| This dissertation argues for both the necessity and danger of roots, and explores the ways that twentieth century women negotiate their complex relationship to roots as they create identities that are both rooted and mobile.; In a postmodern world in which exile and forced displacement are increasingly common as scores of people are uprooted by wars, oppressive regimes, genocide, and economic hardships in a global economy, the need for roots takes on new meaning as we search for secure grounding in an unstable world. Yet, if we understand roots to be a metaphor for the ties that link us to time and place including our cultural traditions, our histories, our homes, then women, from Penelope on, have a unique relationship to these ties that represent patriarchy, domestic obligations and stasis, and much at stake in re-visioning rootedness.; The texts this dissertation examines are all created by women immigrants or children of recent immigrants. These texts explore concepts of rooted identity while interrogating notions of home. While they do not participate in a postmodern celebration of rootlessness or create apolitical art, they problematize the notions of roots and question what is at stake for women in a valorization of roots. These texts practice a kind of “resistance postmodernism” which Teresa Ebert describes as confronting how meaning is arrived at, going to the roots of knowledge and power, and challenging, re-visioning, and rewriting the traditions and master narratives that shape our lives. |
