Myth and Memory at Sea:

Feminist Mythmaking and Oceanic Space in Contemporary Fiction

Abstract

This article examines feminist rewritings of maritime mythology and oceanic identities in three contemporary novels that reconstruct the sea as an archive of feminine memory, ecological interdependence, and mythopoetic resistance. Moving away from canonical maritime literature dominated by masculine narratives of conquest and heroism, Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News (1993), Lisa See’s The Island of Sea Women (2019), and Witi Ihimaera’s The Whale Rider (1987) centre female experiences shaped profoundly by water, cultural continuity, trauma, and regeneration. Each novel positions oceanic spaces as sites of narrative transformation, employing
distinctive feminist strategies of mythmaking. Proulx’s portrayal of the Newfoundland coast
constructs a psychic and material shoreline where women’s embodied experiences catalyse
personal healing and subtle agency. See’s exploration of Korea’s haenyeo divers reclaims female
labour and communal memory as potent forms of resistance against patriarchal and colonial
erasure. Ihimaera reconfigures Māori cosmological narratives through a young girl whose
spiritual and ecological inheritance disrupts established patriarchal traditions, redefining her
community’s mythic and cultural relationship with the ocean.
Drawing on feminist theories such as Luce Irigaray’s sexual difference, Hélène Cixous’s écriture féminine, and Judith Butler’s gender performativity, the study situates female embodiment as integral to narrative and symbolic reconstruction. Theoretical insights from Stacy Alaimo’s material ecocriticism and Rosi Braidotti’s nomadic subjectivity further frame the sea as a dynamic, relational, post–anthropocentric space. Ultimately, these narratives enact a feminist poetics that reterritorialises maritime myths, articulating oceanic spaces as arenas of ecological and cultural renewal, embodied knowledge, and intergenerational continuity.