The Herbalist-Healer-Midwife-Witch in Contemporary English Novel
Tez Türü: Doktora
Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: İstanbul Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Edebiyat Fakültesi Bölümü, Türkiye
Tez Danışmanı: Melikoğlu, E.
Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2011
Tezin Dili: İngilizce
Özet:
This thesis aims at scrutinizing Zenia and Karen/Charis in Atwood's The
Robber Bride (1993) and Isabelle in Chevalier's The Virgin Blue (1997)
as the literary descendants of the many midwives and women healers
persecuted and brought to trial for witchcraft because they crossed the
male-set social, physical, natural-supernatural and life-death
boundaries and hence their existence posed a threat to the authority and
order of patriarchal society. In feminism such powerful women labelled
as witches are adopted as a female identity and discourse. The
subversive energy of the witch flows into literature and postmodern
discourse by means of deconstruction and disruption.The Introduction of
the present study is devoted to the witches' disruption of male-set
dichotomies in history, literature and literary theory. Chapter 1
portrays Zenia as a liberating force, saving her friends Karen/Charis,
Tony and Roz from their husbands/partners' sexual, physical and
financial exploitation and oppression, and helping them heal their
wounds through female solidarity in Atwood's The Robber Bride. Chapter 2
focuses on Karen/Charis who, having inherited her healing/killing power
from her grandmother, helps her friends survive the liberation process
initiated by Zenia and eventually liberates Zenia herself. In Chapter 3
Isabelle's life, in Chevalier's The Virgin Blue, is discussed as an echo
of the political and religious changes; she is stigmatised and tortured
for being a herbalist-healer-midwife. In conclusion it is emphasised
that just as witches, so feminist theorists and fiction writers disrupt
these metaphysical dichotomies and establish their own discourse.