The Development of Female Subjectivity：Identity in Judy Blume’s Fiction

• Main Authors: Wen-Yi Su, 蘇紋儀
• Other Authors: Patricia Haseltine
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/76qq5y

碩士 === 靜宜大學 === 英國語文學系研究所 === 94 === Judy Blume, a controversial writer since the 1970s, has been making a place for herself in children’s and young adult literature. Her straightforward style of portraying female sexuality is popular with young people but also confronts the censors. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the development of female identity and subjectivity in three of Blume’s novels, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret., Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself, and It’s Not the End of the World. Using Carol Gilligan’s theory in In a Different Voice on the female life cycle experience, this thesis analyzes the construction of female subjectivity in Judy Blume’s fiction and holds that through sexuality, the act of writing, and the enunciation of Jewish identity. Blume articulates the place for female voice. The thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter One introduces Judy Blume’s main novels on female subjectivity, Carol Gilligan’s conception on “the different voice,” and a discussion of female novels of development and the Bildungsroman. Chapter Two argues that Blume’s usage of female sexuality empowers the heroines for the internal and external changes to achieve growth and maturity. Chapter Three explores the representation of female writing. The female protagonists express a different self by the means of writing and mirror Blume’s own writing to further enrich the depiction of female experience. Chapter Four puts its focus on the function of alienation in female growth, and analyzes how young girls achieve identification from different experiences. Moreover, the stories also bring out Blume’s own concept of subjectivity. Chapter Five concludes with the importance of female subjectivity in Blume’s fiction and the connection between the predicament of growth and female identity. Blume enunciates a different voice for female growth, just as she identifies herself in the subjectivity of being Jewish. Therefore, her young adult novels bring more imaginative space for gender studies and research in multiculturalism.