From subordinate to subversive: Feminist fiction as an instrument in expanding and changing the social meaning of gender

This thesis addresses the social construction of gender and the role that fiction as cultural production plays in this. More specifically, it looks at contemporary feminist fiction as counter-hegemonic cultural production, i.e., as an instrument in expanding and changing the social meaning of gender. A theory is developed which posits that counter-hegemonic feminist fiction accomplishes three political objectives: unmasking women's subordination, creating models of resistance to it, and prefiguring systems towards which change can move. A qualitative analysis of three contemporary feminist novels is then carried out to see how these processes are articulated in this work. These novels are: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Alice Walker's The Color Purple, and Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).