Martin, Courtney Transcending the Traumatic Memoir: Queer Liberation through Fantasy. Thesis. Radford University Scholars' Repository.
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Abstract
While there is a plethora of scholarship on fantasy literature and queer literature, rarely are the two placed in tandem, even though many queer stories are told through fantasy. This project aims to highlight their connection through an analysis of two notable contemporary works: Jeannette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Kai Cheng Thom’s Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir. Winterson’s Oranges follows a white, pious lesbian woman (cisgendered), named Jeanette (distinct from author Jeanette), as she grapples with the world around her and her place in it – with her community, her friends, lovers, and family. The text is semi-autobiographical because it aligns with Jeanette Winterson’s own life in several ways, but it incorporates a fantastical orange demon, biblical retellings, and allegorical stories throughout the narrative, as well. Thom’s Fierce Femmes, also semi-autobiographical, follows an Asian unnamed trans woman’s experiences leaving home, joining a girl gang, and choosing a life for herself that is wholly her own. This “confabulous memoir” is also not the conventional memoir; the narrator speaks to us as her readers in real time, includes poetry and letters, and retells events multiple times. While these texts may not be what readers have come to expect for a memoir, these “coming-out” stories are inseparable from the fantasy in them. Where most scholars assert that fantasy is merely embellishment in these texts and others like it, this project argues that the fantasy is (1) inseparable from the narratives and (2) is being used as a means to subdue the trauma associated with being a part of the queer community. Instead of the sometimes expected barrage of trauma attached to being a queer person, both authors arm their narratives with fantasy. By convoluting fact and fiction, stories and “truth,” both texts illuminate the literary trend of using storytelling to heal.
| Item Type: | Thesis |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) |
| Divisions: | Radford University > College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences > School of Writing, Language, and Literature |
| Date Deposited: | 12 Jun 2025 21:11 |
| Last Modified: | 12 Jun 2025 21:11 |
| URI: | http://wagner.radford.edu/id/eprint/1175 |
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