Breaking Free From Societal Constraints Queer Identity and Female Confinement in Sarah Waters’ Neo-Victorian Novels
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2023-06-15
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en
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This thesis examines the ways in which queer identity and female confinement are explored in Sarah Waters’ novels Tipping the Velvet (1998) and Fingersmith (2002). This thesis uses the queer feminist framework to analyse how concepts of lesbian visibility, gender performativity, sexual agency, and female solidarity are represented in Waters’ novels. Queer feminism can be seen as the combination of queer theory and feminist theory. The two theories are linked through Waters’ protagonists who are all female and fall in the queer category. This thesis demonstrates in detail the many ways in which Waters’ female protagonists are physically and mentally confined through a variety of outside forces. Furthermore, this thesis demonstrates the different ways in which the novels explore queer identity expression and how it is essentially linked to female confinement.
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Faculteit der Letteren