Voicing the Voiceless: Language and Genre in Nellie McClung's Fiction and Her Autobiography

Authors

  • Misao Dean University of Victoria

Abstract

While Nellie McClung is best known as an advocate for women's participation in public life, she gained much of her authority on the public stage from her popularity as a writer of sentimental "family fiction." Both her fiction and her autobiography adopt many of the conventions of the genre, but also challenge those conventions by emphasizing the violence of patriarchy and the resulting alienation of women from language and from concepts of unified selfhood. McClung's writings stretch the definitions of popular genres by stimulating the readers to question the conventions to which they adhere.

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Published

1989-10-10

Issue

Section

Original Research