Subversive strategies: fictional alternatives by women writers

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which certain recent texts by women writers construct oppositional strategies to the conventional depiction of gender in narrative. These texts are examined as acts of revision and, more radically, of subversion. The focus is on the way certain writers in the twentieth century revise prevailing paradigms, in particular, the paradigm of heterosexuality which has traditionally been the central relationship informing the conventional novel. In searching for new ways of presenting fiction that undermine the romantic closure of novels ending in marriage or death, women writers are following new directions in fiction.

Opsomming
Hierdie artikel ondersoek die maniere waarop sekere resente tekste deur vroueskrywers opposisionele strategiee teenoor die konvensionele uitbeelding van geslag in verhalende tekste daarstel. Hierdie tekste word behandel as akte van hersiening en, radikaler, onder­myning. Die fokus is op die manier waarop sekere skrywers in die twintigste eeu oorheer­sende paradigmas hersien, en in besonder die paradigma van heteroseksualiteit wat tradisioneel die sentrale verhouding in die konvensionele roman vorm. In hulle soektog na nuwe wee om fiksie te skryf wat die romaneindes van huwelik of dood ondermyn, volg vroueskrywers nuwe rigtings in die prosa.