“Monstrous and Atrocious: Defiance and Resistance in the Female Protagonists of Machado de Assis’s Dom Casmurro and Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla”
The female monster/atrocious belle stereotype in literature is a figure that crosses social boundaries and embodies the mystery and the threat of a concealed identity. The present master’s thesis intends to probe into the monstrous feminine image in two novels from similar periods, yet clearly dispa...
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| Tipo de recurso: | tesis de maestría |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2019 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de Valladolid |
| Repositorio: | UVaDOC. Repositorio Documental de la Universidad de Valladolid |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:uvadoc.uva.es:10324/39889 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/39889 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Female monsters Dom Casmurro Femenino-monstruoso 5701.11 Enseñanza de Lenguas |
| Sumario: | The female monster/atrocious belle stereotype in literature is a figure that crosses social boundaries and embodies the mystery and the threat of a concealed identity. The present master’s thesis intends to probe into the monstrous feminine image in two novels from similar periods, yet clearly disparate literary traditions and languages: Machado de Assis’ Dom Casmurro and Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla. More particularly, we will analyze their two powerful female protagonists, respectively Capitú and the vampiric Carmilla: both powerful yet strikingly oblique in terms of their narrative presentation. The two characters refer us to the social construction of woman as an evil, monstrous creature, which a feminist reading cannot but associate to the transgressive power of the adulterous beauty and the lesbian vampire imageries. In the light of such contemporary but also legitimate reading our research will attempt to show that the monstrous feminine stereotype, while born from age-old myths, can be interpreted as a contemporary symbol of resistance. |
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