Space, Gender and Trauma in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway andToni Morrison’s Jazz

• Main Authors: Chao-Yen Chung, 鍾照妍
• Other Authors: 劉亮雅
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/75676475441844682002

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 外國語文學研究所 === 101 === Space is a recurrent theme in the novels of Virginia Woolf and Toni Morrison, two major female writers of the 20th century. By inspecting the allocation of space in Woolf’s and Morrison’s novels, one may reveal hierarchical structures and discern spaces of resistance. Henri Lefebvre in The Production of Space expounds on the nuanced conceptions of space proposed by Western philosophers and theorists, arguing for a concrete “science of space” that takes into consideration the framework of knowledge, power and social relations in the production of space. By applying space theories of Lefebvre and feminist geographers, this thesis plans to investigate how the distribution of urban and domestic, public and private spaces portrayed in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Toni Morrison’s Jazz is intricately linked to and influenced by the hegemonic power of the state and the society, and to further reveal the pervasiveness of gender dichotomy in the society, and how the devastating effects of war trauma or racial trauma can be revealed through spatial experiences. Through the two authors’ challenging of conventional spatial allocation, the thesis will also explore the possibility of a reconceptualization of gendered and racial division of space, and to see whether an alternative subversive space is presented by Woolf and Morrison in Mrs. Dalloway and Jazz.