"Who Is To Rule?" The Representation of Female Agency in Contemporary Mass-Market Speculative Fiction

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Abstract
In the first years of the twenty-first century, the market for mass-produced fantasy fiction has shown a striking interest in the central position of the heroic female in ways that suggest a significant change in the forms and meanings of this figure over the last fifty years. Through the examination of three particular examples, published 2008-2012, this thesis investigates the specific question of female agency. What emerges from this exploration of gendered agency is the strong evidence for a move away from the misogynist portrayal of women associated with mainstream mass-market publishing and with particular types of misogyny that have dominated mass-market fantasy in particular. The novels under investigation in this thesis are The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (2008), Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente (2011) and Mechanique by Genevieve Valentine (2011), and in each case the convention of their respective sub-genres will form the platform for an inquiry into femininity as a socially constructed performance and the connections between femininity as performance and agency. The thesis undertakes a theoretical framework based on the work of a range of contemporary feminist theorists, including Judith Butler and Donna Haraway as well as feminists working specifically within literary studies. Close attention to questions of gender and genre in the three case studies reveal that female agency is being incorporated into mass-market fantasy through active female protagonists, and the centrality of female agency is actually crucial to the critical and commercial success of each text. Patriarchal ideals of femininity are exposed as constructed performances through these female characters with no materially negative effect on reading expectations or enjoyment. However, even though the positioning of heroic female agency at the centre of each novel is an indication of gradual move of fantasy away from misogynist conventions prevalent in the mass-market, the continuing reliance on heteronormative gender binaries and socially determined constructions of gender indicates that mass-market authors have yet to take full advantage of the transformative possibilities of the fantasy genre.
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Author(s)
Walker, Hannah
Supervisor(s)
Morrison, Fiona
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Publication Year
2014
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Thesis
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Masters Thesis
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