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Date of Award
5-2025
Document Type
Restricted Thesis: Campus only access
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
English
First Advisor
Dr. Elizabeth Outka
Abstract
The womb encompasses a multiplicity of contradictions: life and death, private and public; and most significant to this thesis, agency and control. This thesis investigates the ways in which Toni Morrison's Beloved and Louise Erdrich's Future Home of the Living God depict how systems of power like slavery and settler colonialism interfere with autonomy and motherhood by imposing severe contradictions to the inherent nature of the womb. This thesis also analyzes how Morrison and Erdrich represent the reclaiming of agency amidst such regressive conditions through acts of resistance.
Please note this thesis is permanently restricted and not available.
Recommended Citation
Schultz, Katherine, "“For here I am, maybe a walking contradiction”: The Womb as a Site of Control and Agency in Morrison and Erdrich" (2025). Honors Theses. 1847.
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/honors-theses/1847
