Shortt, Kristine Adell2024-08-152024-08-1519931993https://hdl.handle.net/1828/19680In her introduction to Susan Aiken's book, Isak Dinesen and the Engendering of Narrative, Catherine Stimpson says that Isak Dinesen appears to have been a "prophet of post-structuralism and feminism." This thesis attempts to analyze the validity and the limitations of such a claim by studying Dinesen's reaction to two highly structured and traditionally patriarchal social institutions, marriage and Christianity. The Introduction looks at the concept of structure in society. It investigates both the human need for stability and the tendency for individuals to limit their selfhood to their function or role within a social structure. While restricting one's self-definition can make life comforting and predictable, maintaining a limited selfhood can also restrict growth, change, and self­-expression. This belief seems evident in Dinesen's essays and short stories. Chapter One studies the institution of marriage and Dinesen's negative -­- though short-sighted -- view of it. In On Modern Marriage, Dinesen suggests that self-sacrifice is inherent in the ideal of marriage. Moreover, Dinesen sees the female sense of self as particularly sacrificed to this institution. As Jessica Benjamin points out, marriage has historically established the wife as a dependent, desireless, and de-sexualized Object. This view of wifehood is most vividly portrayed by Dinesen through the wives in "The Dreaming Child," ''The Ring," and "The Cardinal's First Tale." Chapter Two investigates Dinesen's uncompromising view of fundamentalist Christianity, which she saw as a structure which is as restrictive and objectifying to its followers' sense of self as marriage is to a woman's sense of self. "Peter and Rosa" and "Babette's Feast" reveal characters who have restricted their sense of selfhood to their "Christian" role, and who have thus sacrificed personal expression and physical desire. Like the wives discussed in Chapter One, the "brides of Christ" in Dinesen's stories are expected to be desireless, de-sexualized, and selfless servants. Combining LS. Vygotsky's theory of "play" as an opportunity to re-assess categories of meaning with Benjamin's theory of the boundary-blurring qualities of the erotic union, Chapter Three suggests that sexually-charged "play" offers Dinesen's objectified characters an escape from their limited self-definition. This kind of play allows individuals to see a "trace" of what least defines them within themselves, and this enables them to envision their sense of self as something quite different from what societal structures dictate. Play allows individuals to re­conceive who they are and helps them to become re-born as newer, freer individuals; the objectified can claim the subject position, and the desireless can claim desire. Chapter Four, therefore, is an exploration of specific instances of (re)creational, sexually-charged play in the previously mentioned stories. All but one of these stories ends with the re-conceiving of a character's self-definition. Christopher Norris defines post-structuralism as the "dismantling" of the "concept of 'structure' that serves to immobilize the play of meaning." He claims that a post-structuralist is one who acknowledges "the powerlessness of ready­made concepts to explain" a person or a thing. By this definition, Dinesen may seem to be "post-structuralist." Hers is a philosophy of multiple -- or at least malleable -- possibilities of meaning. She often gives her characters a chance to free themselves from objectifying structures through play, and as the Conclusion shows, she even refuses to limit her own self to a single identity, especially if that identity is an inherently limiting one. Moreover, her specific concern that women should be able to claim a freedom of selfhood reveals certain "feminist" tendencies. It seems, therefore, that Stimpson's claim stands up to scrutiny.126 pagesAvailable to the World Wide WebUN SDG 5: Gender EqualityThesis