The unhealed wound : Olive Schreiner's expressive art

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorHiggins, Johnen_ZA
dc.contributor.advisorDriver, Dorothyen_ZA
dc.contributor.authorGreen, Louiseen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2016-04-12T14:39:40Z
dc.date.available2016-04-12T14:39:40Z
dc.date.issued1994en_ZA
dc.description.abstractIn this paper I discuss the relation between Olive Schreiner's social context and the form of her fictional writing. It is not intended as an interpretation of her work but rather represents a preliminary sketch of the social and political discourses which structured her environment. I suggest that for Olive Schreiner writing is not a means of representing a given reality. Instead writing itself is a constitutive act through which she attempts to articulate a subject which expresses the conflicts and contradictions of its social and political location. In the first section of the paper, I discuss Olive Schreiner's position as a woman in relation to the literary canon. I argue that the social discourses of femininity in the late nineteenth century attempted to exclude women from the realm of cultural and intellectual production. Looking at the work of Herbert Spencer, the influential social philosopher who used scientific principles as the basis for his ideas about social order, I analyse the way in which Olive Schreiner rewrites his theory in order to make a space for women as cultural producers. In the second section I look at the dominant forms of the novel available to Olive Schreiner. The dominant mode of representation for metropolitan writers was the realist novel and women writers such as George Eliot found it an extremely effective way of articulating their experiences. The other significant form of writing for Olive Schreiner was the colonial adventure story, the most popular way, in the nineteenth century, of representing the colonial space. I suggest that Olive Schreiner's rejection of both these forms and her choice of the allegorical mode, can be understood in terms of the specificity of her position as a colonial woman writer. In the third section, I focus more closely on one of Olive Schreiner's texts, The Story of an African Farm in an attempt to illustrate how allegory allows Olive Schreiner to reorder the unstable colonial space. Both realism and the adventure novel, I argue, assume a coherent and unified self. The colonial context, I suggest problematises this sense of self as individualist agent and in the figure of Lyndall I see the limits of the reflective self as a means of interacting with the colonial situation. Bibliography: pages 68-69.en_ZA
dc.identifier.apacitationGreen, L. (1994). <i>The unhealed wound : Olive Schreiner's expressive art</i>. (Thesis). University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of English Language and Literature. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/18827en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitationGreen, Louise. <i>"The unhealed wound : Olive Schreiner's expressive art."</i> Thesis., University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of English Language and Literature, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/18827en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationGreen, L. 1994. The unhealed wound : Olive Schreiner's expressive art. University of Cape Town.en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Thesis / Dissertation AU - Green, Louise AB - In this paper I discuss the relation between Olive Schreiner's social context and the form of her fictional writing. It is not intended as an interpretation of her work but rather represents a preliminary sketch of the social and political discourses which structured her environment. I suggest that for Olive Schreiner writing is not a means of representing a given reality. Instead writing itself is a constitutive act through which she attempts to articulate a subject which expresses the conflicts and contradictions of its social and political location. In the first section of the paper, I discuss Olive Schreiner's position as a woman in relation to the literary canon. I argue that the social discourses of femininity in the late nineteenth century attempted to exclude women from the realm of cultural and intellectual production. Looking at the work of Herbert Spencer, the influential social philosopher who used scientific principles as the basis for his ideas about social order, I analyse the way in which Olive Schreiner rewrites his theory in order to make a space for women as cultural producers. In the second section I look at the dominant forms of the novel available to Olive Schreiner. The dominant mode of representation for metropolitan writers was the realist novel and women writers such as George Eliot found it an extremely effective way of articulating their experiences. The other significant form of writing for Olive Schreiner was the colonial adventure story, the most popular way, in the nineteenth century, of representing the colonial space. I suggest that Olive Schreiner's rejection of both these forms and her choice of the allegorical mode, can be understood in terms of the specificity of her position as a colonial woman writer. In the third section, I focus more closely on one of Olive Schreiner's texts, The Story of an African Farm in an attempt to illustrate how allegory allows Olive Schreiner to reorder the unstable colonial space. Both realism and the adventure novel, I argue, assume a coherent and unified self. The colonial context, I suggest problematises this sense of self as individualist agent and in the figure of Lyndall I see the limits of the reflective self as a means of interacting with the colonial situation. Bibliography: pages 68-69. DA - 1994 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 1994 T1 - The unhealed wound : Olive Schreiner's expressive art TI - The unhealed wound : Olive Schreiner's expressive art UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/18827 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11427/18827
dc.identifier.vancouvercitationGreen L. The unhealed wound : Olive Schreiner's expressive art. [Thesis]. University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of English Language and Literature, 1994 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/18827en_ZA
dc.language.isoengen_ZA
dc.publisher.departmentDepartment of English Language and Literatureen_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Humanitiesen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.subject.otherLiterary Studiesen_ZA
dc.titleThe unhealed wound : Olive Schreiner's expressive arten_ZA
dc.typeMaster Thesis
dc.type.qualificationlevelMasters
dc.type.qualificationnameMAen_ZA
uct.type.filetypeText
uct.type.filetypeImage
uct.type.publicationResearchen_ZA
uct.type.resourceThesisen_ZA
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
thesis_hum_1994_green_louise.pdf
Size:
1.33 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download
Collections
Masters