Presenter(s): Aurora Allen
Faculty Mentor(s): Bess Myers
Poster: 135
Session: Social Sciences & Humanities
The ‘feminine subject’ in literature is in itself a paradox. When gender is constructed within a patriarchal culture, ‘man’ is written whole and absolute, and ‘woman’ is written as not. The very construct of ‘woman’ is defined as ‘other than man’ and as somehow lacking or lesser. This makes representing genuine depictions of girls and women in the literature difficult. How does one navigate creating a character who, before she is even written, is already marked by her ‘girl- ness?’ Through the work of feminist philosophers Luce Irigaray and Simone de Beauvoir and through parallel analysis of Nnedi Okorafor’s Young Adult Fiction; I explore how the representation of a fantastic young girl undergoing ‘girlhood’ in Netflix’s Original TV show Stranger Things is able to subvert this paradox of the ‘feminine subject.’ My work explores how a piece of literature may reveal and reject the oppressive order in this way.