Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-1996

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

English

Major Professor

Mary E. Papkje

Abstract

Drawing from recent feminist and linguistic debates concerning silence, this dissertation explores how the not-said has been made central to the dynamics of many texts written by twentieth-century American women. The project focuses on three modem writers-Edith Wharton, Susan Glaspell, and Zora Neale Hurston-and uses historical, cultural, and biographical background in order to discuss the diverse manifestations of silence these writers employ in order to challenge conventional social constructions within the dominant discourse, with special attention to constructions of gender.

Chapter One surveys the critical work on silence that has been done in the past thirty years within feminist and linguistic theory, concluding that moments of silence can challenge dominant ideological assumptions concerning voice, presence, and power. The second chapter then examines the plenitude of social silences present in the texts of Edith Wharton in terms of gender construction and the discourse of romance, and chapters three and four go on to identify the complicated and varied uses of the not-said within the art of Susan Glaspell and Zora Neale Hurston by examining the cultural positioning of their characters. This study concludes by suggesting the ways in which Hurston anticipates women writing more recently who have manifested in their works an even more deliberate challenge to the linguistic system, particularly as it reflects the uses of power within culture. The dissertation as a whole examines the intersections of issues of voice, power, and gender, and it argues that the meanings of silence can not be limited, even within a very specific sociocultural context.

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