The writer as polemic: Conventions of resistance literature in 'The Story of an African Farm,' by Olive Schreiner, and 'The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself,' by Olaudah Equiano

This thesis examines The Story of an African Farm , by Olive Schreiner, and Olaudah Equiano's The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written by Himself as works of resistance that employ comparable literary conventions in the service of similar thematic goals; specifically, it is argued that both works not only write in opposition to oppressive social mores by utilizing conventions identified as the heroic Other and the subversive appropriation of dominant culture, but also construct counter discourses by employing a third convention articulated as allegorical resistance.;While an expanded definition of and framework by which to view literatures of resistance offers a structure for the argument, a consideration of the formal differences between the two texts aids in situating the works within the critical debate. Therefore, The Interesting Narrative is considered an expression of autobiographical agency---that is, Equiano's self-fashioning is privileged as an assertion of discursive enfranchisement. By contrast, Schreiner's tragic heroine in African Farm is treated as a fictional portrait---a reification of the feminist theories proposed in Woman and Labor, Schreiner's work of feminist non-fiction.