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Subject: search.filters.subject.Feminist literary criticism

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    A va'ine approach to creative writing : the tīvaevae framework and the calabash breaker : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Creative Writing at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2019) Kokaua-Balfour, Stacey
    This thesis explores an approach to creative writing embedded with an indigenous cultural framework from the Cook Islands. The tīvaevae framework, based around the process of constructing Cook Islands tīvaevae quilts, shapes both the critical and creative components of the thesis. The critical component explains how the tīvaevae framework is utilised and includes a discussion of an archetype called the calabash breaker, named after the poem of the same name by Selina Tusitala Marsh. The calabash breaker appears in different guises in both traditional and contemporary Moana narratives and can be recognised by her strong links to family, community and place, combined with tendency to rebel against the social conventions of her community. Typically, her insubordinate nature drives the narrative towards her ultimate act of disruption while also providing a method of social critique. Characters who share the traits of the calabash breaker are explored through a close reading of Witi Ihimaera’s novel Whale Rider (1987) and Sia Figiel’s novel The Girl in the Moon Circle (1996). In the creative component, a middle grade novel titled The Mōmoke’s Daughter, a Rarotongan girl named Kimiora from Porirua discovers she is the daughter of a mōmoke, a figure from Rarotongan cultural narratives. Kimiora and her friend return to the world of the mōmoke in the depths of te Moananui a Kiva, the Pacific Ocean. The book has a strong environmental concerns and explores what it means to be Indigenous to the Pacific while also part of a global community that is responsible for so much of the environmental destruction of ocean habitats. The novel uses the calabash breaker, expressed through the character of Kimiora, to explore Cook Islands ideas about identity, family, belonging, place and the role of mana tiaki (kaitiaki) of ocean environments.
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    Education as problem and solution in some novels by Edith Searle Grossman and Olive Schreiner : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1993) Reilly, Helen
    In this thesis I examine selected novels of two contemporary feminist writers, Edith Searle Grossmann of New Zealand and Olive Schreiner of South Africa. As citizens of the British Empire they each inherited a common literary tradition and similar cultural norms. Through their writing the authors explore the inferior status of women in society, and the role played by education in reinforcing female subordination and perpetuating male hegemony. At the same time they both suggest how education can be the means for empowering women to overcome patriarchal domination. My theoretical approach has been eclectic. I have drawn freely from various schools of literary criticism -- Historical, Marxist, Feminist, structuralist and Post-Structuralist. Accepting the premise that Grossmann and Schreiner are themselves historical characters, their writing can be regarded as an historical product, because it represents their response to the imperatives of their age. 'Its subject matter, language and style are moulded by the authors' consciousness of the times. By examining the sub-text in their novels, I have tried to expose some of the contradictions and confusions which represent their subconscious response to the age, that is, evidence of the authors' own "education" and unacknowledged acceptance of patriarchal values.