Mending a Broken Duality in H. D. (Hilda Doolittle)

The final chapter concerns three of H. D.’s novels, two of which were published posthumously: Paint it Today (1991), Kora and Ka (1934), and Majic Ring (2009). They were composed at three distinct and disruptive points in H. D.’s career: the first just after the birth of her daughter, the second in the period of her analysis with Freud, and the third during the Second World War. The works evidence a preoccupation with both ritual and everyday sacrifice, as well as a constant re-imagination, re-evaluation, and re-invention of the self. This sustains the hypothesis that sacrifice enables both destruction and construction of the narrative self. H. D. represents the realisation of the self through experimental shifts in narrative voice, and also portrays creative production as necessary for the development of the self.