Ambiguous Discourse
Feminist Narratology and British Women Writers
Kathy Mezei, Kathy Mezei
- 296 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
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Ambiguous Discourse
Feminist Narratology and British Women Writers
Kathy Mezei, Kathy Mezei
About This Book
Carefully melding theory with close readings of texts, the contributors to Ambiguous Discourse explore the role of gender in the struggle for narrative control of specific works by British writers Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Anita Brookner, Angela Carter, Jeanette Winterson, and Mina Loy. This collection of twelve essays is the first book devoted to feminist narratology--the combination of feminist theory with the study of the structures that underpin all narratives. Until recently, narratology has resisted the advances of feminism in part, as some contributors argue, because theory has replicated past assumptions of male authority and point of view in narrative. Feminist narratology, however, contextualizes the cultural constructions of gender within its study of narrative strategies. Nine of these essays are original, and three have been revised for publication in this volume. The contributors are Melba Cuddy-Keane, Denise Delorey, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Susan Stanford Friedman, Janet Giltrow, Linda Hutcheon, Susan S. Lanser, Alison Lee, Patricia Matson, Kathy Mezei, Christine Roulston, and Robyn Warhol.
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Index
- Absence: in Woolfās works, 96ā97, 100, 106ā7; of mothers, 128ā31, 229ā31; of dialogic, 144ā45, 153, 162ā63; of information about narratorās gender, 250, 252, 254, 257ā58. See also Other; Silence
- Ackerman, Robert, 157 (n. 6)
- Agentless expressions, 15, 215, 220ā22, 224, 226ā28, 231
- A la recherche du temps perdu (Proust), 250, 259
- Alice Doesnāt (de Lauretis), 240
- Ambiguity (indeterminacy): as feminist narratology focus, 2, 10, 238ā61; about gender, 15, 71, 72, 76ā79, 83ā86, 88 (n. 20), 238ā60; Austenās, about marriage, 58ā59; of free indirect discourse, 67ā69, 71, 72; about gender roles, 70ā71; in Hotel du Lac, 228. See also Parenthetical
- Ana Historic (Marlatt), 265
- Androgyny, 246, 247
- Anger, 153ā56
- Anonymity (of narrator), 88 (n. 21)
- Arac, Jonathan, 189
- Ardis, Ann, 7
- Aristotle, 17 (n. 3)
- Armstrong, Nancy, 52
- Art. See Writing
- Asphodel (H.D.), 119
- Auerbach, Erich, 104ā5
- Austen, Jane: as feminist writer, 1, 7, 10, 21ā66, 70ā75; gendered implications of focalization by, 11ā12, 22ā38, 66, 72ā78; class versus gender solidarity in, 12ā13, 33ā34, 40ā64; marriage plots in works by, 34, 45ā46, 49, 73ā75, 87 (n. 13), 123ā24; narrators in works by, 58, 69, 77, 82, 83, 86. See also titles of individual works
- Author: feminist narratologyās study of, 2; parallels between textual subject and its, 13, 126ā27; implied, 66, 69, 78, 254; struggles between narrator, character, and, 66, 67, 69, 70ā81. See also Narrator; Self-censorship
- āThe Authorial Mind and the Question of Genderā (Schabert), 11
- Authority: women writersā reactions to, 10, 66; Austenās, 58, 82; narrative, 58, 66, 68, 70, 74ā77, 82; Forsterās, 77ā79, 82; Woolfās alternatives to, 81ā86, 139ā59, 163ā86. See also Author; Narrator
- Autobiography, 5, 119, 265
- Autodiegetic realm, 250, 253ā54, 256, 257
- The ...