A female text in chorus : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Creative Writing at Massey University, New Zealand. EMBARGOED until 27th May 2027
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2025
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Massey University
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Two voices. Many questions. A call, a refrain, a response. Is the language with which we write masculine in nature due to its birth through patriarchal means? Can it become feminine? How might women writers represent and reinvent themselves in text, or reclaim the very concept of text itself? My critical essay examines Irish writer Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s book A Ghost in the Throat (2021) through the lens of Hélène Cixous’ formative feminist article, “The Laugh of the Medusa” (1975), in which she presents a call to arms for women to write themselves into text in distinctly female ways. As these women’s voices call and respond across the decades, a female text is written and defined, examined and redefined, and both Cixous and Ní Ghríofa offer crucial contributions to literature that are distinctly female in plight and song. My own voice joins the chorus in the creative portion of my thesis – a memoir that weaves together scenes from the decade I spent raising my children in rural Guatemala and the first months in which I return to New Zealand after my husband leaves us. It explores the shock, grief and shift of identity that arises after he leaves, as I navigate the seas of solo motherhood and seek a new sense of home. Together, the creative and critical aspects of this thesis examine the rising of the female voice from the margins of literature, and the discovery that our voices in fact sing together in one chorus.
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Embargoed until 27th May 2027