Abstract:
This thesis analyses three novels: The Book of Secrets by the New Zealand writer Fiona Kidman, Moi, Tituba sorcière ... noire de Salem by Guadeloupean Maryse Condé, and Les Enfants du sabbat by the Quebec writer Anne Hébert. Each has been selected for its inclusion of a central woman character who is called a witch, but the trope of the witch produced in each case differs considerably. For this reason, the term "witchness" has been coined to describe the characteristics and qualities of these so-called "witches". The thesis seeks to identify the relationship between the writing of "witchness" and the slants of each novel. The term slant is used to signify the discourses impacting on the novel as manifested through the narrator's attitude, and also through the ideological, historical, social and cultural discourses inscribed in the texts and influenced by the context in which they are written. The methodology used to analyse these discourses draws on the approach detailed by Richard Terdiman in his book Discourse/Counter-Discourse.
The first section of the thesis identifies a historical intertext in each of the novels, and then analyses the framework into which each has been inserted. In The Book of Secrets the intertext is the history of Norman McLeod represented metonymically by the map of his migrations which prefaces the novel. In Moi, Tituba sorcière it is the transcription of Tituba's appearance in court in the Salem witch trials, while in Les Enfants du sabbat the origin of the intertext is Michelet's La Sorcière. The aim of these analyses is to identify the slants of the novels and to establish the discursive background on to which the trope of the witch has been written. As a consequence of this approach the reading and writing of intertextuality is also discussed.
The second and third sections consider the writing of "witchness" in the novels. Section Two explores how each novel represents "witchness”, and considers its significance in terms of countering labels of difference and Otherness; while the third section examines how these differing portrayals of "witchness" affect the discourses of identity and self-hood of the main women characters. In particular, this section considers how "witchness", in conjunction with the themes of language and storytelling, works in the creation of a specifically female heritage.
In short, the thesis consists of the identification of the counter-discourses in the novels, a consideration of the various representations of "witchness", and an analysis of the ways in which identity is created through the counter-discursive strategies related to the different writings of female heritage through “witchness”. The aim of these analyses is to understand the strategic purposes of writing about witches in these three novels.
