use of concepts like intertextuality and fantasy, succeeded in deconstructing the image of a mythical Afrikaans countryside portrayed in earlier literature. Simultaneously the ongoing theme of an inner liberation takes place in the lives of most of the female characters throughout De Wet's dramatic oeuvre / Afrikaans and Theory of Literature / M.A. (Afrikaans)

M.A. (French) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Madame de La Fayette's La Princesse de Clèves was written between 1671 and 1677 at a time in French history when women's rights were beginning to find a voice in the "salons" of a few prominent female members of the leisure class. Although an immediate success with the reading public of seventeenth-century France, Madame de La Fayette's novel attracted a great deal of critical attention of the type that did not convince her to cast off her anonymity and come forth as the rightful author. As a roman d'analyse, La Princesse de Clèves stepped out of the conventions of vraisemblance and bienséance (plausibility and propriety) by the manner in which it followed the rites of passage of a young girl from maidenhood to self-evolved womanhood through the use of the medium of human relationships. In taking the idea of a psychological study one step further, into the realm of mythology, the reader is able to gain greater insight into the motivational forces at work within the principal character's psyche. Madame de Clèves' mythical journey towards a greater sense of self-awareness is activated by a deep-seated need, found in varying degrees in both women and men but in general more predominantly in women, to establish and maintain positive, creative relationships with others. This need goes back to the essential and eternal bonding between mother and daughter and the more tenuous bonding between mother and son. Placed within a mythological framework, the princesse's fictional development can be described through the intermediary motif of the quest. The princesse, unconsciously at first, sets out on a search for Self - a search for the centre of undistorted recognition of one's essence. She is stirred to action by feelings of dissatisfaction, loss and incompleteness arising from deep within her being. The initial phase of the journey entails a pulling away from the intense Mother bonding (without totally separating from it) by means of initiation through the "masculine" (her platonic lover Nemours). She is then able to accept and appreciate the parts of her inner nature she had been taught to avoid as a young girl (passion, moodiness, rage) and begin the difficult task of redeeming the Feminine within, in both her beauty and her destructiveness. During the process of looking at her own life, her own immediate past, the princesse finds herself drawn to the myths of a more distant past as well. She comes in touch with her mythical beginnings, with the unconscious dreams of an ancient people who, unlike their successors, were more at peace with their connection to life's mysterious truths personified by the oldest revered divinity: the ancient Great Goddess, "Union of all things related one to another." The result for Madame de La Fayette's heroine is a self-realized existence far from the culturally dictated role that society had allotted for her. In her moving away from the French court to the world of wholeness and integrity of country home and convent, the princesse is able to taste the fruits of freedom. She is able to become filled with the "goddess energy" of all aspects of her life and join past and future in her personal quest to bring inner healing to herself and to others. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

The rise of naturalism in American letters was born out of a reaction against romanticism by writers such as Theodore Dreiser, Hamlin Garland, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Jack London, Upton Sinclair and Robert Herrick, who attempted to rid the American novel of romanticism by delving deeper into life's truths than did the realists Mark Twain, William Dean Howells and Henry James. The naturalists objected to the limited subject matter of the realists; they focused their attention on "slums, crime, illicit sexual passions, exploitation of man by man"2 and other actualities of the world. George Perkins outlined other distinctions between realism and naturalism in American literature.3 He describes nineteenth-century realism, 1870-1890, as represented by writers who created a world of truth by keeping actuality clearly in mind. The emphasis was on the following: 1. Using settings that were thoroughly familiar to the writer. 2. Emphasizing the norm of daily experience in plot construction. 3. Creating ordinary characters and studying them in depth. 4. Adhering to complete authorial objectivity. 5. Accepting their moral responsibility by reporting the world as it truly was.

The purpose of this study is to illustrate the power image of Henry James's female protagonists through a Readers Theatre adaptation of his novels, Daisy Miller, The Wings of the Dove, and The Portrait of a Lady. Chapter I includes an introduction and defines the purpose of the thesis. Chapter II briefly examines biographical information on James. Chapter III includes the analysis of the three selected novels in relation to preparation of a performance based script for Readers Theatre. In the Appendix is the Readers Theatre script with the inclusive transition and introductory material. The illustration of a typical Jamesian woman reveals a philosophic view of the human possibilities in freedom, power, and the destructive elements that limit an independent spirit.

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