The Sex Problem Femininity, Class and Contradiction in Late Colonial New Zealand Novels

Abstract

This thesis re-evaluates ideas of the depiction of women in New Zealand novels of the late colonial period (1890s-1930s) in light of a Marxist-feminist critical approach. Starting from a rejection of the usefulness of distinguishing "popular" from "serious" novels of the period, it analyses both romantic convention and deviations from that convention in terms of the aspirations of middle-class colonial women. In the case of Pakeha femininity, it sees both those narratives which emphasise female purity and submission, and those which concentrate on female independence and agency, as part of a single middle-class identity. For colonial middle-class women, individuality and adherence to social conventions are both necessary to maintain the subject's class identity and privileges. These social conventions are intimately connected to the ideology whereby the settler woman was seen as embodying the virtues of imperial society. The "Angelic" narratives are shown to offer a paradoxical discourse of liberation for the middle-class woman. By espousing a cause of moral purity such as prohibition, she can wield power and influence over the men of her social class, while still maintaining the appearance of selflessness which is a requirement for the "good" imperial woman. In contrast, the "New Woman” novels often follow a "boomerang" trajectory of these narratives, in which an independent heroine returns to conventional heterosexual marriage at the end. This can be seen not as a confusion in the narrative or a repression of a feminist consciousness, but a necessary correction by which the heroine can experience both freedom and class privilege. The thesis also looks at Maori femininity through an analysis of novels with "half-caste" heroines. These novels are characterised by a constant struggle on the part of the heroines to disavow their "savage" ancestry and culture, to preserve their privileges as white middle-class women, such as subjectivity and marriage to a man of the correct race and class. The alternative, to be seen as a Maori woman, is an experience of abjection, sexualization and servitude. In the narratives of Pakeha women, where Maori barely feature, it is the white working class who suffer this denial of subjectivity. These narratives are shown to differ slightly from those of the metropolis. The wider sphere of female independence in colonial society (for example, suffrage) meant that a broader range of action was possible within the female role, but, conversely, that colonial women had to be more careful to assert their adherence to the feminine role.