Gender and subversion in The Wives of Bath (1993) by Susan Swan

• Grant number: 17/21765-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: March 01, 2018
• End date: February 29, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Modern Foreign Literatures
• Agreement: Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)
• Principal Investigator: Cleide Antonia Rapucci
• Grantee: Lis Doreto Romero
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL-ASSIS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Assis. Assis , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 18/12360-5 - Woman and literature in Canada: feminism, gender studies and women's writing related to the author Susan Swan, BE.EP.MS

Abstract

The Wives of Bath, a novel written by the Canadian Susan Swan and published in 1993 addresses innumerable issues related to woman, gender and society. Inspired by your own life and by a fifteenth-century tale, Susan Swan uses literature to denounce patriarchy by creating subversive and transgressive characters. The story, narrated by the character Mouse, takes place in the year of 1963, in the castle Bath Ladies College, the boarding school in which the character moved to. To compose the macabre scenario, Swan not only makes use of a uncouple narrative along with different textual genres, but also creates queer characters and makes the school environment a scary place. Towers, stairs, gratings on the windows, secret passages, lesbianism, transvestism and murder are aspects that give weight to the Gothic style romance elaborated by the Canadian. Making use of the Foucaultian conception of sexuality, of the studies of gender developed by Judith Butler, among others, this study intends to emphasize subversive aspects found in the characters and also in the composition of the narrative elaborated by Susan Swan. (AU)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

ROMERO, Lis Doreto. Gender/Genre and subversion in The Wives of Bath (1993), by Susan Swan. 2020. Master's Dissertation - Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Faculdade de Ciências e Letras. Assis Assis.