British and Irish Women Writers and the Women's Movement

Six Literary Voices of Their Times

Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Gender Studies, Women&, Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism
Cover of the book British and Irish Women Writers and the Women's Movement by Jill Franks, McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Jill Franks ISBN: 9781476602684
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Publication: February 7, 2013
Imprint: Language: English
Author: Jill Franks
ISBN: 9781476602684
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Publication: February 7, 2013
Imprint:
Language: English

This study pairs selected Irish and British women novelists of three periods, relating their voices to the women’s movements in their respective nations. In the first wave, nationalist and militant ideologies competed with the suffrage fight in Ireland. Elizabeth Bowen’s The Last September illustrates the melancholy of gender performance and confusion of ethnic identity in the dying Anglo-Irish Ascendancy class. In England, suffrage ideologies clashed with socialism and patriotism. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway contains a political unconscious that links its characters across class and gender. In the second wave, heterosexual romantic relationships come under scrutiny. Edna O’Brien’s Country Girls trilogy reveals ways in which Irish Catholic ideologies abject femaleness; her characters internalize this abjection to the point of self-destruction. Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook pits the protagonist’s aspirations to write novels against the Communist Party’s prohibitions on bourgeois values. In the third wave, Irish writers express the frustrations of their cultural identity. Nuala O’Faolain’s My Dream of You takes her protagonist back to Ireland to heal her psychic wounds. In England, Thatcherism had created a materialistic culture that eroded many feminists’ socialist values. Fay Weldon’s Big Woman satirizes the demise of second-wave idealism, asking where feminism can go from here.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

This study pairs selected Irish and British women novelists of three periods, relating their voices to the women’s movements in their respective nations. In the first wave, nationalist and militant ideologies competed with the suffrage fight in Ireland. Elizabeth Bowen’s The Last September illustrates the melancholy of gender performance and confusion of ethnic identity in the dying Anglo-Irish Ascendancy class. In England, suffrage ideologies clashed with socialism and patriotism. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway contains a political unconscious that links its characters across class and gender. In the second wave, heterosexual romantic relationships come under scrutiny. Edna O’Brien’s Country Girls trilogy reveals ways in which Irish Catholic ideologies abject femaleness; her characters internalize this abjection to the point of self-destruction. Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook pits the protagonist’s aspirations to write novels against the Communist Party’s prohibitions on bourgeois values. In the third wave, Irish writers express the frustrations of their cultural identity. Nuala O’Faolain’s My Dream of You takes her protagonist back to Ireland to heal her psychic wounds. In England, Thatcherism had created a materialistic culture that eroded many feminists’ socialist values. Fay Weldon’s Big Woman satirizes the demise of second-wave idealism, asking where feminism can go from here.

More books from McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Cover of the book Medals for Soldiers and Airmen by Jill Franks
Cover of the book The Natyasastra and the Body in Performance by Jill Franks
Cover of the book Lillian Gish by Jill Franks
Cover of the book The Underground Railroad in DeKalb County, Illinois by Jill Franks
Cover of the book Are Libraries Obsolete? by Jill Franks
Cover of the book The Defiant One by Jill Franks
Cover of the book Hauntings and Poltergeists by Jill Franks
Cover of the book Louis XVI and the French Revolution by Jill Franks
Cover of the book Eastern Air Lines by Jill Franks
Cover of the book Kvetching and Shpritzing by Jill Franks
Cover of the book Shared Walls by Jill Franks
Cover of the book Foreign-Born American Patriots by Jill Franks
Cover of the book Freedom Narratives of African American Women by Jill Franks
Cover of the book The Transgressive Iain Banks by Jill Franks
Cover of the book The Mistaken History of the Korean War by Jill Franks
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy