That Other World That Was the World

Know about the book -

That Other World That Was the World is written by Sanaz Fotouhi and published by . It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 137471819X (ISBN 10) and 9781374718197 (ISBN 13).

This dissertation, ""That Other World That Was the World" a Study of the Short Fiction of Katherine Mansfield and Nadine Gordimer" by Sanaz, Fotouhi, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled "That Other World That Was the World" A Study of the Short Fiction of Katherine Mansfield and Nadine Gordimer Submitted by Sanaz Fotouhi for the degree of Master of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong in June 2004 Literature, in any genre and any language, appeals to both readers and writers by offering through representation an other-world into which they can temporarily escape. However, that other-world is not simply an escape route. Indeed, especially when literature is viewed as a discourse carrying ideology, sometimes that other-world may be created for one group at the expense of marginalizing other discourses and voices. Consequently writers of different backgrounds and periods who have felt a need to resist the centrifugal forces of the more dominant literary discourses and narratives, have re-evaluated and rewritten literature to create an other-world for themselves, by writing within and against the dominant discourses. They thus create in their other-worlds something like what Nietzsche called 'effective histories' which challenge dominant modes of perceptions and narratives, and foreground marginalized experiences. This pattern of contestatory re-writing is a recurring phenomenon in literary history. This thesis analyzes how the modernist and post-colonial short stories of Katherine Mansfield and Nadine Gordimer can be understood in terms of this pattern of literary other- worlding. It does so by focusing on the short story as their medium and methodology for dismantling the more unitary narratives offered by the novel, and by analyzing the recurringvoices, patterns and narratives within their fiction. This study, therefore, puts special emphasis on the representation, in these writers' short fiction, of the socially disregarded voices and experiences of women, children and colonized subjects, and on the marginalized, concealed, private, and silent events in their lives, including the inner other-world of dreams, fantasies and fears. Through this focus, it shows how both Mansfield and Gordimer are aiming to create literature, and consequently to imagine reality, more free from social, gender and racial myths and constraints. Ultimately, this thesis shows that even though Mansfield and Gordimer are writing against different discourses, worlds apart (and even though Gordimer at times writes against Mansfield), in their use and transformation of existing modern and traditional literature, by writing within and against them, both women create effective and critical other-worlds within fiction, while their use of the relatively 'minor' genre of the short story is in itself both a vehicle and an example of the creation of an other- world. In this manner, the introductory chapter of this thesis introduces the concept of 'other- worlding' and the grounds which it covers. In the second and the third chapters, Mansfield's and Gordimer's short fiction are examined in relation to the concept of other-worlding, and within the context of modernism and post-colonialism respectively. Finally, the concluding chapter studies the two writers and their discourse in relation to each other. (430) DOI: 10.5353/th_b2952964