The Fantasy of the Female: Gender Representation Through the Fantastic in Nora K. Jemisin's The Broken Earth

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the representation of human subjectivity, and of marginalized identities in particular, through fantasy fiction. The main objective is to discern how, if at all, fantasy’s particular affordances enhance or make possible the representation of an other (a marginal identity who has been denied a functional subjectivity) as a subject within the fiction. To do so, the dissertation reviews philosophical and critical theories focused on identity and its relationship to narrative, which are linked through the running image of the mirror, in order to explain the importance of fictional representations for the process of individual identity construction. This theoretical framework supports the analysis of Nora K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy as an example of how fantasy can present alternatives to the ingrained primaryworld structures and discourses of discrimination which shape individual identity.