Negotiating identities in women's lives : English postcolonial and contemporary British novels
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Negotiating identities in women's lives : English postcolonial and contemporary British novels
（Contributions in women's studies, no. 196）
Greenwood Press, 2002
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [165]-182) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Women face different psychological issues at different ages. But these issues and the experience of confronting them depend on cultural contexts. Literary works represent these psychological and social conflicts, but the manner of representation varies according to the culture of the author. This book brings together feminism, postcolonial theory, and developmental psychology to analyze how traditional literary forms are transformed by women writing in different cultures. The volume discusses works by such well known authors as Margaret Atwood, Nadine Gordimer, Keri Hulme, and Doris Lessing, along with fiction by less studied writers such as Barbara Burford, Joan Riley, and Jessica Anderson.
By juxtaposing novels from different cultures, the volume highlights the new ways in which women renegotiate their identities at different ages and writers reconfigure novelistic forms. The first chapter looks at the search for adulthood in Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions, set in Zimbabwe, and in Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye, set in Canada. The second, on the seach for intimacy, analyzes how Barbara Burford's lesbian novella The Threshing Floor and Keri Hulme's evocation of Maori commensalism in The Bone People undo the traditional romance plot. Later chapters offer similar examinations of how various life stages, such as the searches for place, space, and integrity, are treated in other works.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Girlhood Identities: The Search for Adulthood in Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions and Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye
Sexual Identities: The Search for Intimacy in Barbara Burford's "The Threshing Floor" and Keri Hulme's The Bone People
National Identities: The Search for Place in Buchi Emecheta's Kehinde and Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day
Social and Political Identities: The Search for Space in Margaret Drabbles's The Radiant Way and Nadine Gordimer's None to Accompany Me
Cultural Identities: The Search for Integrity in Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow and Jessica Anderson's Tirra Lirra by the River
Facing Death: The Search for a Legacy in Joan Riley's Waiting in the Twilight and Doris Lessing's The Diary of a Good Neighbor
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
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