The quest for identity in children's high and wainscots fantasy

Young, Aedon (2013) The quest for identity in children's high and wainscots fantasy. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Like Wilkie-Stibbs, I draw upon the work of Lacan and Kristeva to connect children's fantasy to the feminine Imaginary. My focus is the sub-genres of high and wainscots fantasy. In the first analytical chapter, using a psychoanalytical and semiotic lens, I explore how the protagonist follows a quest to define identity in which the concept of true names is often an underlying motif. Using the critical themes of resistance, agency, and emancipation, I link the quest to the problematic post-modem view of truth and with the post-colonial concept of hybridity. In the second analytical chapter, I focus on fantasy fiction's depiction of the soul and the contrast between the natural order and immortality. Issues of concern are knowledge and power. In the third analytical chapter, I relate the fantasy quest motif to my own naming and to how I equate my views on the soul, the natural world, and mortality with those of a fantasy protagonist.

Item Type: Thesis (Masters)
URI: http://research.library.mun.ca/id/eprint/9997
Item ID: 9997
Additional Information: Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-127).
Keywords: children's high and wainscots fantasy, feminine Imaginary, true names, hybridity, post-modernism, semiotics
Department(s): Education, Faculty of
Date: 2013
Date Type: Submission
Library of Congress Subject Heading: Children--Books and reading; Children's literature--History and criticism; Femininity in literature; Feminist literary criticism; Fantasy.

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