04531nam 2200793 450 991045615950332120200520144314.01-281-99559-297866119955911-4426-7871-210.3138/9781442678712(CKB)2420000000004291(OCoLC)244768843(CaPaEBR)ebrary10226351(SSID)ssj0000306709(PQKBManifestationID)11925050(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000306709(PQKBWorkID)10299146(PQKB)10031368(CaPaEBR)420822(CaBNvSL)thg00604690 (MiAaPQ)EBC3257951(MiAaPQ)EBC4671850(DE-B1597)464769(OCoLC)944177649(DE-B1597)9781442678712(Au-PeEL)EBL4671850(CaPaEBR)ebr11257540(OCoLC)958579516(EXLCZ)99242000000000429120160923h19981998 uy 0engurcn|||||||||txtccrPractising femininity domestic realism and the performance of gender in early Canadian fiction /Misao DeanToronto, [Ontario] ;Buffalo, [New York] ;London, [England] :University of Toronto Press,1998.©19981 online resource (150 p.) Theory / CultureBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph0-8020-8138-X Includes bibliographical references and index.Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Practising Femininity -- 1. The Female Emigrant's Guide as the Mending Basket of Domestic Ideology -- 2. The Broken Mirror of Domestic Ideology: Femininity as Textual Practice in Susanna Moodie's Autobiographical Works -- 3. Translated by Desire: Romance and Politics in Rosanna Leprohon 's Antoinette de Mirecourt -- 4. Explain Yourself: New Woman Fiction in Canada -- 5. Voicing the Voiceless: The Practice of 'Self-expression' in Nellie McClung's Fiction and Her Autobiography -- 6. Femininity and the Real in As for Me and My House -- Conclusion: Citing and Reciting -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index Femininity in colonial societies is a particularly contested element of the sex/gender system; while it draws on a conservative belief in universal and continuous values, it is undermined by the liberal rhetoric of freedom characteristic of the New World. Practising Femininity analyses the ways in which Canadian texts by Catharine Parr Traill, Susanna Moodie, Nellie McClung, Sinclair Ross, and others work to produce and naturalize femininity in a colonial setting.Drawing on Judith Butler?s definition of gender as performance, Misao Dean shows how practices which seem to transgress the feminine ideal ? the difficulties of emigration, physical labour, autobiographical writing, work for wages, sexual desire, and suffrage activism ? were justified by Canadian writers as legitimate expressions of an unvarying feminine inner self. Early Canadian writers cited a feminine gender ideal which emphasized love of home and adherence to duty; New Women and Suffrage writers attributed sexuality to a biological desire to reproduce; in the work of Sinclair Ross, the feminine ideal was moulded by prevailing Freudian models of femininity.This study is grounded in the most important current gender theories, and will interest Canadian literary scholars, feminist historians and theoreticians, and students of women?s studies.Theory/culture series.Canadian fictionWomen authorsHistory and criticismDomestic fictionHistory and criticismWomen and literatureCanadaFemininity in literatureSex role in literatureRealism in literatureElectronic books.Canadian fictionWomen authorsHistory and criticism.Domestic fictionHistory and criticism.Women and literatureFemininity in literature.Sex role in literature.Realism in literature.813.009/352042Dean Misao473368MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910456159503321Practising femininity2443022UNINA