Women in Literature Reading through the Lens of Gender

Subjects:

• Literature » Literature (General)
• Women's Studies » Women's Studies (General)
• Sociology » Sex & Gender Studies

Reviews:

• An important contribution to the fields of literature, education, and women's studies; highly recommended for both academic and large public libraries.
  —Library Journal October 1, 2003
• [f]eminist scholars with wide educational experience offer a wake-up call to teachers and students to identify and correct stereotypical interpretations of both traditional and less familiar literary texts....A reliable handbook for the generalist, this book should interest primarily high school teachers as they prepare syllabi but also possibly beginning college students and their instructors....Lower-division undergraduates and general readers.
  —Choice December 2003
• Women in Literature: Reading Through the Lens of Gender would make a wonderful text for continuing education courses for high school English teachers, for adoption as part of the curriculum for teachers-in-train-ing,and,as a handbook or refresher, for college instructors who took women and literature courses as undergraduates. Anyone who took high school or college English in pre-feminist-theory days will also enjoy reading what s/he missed.
  —Feminist Collections Fall 2003
• [e]xcellent anthology of novels and plays that are frequently taught in high school and college English and Humanities classes.... Women in Literature:Reading Through the Lens of Gender would make a wonderful text for continuing education courses for high school English teachers, for adoption as part of the curriculum for teachers-in-training, and, as a handbook or refresher, for college instructors who took women and literature courses as undergraduates. Anyone who took high school or college English in pre-feminist-theory days will also enjoy reading that s/he missed.
  —School Library Journal April 2004
• Despite years of feminist criticism, there is still a gap on reference shelves when it comes to a feminine approach to literature. This collection of two- to three page signed essays looking at 96 works of fiction (both canonical works and newer/less familiar titles) is a sorely needed resource....most libraries will want to consider this volume....Teachers looking for ways to shake up their traditional reading lists and students looking for a different approach to some classics will find this book of interest.
  —VOYA December 2003

Table of Contents:

• Foreword
• Introduction
• Essays
• Sexuality as Rebellion in George Orwell's 1984 by Paul Bail
• Woman's Roles and Influence in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Melissa Pennell
• The War Against the Feminine: Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front by Mary Warner
• "Doctor She": Helena and Sisterhood in Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well by Terry Reilly
• Mother, Wife, Fallen Woman: Marital Choice in Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina by Lucy Melbourne
• Righteous Activist or Confrontational Madwoman: Sophocles' Antigone by Karen Bovard
• Female Resistance to Gender Conformity in Kate Chopin's The Awakening by Dana Kinnison
• Mothers and Children in Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees by Mary Jean DeMarr
• Faulkner's Male Myth: The Bear by Kim Martin Long
• More Than Skin Deep: Robin McKinley's Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast by Ellen R. Sackelman
• Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar: Trapped by the Feminist Mystique by Laurie Leach
• Toni Morrison's Beloved: Maternal Possibilities, Sisterly Bonding, by Monika Elbert
• Richard Wright's Black Boy and Black Women by Kenneth Florey
• Culture, Tradition, Family: Gender Roles in Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima by Montye P. Fuse
• Girls into Women: Culture, Nature, and Self-Loathing in Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye by Barbara Frey Waxman
• Founding Women's History: Christine de Pizan Writes The Book of the City of Ladies by Ellen S. Silber
• A Dystopic Vision of Gender in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World by Cristie L. March
• An Immigrant Girl's Quest for the American Dream in Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers by Norah C. Chase
• As My Mother Says: Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwige Danticat by Eileen Burchell
• Non-Conformists and Traditionalists: Buchi Emecheta's The Bride Price by Osayimwense Osa
• The Symbolic Annihilation of Women in Jack London's The Call of the Wild by Michelle Napierski-Prancl
• Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: Gender in the Middle Ages by Michael G. Cornelius
• Sex, Violence, and Peter Pan: J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye by PaulBail
• Paths to Liberation in Alice Walker's The Color Purple by Ernece B. Kelly
• The Women in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment by Sydney Schultze
• Witchhunting, Thwarted Desire, and Girl Power: Authur Miller's The Crucible by Karen Bovard
• "A Nice Girl Ought to Know!": Henry James's Daisy Miller by Laurie F. Leach
• Redefining Female Absense in Death of a Salesman by Dana Kinnison
• Black and White Womanhood in Sherely Anne Williams' Dessa Rose: Mammies, Ladies, and Rebels by Beverly Guy-Sheftall
• Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl: Writing a Self--The Female Adolescent Voice by Hedda Rosner Kopf
• The Slammed Door that Still Reverberates: Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House by Ann R. Shapiro
• Frozen Lives: Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome by Melissa McFarland Pennell
• Catherine Barkley: Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms by Suzanne del Gizzo
• The Invisible Black Female Artist in Alice Childress's Florence by Nassim W. Balestrini
• Daring Creation: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein by Lucy Morrison
• Shattered Rainbows in Translucent Glass: Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie by Nassim W. Balestrini
• What It Means to Be a Lady: Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind by Jane Marcellus
• Patriarchy and Property: Women in Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth by Eleanor Pam
• o Expectations at All: Women in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations by James R. Simmons Jr.
• Beautiful Fools and Hulking Brutes: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby by Linda C. Pelzer
• Reading Between the Lines: Connecting with Gertrude and Ophelia in Hamlet by Elizabeth Klett
• Freedom Reconsidered: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale by Magali Cornier Michael
• When Women Shape the World: Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland by Jerilyn Fisher
• Girls and Women in Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street