Transforming hags: old women in Canadian fiction
| dc.contributor.author | Matthews, Carol | |
| dc.contributor.supervisor | Rooke, Constance | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2021-10-06T17:15:40Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2021-10-06T17:15:40Z | |
| dc.date.copyright | 1986 | en_US |
| dc.date.issued | 2021-10-06 | |
| dc.degree.department | Department of English | en_US |
| dc.degree.level | Master of Arts M.A. | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | From pre-literate folklore and myth to the modern novel, old women in literature are powerful figures who defy stereotypes. Although they are doubly marginal, as female and elderly, they resist being classified as object, or Other. Old women provide the matrix which grounds us in the past and which links us with the future. They are the avatars of a mediating power that may bridge the gulfs between the sexes, between the generations, and between this world and the next. This study examines the image of old women in Canadian fiction, specifically as they appear in Sheila Watson's The Double Hook, Ethel Wilson's Swamp Angel, and Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel. These novels contain three different and distinct types: Mrs. Potter in The Double Hook represents the witch figure; Mrs. Severance in Swamp Angel represents the wise woman; and Hagar Shipley in The Stone Angel is the old woman in between the positive and negative stereotypes, the old woman who insists on being recognized as the speaking subject of her life story. Angels are figures who occupy the boundaries of this world and the next, and, because of their marginality, they have a special relevance to old women. In each of the three novels there is an angel who conveys a message about the nature and significance of the old woman, and about the importance of her mediating power. Each angel leads us to see the old woman as a transforming hag, a shape-shifting figure in the tradition of the Triple Goddess. The tradition of the Triple Goddess enables old women to transcend objectification, and it reveals them as mutable yet powerful subjects. | en_US |
| dc.description.scholarlevel | Graduate | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1828/13445 | |
| dc.language | English | eng |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.rights | Available to the World Wide Web | en_US |
| dc.title | Transforming hags: old women in Canadian fiction | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |
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