Identity and the children's literature of George MacDonald

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACTThe Victorian period, often heralded as the golden age of children's literature, saw both a break and a continuation with the traditions of the fairy tale genre, with many authors choosing this platform to question and subvert social and literary expectations (Honic, Breaking the Angelic Image 1; Zipes, Art of Subversion 97). George MacDonald (1824-1905), a prolific Scottish theologian, whose unspoken sermons, essays, novels, fantasies and children's fairy tales deliberately engage with such issues as gender, mortality, class, poverty and morality, was one such author (Ellison 92).This thesis critically examines how the Victorian writer George MacDonald portrays the notion of a ‗self' in terms of fixed ‗character' and mutable physical appearance in his fairy tales for children. Chapter One provides a foundation for this study by studying MacDonald's literary and religious context, particularly important for this former preacher banned from his pulpit (Reis, 24). Chapter Two explores a series of examples of the interaction between characters and their physical bodies. This begins with examining portrayals of characters synonymous with their bodies, before contrasting this with characters whose bodies appear differently than their inner selves. Chapter Two finishes by observing those characters whose physical forms alter throughout the course of the tale. As these different character-body interactions are observed, a marked separation between character and body emerges.In Chapter Three, the implications of this separation between character and body are explored. By writing such separations between the character and their body, MacDonald creates a space where further questions can be asked about our understanding of issues such as identity and mortality. Chapter Three begins with an analysis of the observations made in the first chapter, posing that MacDonald crafted characters consisting of an inner self and a physical body. This was then further explored through images of recognition in the tales, finding that characters are expected to recognize one another despite complete physical alterations; the inner self is able to know and be known. Chapter Three concludes by studying mortality in the tales, particularly MacDonald's portrayals of the possibility of life after death.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University