LE3 .A278 1998

1998

Davies, Gwendolyn

Acadia University

Master of Arts

Masters

English

English & Theatre Studies

The ways in which two male authors, Hugh MacLennan and Alistair Macleod, marginalize their female characters in Each Man's Son (1951), The Lost Salt Gift of Blood (1976), and As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories (1986) respectively, becomes apparent through a feminist and cultural reading of their texts. These male authors' limited exploration of female identity in their Cape Breton stories is expounded upon by Ann-Marie MacDonald's treatment of gender identity formation in her novel Fall On Your Knees (1996). MacDonald subverts certain female stereotypes through gender role reversals and an exploration of female rituals and female memories. By bringing a feminist and postmodernist reading to four different fictional texts about the same region, this thesis will examine gender identity formation in these Cape Breton texts and will argue that such formation is intertwined with issues of ethnicity, class, religion, gender stereotyping, and storytelling. MacDonald consciously focuses on gender definitions in order to comment on the complexity of gender identity formation for both female and male characters in fictional accounts of Cape Breton.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:2968