The Construction of Female Identity in The Middle Ground
Abstract
The Middle Ground is the ninth novel of Margaret Drabble, one of the most prominent woman writers in English literature of the 20th century. Unlike the earlier phase of her writing in the 1960s, Drabble’s novels of the 1970s represent a breakthrough in both themes and narrative, while women’s constant self-exploration of their identity remained a central focus. This paper utilizes feminist narratology to examine The Middle Ground and represents the author’s development in the construction of female identity through characters’ experiences, authorial voice, and alternative focalization.
Keywords
The Middle Ground; Feminist narratology; Female identity; Voice
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[1] Beards, Virginia K. “Margaret Drabble: Novels of a Cautious Feminist.” Critique 15.1, 1973, pp. 69-75.
[2] Drabble, Margaret. The Middle Ground. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1980.
[3] Lanser, Susan. Fictions of Authority. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.
[4] Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists From Bronte to Lessing. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1977.
[5] Warhol, Robyn R. “Toward a Theory of the Engaging Narrator: Earnest Interventions in Gaskell, Stowe, and Eliot.” PMLA, Vol. 101, No. 5,1986, pp. 811-818.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18686/ahe.v7i17.9107
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