Twentieth century women's novels dramatize the daughter's conflicting desires to merge and to separate. Daughters are pulled between the passivity implied by attachment and autonomy they may construe as isolation. A psychoanalytic approach helps to illumine the struggles of daughters to reconcile the need for independence and the need for autonomy. In the struggle to define her own identity, a woman must learn to accept both her kinship with the mother and her separateness. In twentieth century women's novels, heroines have been moving away from the typical Victorian solutions to female identity—marriage and self-sacrifice. In an early novel such as May Sinclair's Mary Olivier, the heroine sacrifices her chance for marriage and remains tied to her mother's side; spiritually, however, she escapes into a mystical detachment. In Edith Wharton's novels, heroines are often caught in a love triangle, unable to reconcile their needs for mother love and sexual love; usually they end up alone. In later novels such as Doris Lessing's, the heroine leaves home to discover her own identity, but because she remains so closely identified with the mother, rejection of the mother means self-rejection. She struggles, then, to accept ambivalence toward her mother and toward herself, finally gaining a vision of integration through fantasy. Finally, in three recent novels—Lady Oracle, Jerusalem the Golden, and Earthly Possessions—the daughters learn that they cannot deny their mothers and their past in order to create themselves anew; they must re-discover the bond with the mother, but this time as adults rather than children. In Lady Oracle and Jerusalem the Golden, daughters struggle with guilt and self-hatred before they learn to recognize their underlying love for the mother. In Earthly Possessions, the heroine moves through emotional recognition of the mother-bond to discover a capacity for both intimacy and separateness. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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

Bibliography: pages 336-354. / Tegniese en tematiese vernuwing, aansien én verguising van sy literêre werk, 'n opsienbare openbare lewe én dood - dit alles het bygedra dat Koos Prinsloo bykans 'n kultusfiguur geword het en dat sy skrywersloopbaan en literêre arbeid 'n uiters interessante, maar komplekse studieterrein is. Verskeie artikels en nagraadse studies oor uiteenlopende aspekte van Prinsloo se verhale is reeds voltooi, maar daar is nog geen sistematiese ondersoek gedoen oor die verhouding tussen feit en fiksie soos dit na vore kom in sy vier bundels nie. Met die skrywer se afsterwe in Maart 1994 is sy oeuvre afgesluit. Dit is dus vir die navorser moontlik om tot bepaalde gevolgtrekkings te kom ten opsigte van 'n volledige korpus tekste. Die werkswyse in hierdie studie is om Prinsloo se verhaalbundels in chronologiese volgorde te ontleed, te bepaal watter verhale outobiografiese merkers vertoon, na te gaan watter tegnieke die skrywer gebruik het om sy tekste te fiksionaliseer/defiksionaliseer, en wat die funksies en konsekwensies is van die byhaal van die "werklikheid" by die fiksionele. Die uitsprake van kritici word by elke bundel gegee, met die navorser se reaksie op die kritiek. As gevolg van die omvang van hierdie studie, word daar nie aandag gegee aan die (meer omvattende) verhouding tussen "feit" en "fiksie" in Prinsloo se oeuvre nie. Sodanige studie sal meebring dat die talryke dokumentêre verwysings in sy werk nagevors en die funksionaliteit daarvan bepaal word. Hierdie studie konsentreer net op die verhouding tussen die outobiografiese feit en fiksie in sy werk, maar verwys, waar nodig, na sommige van hierdie dokumente.

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The term pioneer simply means one who pushes ahead to remove obstacles and to prepare the way for others who are to follow. Nevertheless, when we speak of the pioneers in American history, we are really speaking of three different types of men who have only a little in common. All pioneers leave behind them settled communities and highly civilized life and push out into an unknown and. unsettled country;y. Also, all pioneers are seekers, but they do not all seek the same things, Some are seeking adventure. These are the explorers, the pioneers seized with the wanderlust, those who move on and on from one place to another, and, if they live long enough, finally come back; to their friends telling wonderful tales of what they have seen and done. The second group includes those who are seeking for gold, some literally and some figuratively. The miners, the trappers, the hunters might all be classed here. The third group includes those who seek an opportunity to build new homes. These are the pioneers whose work is permanent and most worthwhile. In this sense the Puritans and other early settlers were pioneers of the truest type. They were willing to leave home and friends in order to found a new and better home for themselves and their children. The explorer and gold seeker were necessary for the complete settlement of .the United States. but after all, it was the home seeker who finally conquered the forests and the plains. The home-seeker, to be a good pioneer, must have within him. however, the courage and impetuous desire of the explorer to push forward if he is to be successful. He must be willing to endure any number of hardships and even defeat if he is to carry out his purpose. It is this last type of pioneer whom the modern novelist has sought to portray and interpret, and in this discussion only those novels which deal with such pioneers will be discussed.

This study shows how the Grotesque Hero evolves from the grotesque victim in selected American novels from 1919 to 1972. In these novels, contradictory forces create a cultural dilemma. When a character is especially vulnerable to that dilemma, he becomes caught and twisted into a grotesque victim. The Grotesque Hero finds a solution to the dilemma, not by escaping his grotesque victimization, but by accepting it and making it work for him. The novels paired according to a particular contradictory dilemma include: Winesburg, Ohio and The Crying of Lot 49, As I Lay Dying and Wise Blood, Miss Lonelyhearts and The Dick Gibson Show, Cabot Wright Begins and Second Skin, The Day of the Locust and The Lime Twig, and Expensive People and The Sunlight Dialogues.