The Stone Mothers: magical realism and the physical manifestation of grief

Langley, Alice (2025) The Stone Mothers: magical realism and the physical manifestation of grief. DFA thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

The Stone Mothers: Magical Realism and the Physical Manifestation of Grief is a thesis in two parts. The first is a complete novel, The Stone Mothers, and the second is a creative non-fiction essay. Both developed from practice as research into the question ‘why women turn to stone.’

Female petrification occurs when women are silenced, and their rhetoric has become redundant. Whilst research for the critical element of this thesis covers women such as the Shakespearean Hermione, and Niobe, the novel addresses the contemporary silencing of women who have experienced the trauma of miscarriage.

When read in tandem, the works seek to address how magical realism functions and why it is vital in terms of representing trauma, specifically grief through perinatal loss, infertility, and miscarriage. Via the experimental form of The Fountain Ghost, the potentially reductive practice of academic self-erasure is called into question. Both elements of the thesis explore how we present ourselves, truth, and autobiography in our writing, and what I think of as fictive truth – an honest and authentic account that might use elements of fiction to enhance and clarify its position.

The rationality created by this dual reading was created through practice as research and explores petrification, transformation, and how and when we turn to stone.

• Item Type: Thesis (DFA)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general; P Language and Literature > PR English literature
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies
• Supervisor's Name: Welsh, Professor Louise, Strachan, Professor Zoë and Fimi, Professor Dimitra
• Date of Award: 2025
• Embargo Date: 12 September 2028
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2025-85466
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 24 Sep 2025 14:54
• Last Modified: 24 Sep 2025 14:55
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.85466
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/85466