I was accepted into another conference this year which is super exciting. Although NCUR in Maryland is turning out to be super stressful since this Scorsese paper has been HAUNTING MY DREAMS and progressing very slowly, this conference is going to be a breeze since I had to turn in a completed paper back in January. Phew. I would NOT want to be working on two research papers right now, one is way more than enough. Also, this conference is specifically for literature so I'm sure there are going to be a lot of interesting (to me) presentations. Oh, and it's in Utah. Which is, y'know, Utah.
Here's a little blurb from my paper, titled Fictional Femininity: The Construction of Gender through Creativity in Faulkner's Sanctuary and The Wild Palms:
Focusing on two of the strongest female presences in his body of work, Temple Drake and Charlotte Rittenmeyer, William Faulkner’s Sanctuary and The Wild Palms act collectively to call into question the binary division of gender present in the Old South. In Sanctuary, Temple Drake—portrayed as the Southern Belle who falls from grace by the end of the text—performs her femininity in the way she dresses, acts, and eventually talks as she retells her horrific tale of the events at Old Frenchmen place. Correspondingly, in The Wild Palms, Charlotte Rittenmeyer—depicted as a self-concerned creative force—shifts from embracing her femininity to rejecting it and refusing to perform as Woman. These female characters, while substantially different in personality and behavior, act as a cohesive unit in which Faulkner is able to explore patriarchal society’s construction of gender roles and functions. Faulkner establishes that not only is femininity socially constructed, but also that the concept of gender as a whole is completely fictional, entirely made up by society. Through his descriptive language of Temple and Charlotte’s appearance, performance in family dynamics, and abilities in the field of creation and art, Faulkner is able to dislodge the normative notion of femininity in the Old South and replace it with his own, albeit blurred, vision of the female body.
1 comment:
you better have gone to the job fair, miss nicolle. Don't wind up like me ( see most recent blog ).
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