Date of Award
2013
Degree Name
English
College
College of Liberal Arts
Type of Degree
M.A.
Document Type
Thesis
First Advisor
Kelli Prejean
Second Advisor
Jane Hill
Third Advisor
Rachael Peckham
Abstract
This thesis includes both scholarly and creative approaches to women’s life narrative and rhetoric. The author first analyzes Terry Tempest Williams’ recently published memoir, When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice, through the lenses of writing and rhetorical theory. She examines how Williams’ hybrid genre negotiates the boundaries between journaling and autobiographical writing and between silence and voice. She argues that Williams employs a feminist rhetoric in her writing in order to negotiate these boundaries.
The second and third works are personal essays in which the author examines her journals and her marriage. These creative works meditate on the author’s own relationship to journaling, writing, nature, and relationships.
Subject(s)
Williams, Terry Tempest. When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations on Voice.
Diaries - Authorship.
Autobiography - Authorship.
Recommended Citation
Bomsta, Tanya, "Approaches to Life Narrative: A Scholarly and Creative Thesis" (2013). Theses, Dissertations and Capstones. 478.
https://mds.marshall.edu/etd/478
Included in
Creative Writing Commons, Rhetoric Commons, Women's Studies Commons
