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Dark mirrors and disembodied spirits : gender, sexuality and incest in selected fiction by Daphne du Maurier
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-70).
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| Main Author: | |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Department of English Language and Literature
2015
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| _version_ | 1867613221505990656 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Duncan, Rebecca |
| author2 | Marx, Lesley |
| author_browse | Duncan, Rebecca Marx, Lesley |
| author_facet | Marx, Lesley Duncan, Rebecca |
| author_sort | Duncan, Rebecca |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-70). |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/14269 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:32:41.376Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publishDateRange | 2015 |
| publishDateSort | 2015 |
| publisher | Department of English Language and Literature |
| publisherStr | Department of English Language and Literature |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/14269 Dark mirrors and disembodied spirits : gender, sexuality and incest in selected fiction by Daphne du Maurier Duncan, Rebecca Marx, Lesley English Language and Literature Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-70). Daphne du Maurier has long been considered chiefly as a writer of popular fiction. She is celebrated as a masterful constructor of plot and acclaimed for her ability to infuse novelistic narrative with a nameless and pervasive frisson of unease, but it is only recently that critics have begun seriously to investigate the shadowy complexities of her widely-read novels. In this thesis, three of du Maurier's best-known works 'Jamaica Inn', 'Rebecca' and 'My Cousin Rachel' are examined using psychoanalytic theory and close textual analysis together with autobiographical information. Each novel reveals an informing concern with the stability of identity, and the psychological perils by which the self is both shaped and haunted. In my discussion of Jamaica Inn, Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection elucidates Mary Yellan's confinement within the rigid boundaries of a violently imposed gender role, and her dangerous quest to transgress these limits. In the case of Rebecca, Nancy Chodorow's version of the female Oedipus complex illuminates the bisexual triangle in which du Maurier's nameless heroine finds herself trapped at Manderley, and brings into focus the anxiety which haunts her in her pursuit of maturity. Finally, in the chapter on My Cousin Rachel Jean Baudrillard's work on seduction and Gilles Deleuze's account of masochism help to explain Philip's compulsion to rid himself of his wealth, his land and the house in which he grew up, so that he might live like a servant with his cousin's maternal and alluring widow. In my reading of each of these novels, analysis uncovers a preoccupation with varying combinations of gender, sexuality and incest, a trinity of issues which beset the author in her own life, and which, in her fiction, inflect the protagonists' quest towards or away from a coherent identity. In conclusion it will be suggested that du Maurier's narratives are written with a double-edged pen: at once widely read, popular fiction, and darkly psychological, subvertive literature, in which deep-rooted social and cultural boundaries are destabilized. 2015-10-25T16:54:55Z 2015-10-25T16:54:55Z 2010 Master Thesis Masters MA http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14269 eng application/pdf Department of English Language and Literature Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | English Language and Literature Duncan, Rebecca Dark mirrors and disembodied spirits : gender, sexuality and incest in selected fiction by Daphne du Maurier |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | Dark mirrors and disembodied spirits : gender, sexuality and incest in selected fiction by Daphne du Maurier |
| title_full | Dark mirrors and disembodied spirits : gender, sexuality and incest in selected fiction by Daphne du Maurier |
| title_fullStr | Dark mirrors and disembodied spirits : gender, sexuality and incest in selected fiction by Daphne du Maurier |
| title_full_unstemmed | Dark mirrors and disembodied spirits : gender, sexuality and incest in selected fiction by Daphne du Maurier |
| title_short | Dark mirrors and disembodied spirits : gender, sexuality and incest in selected fiction by Daphne du Maurier |
| title_sort | dark mirrors and disembodied spirits gender sexuality and incest in selected fiction by daphne du maurier |
| topic | English Language and Literature |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14269 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT duncanrebecca darkmirrorsanddisembodiedspiritsgendersexualityandincestinselectedfictionbydaphnedumaurier |