Towards Ontologies of Becoming: Friendship in Nella Larsen's Quicksand and Virginia Woolf's The Waves

Abstract

This thesis analyzes two early-twentieth century novels ' Virginia Woolf' s The Waves (1931) and Nella Larsen' s Quicksand (1928). I work with and complexify the existing body of criticism to explore how the relational aspect of subject formation depicted in these novels may be read to challenge the ontological/epistemological certainty of the knowing subject which has ' with its accompanying dualisms (mind/body, male/female) ' enjoyed discursive authority in traditional Western philosophy. After establishing literary engagement as an important entrance point for feminist theory, I explore possibilities for intra-relational becomings suggested in the novels, drawing from Rosi Braidotti' s feminist nomadism, intersectionality, and psychoanalysis. Rather than arguing for definitive statements about what constitutes ' woman' s identity,' my reading does not simplify or (yet again) fix the subject but complicates it in an effort to assert both the positive potential of difference and the importance of accounting for our shared histories.