Shattered temporalities : an investigation into trauma, time, and the monstrous in Maria Dahvana Headley’s The mere wife (2018)
department or school: Creative and Critical Studies, Faculty of (Okanagan)
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCO
creator: Kloosterman, Alison
issued: 2022-10-07T19:29:11Z
issued: 2022
related degree: Master of Arts - MA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: This thesis offers a close reading of The Mere Wife (2018), Maria Dahvana Headley’s modernized adaptation of the Old English epic Beowulf. I argue that the monstrous, most immediately represented by the characters Dana Mills and Gren, is a social construction concealing cultural anxieties and the desire to preserve a sociocultural status quo. The characters who dwell within the gated suburban community attempt to preserve a status quo, treating those outside of the community, namely Dana Mills and Gren, as monstrous. However, in the dynamic of the novel, the monstrous is not simply what is excluded from the gated suburban community, but also something instantiated and veiled within it. I argue that the repudiation of the monstrous aims at preserving a suburban, homogenous, straight, and white sociocultural identity, but this very attempt at repudiation leads to this sociocultural identity’s annihilation, and reveals a monstrosity already lurking within the culturally specific status quo. I also argue that most of the characters initially judged as monstrous carry marginalized intersections of identity such as being Queer, feminine, racialized, lower class, and traumatized. I take particular interest in the ways that manifestations of trauma, when paired with these marginalized intersections of identity, are pathologized by the dwellers in suburban Herot and reduced to the monstrous, whereas their traumatized counterparts, who do not share these marginalized intersections of identity, do not suffer the same stigmatization. I analyze the temporally fragmented realities of the traumatized individual embodied in the monstrous, with particular attention to the work of Robert Stolorow, Richard Kearney, and Cathy Caruth.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/82840
note: Shattered Temporalities: An Investigation into Trauma, Time, and the Monstrous in Maria Dahvana Headley’s The Mere Wife (2018) by Alison Kloosterman B.A., Trent University, 2020 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES (English) The University of British Columbia (Okanagan) September 2022 © Alison Kloosterman, 2022 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis/dissertation entitled: Shattered Temporalities: An Investigation into Trauma, Time, and the Monstrous in Maria Dahvana Headley’s The Mere Wife (2018) submitted by Alison Kloosterman in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts. Dr. Michael Treschow, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies ______________________________________________________________________________ Supervisor Dr. Jodey Castricano, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies ______________________________________________________________________________ Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Maria Alexopoulos, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies ______________________________________________________________________________ Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Paul Milton, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies ______________________________________________________________________________ Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Margaret Carlyle, Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Social Sciences ______________________________________________________________________________ University Examiner iii Abstract This thesis offers a close reading of The Mere Wife (2018), Maria Dahvana Headley’s modernized adaptation of the Old English epic Beowulf. I argue that the monstrous, most immediately represented by the characters Dana Mills and Gren, is a social construction concealing cultural anxieties and the desire to preserve a sociocultural status quo. The charact…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2022-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0421251
language: eng
degree discipline: English
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Treschow, Michael
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/82840