AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

This thesis offers an insight into the emergence of the New Woman, who was initially largely a literary phenomenon, but grew out to become a self-identity for many women after World War I, which was enabled by their sudden social and economic freedoms. As such, a period of roughly a hundred years, namely from 1830, the beginning of the Victorian Period, to 1930, the aftermath of the Great War, will be studied, and the role of the New Woman in this period will be largely scrutinized through the literature of that era. Specifically, Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel Rebecca will be analysed, and in particular the titular character – who, by being both the title character and the antagonist of the story, represents the unstable and volatile characteristics of what identity can be. By employing Queer Theory, this thesis will hopefully provide a closer understanding as to who exactly the New Woman, personified by Rebecca, was, what she wanted, and how she was perceived in her time – effectively exploring if she was not merely a woman defying social boundaries, but a Queer phenomenon.