British Women Writers and the Short Story, 1850–1930

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Krueger
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Short Story

An Office of Her Own? Alice Munro and the Legacy of Writing with In-Authority

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Mendez
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Women's Writing ◽  
Alice Munro ◽  
Rhetorical Strategy ◽  
Shared Interest ◽  
Room Of One's Own ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Women’S Writing

In Alice Munro’s short story “The Office,” the protagonist claims an office of her own in which to write. Munro’s narrative can thus be read as engaging with the ideas on the spatial conditions for women’s writing which Virginia Woolf famously explored in A Room of One’s Own. My paper takes this thematic connection as a point of departure for suggesting that a Woolfian legacy shapes Munro’s “The Office” in ways which go beyond a shared interest in spaces for women’s writing. Both A Room of One’s Own and “The Office,” this paper argues, use the discussion of women’s writing spaces as a launching pad for exploring in how far women writers may claim for themselves traditionally masculine positions of authorship and authority, and in what ways authoritative forms of literary discourse may be transformed by women’s writing. In both A Room of One’s Own and “The Office,” the interruption as element of plot and rhetorical strategy plays a central role in answering these questions.

scholarly journals Double Readings and Double Rewritings. Alternative Texts in Mary O'Donnell's Remake of Mary Lavin's "The Widow's Son"

ABEI Journal ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanna Tallone
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Narrative Authority ◽  
Significant Figure ◽  
Irish Women ◽  
Suburban Life ◽  
Narrative Voices

Mary O’Donnell’s short story “The Story of Maria’s Son”, from her collection Storm over Belfast (2008), consciously and openly rewrites Mary Lavin’s story “The Widow’s Son” in the urban setting of contemporary Ireland. O’Donnell follows the steps of a significant figure among Irish women writers and plays with the plot of her source text in a process of expansion, providing background information to weave a realistic pattern of suburban life. However, O’Donnell also engages with the structure, tone and narrative modes of the Lavin original and reproduces the pattern of Lavin’s story in her deliberate use of a double ending, or of alternative endings, thus questioning narrative authority. The purpose of this paper is to analyse Mary O’Donnell’s “The Story of Maria’s Son”, vis-à-vis Lavin’s “The Widow’s Son”, shedding light on the way both texts elaborate conflicting endings and taking into account the variety of narrative voices in both stories. If on the level of plot the tragedy of the loss of the son is generated by a mother-son conflict, on the level of discourse and structure O’Donnell develops the conflicting double endings into a postmodern reflection on the construction of texts.Keywords: rereading; rewriting; alternative ending; Mary O’Donnell; Mary Lavin.

scholarly journals A CONDIÇÃO FEMININA EM MORNAS ERAM AS NOITES, DE DINA SALÚSTIO

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 133
Author(s):  
Demétrio Alves Paz ◽  
Mithiele Da Silva Scarton
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Story ◽  
African Literature ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
First Person ◽  
Cape Verdean ◽  
Academic Journals ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Broad View

O presente trabalho, relacionado ao estudo desenvolvido pelo projeto de pesquisa intitulado Mulheres fortes: O conto africano de língua portuguesa de autoria feminina (PROBIC/FAPERGS), tem por objetivo analisar a condição feminina presente em nove contos da obra Mornas eram as noites, de autoria da escritora cabo-verdiana Dina Salústio. A partir da leitura de obras críticas de especialistas nas literaturas africanas de língua portuguesa, como Maria Aparecida Santilli (2007), Manuel Ferreira (1987), Pires Laranjeira (1995) e Simone Caputo Gomes (2006; 2013), assim como em artigos publicados em revistas acadêmicas, revisamos a fortuna crítica da autora com o intuito de conhecer seus temas. Nas nove narrativas, observamos que há figuras femininas diferenciadas, representando um amplo apanhado de todas as classes sociais e de diferentes idades. A grande maioria das histórias é narrada em primeira pessoa, o que aproxima o leitor da condição feminina e também funciona como uma espécie de pedido de cumplicidade por parte das narradoras para sentir-se parte desse emaranhado de sentimentos e situações em que elas se encontram.Palavras-chave: Literatura de autoria feminina. Conto. Literatura cabo-verdiana. Dina Salústio. Condição feminina.ABSTRACTThis article, related to the study developed in the research project Strong Women: African short stories written by women writers (PROBIC/FAPERGS), aims to to analyze the women’s condition in 9 (nine) short stories in Warm were the nights, by the Cape Verdean writer Dina Salústio. From the reading of critical works by scholars of African Literature in Portuguese Language such as Maria Aparecida Santilli (2007), Manuel Ferreira (1987), Pires Laranjeira (1995) e Simone Caputo Gomes (2006, 2013), as well as articles in academic journals, we revised the critical works about the author to get a better knowledge of her themes. In the nine narratives, we noted that there are differentiated feminine figures, representing a broad view of all social classes and different ages. The majority of stories were narrated in the first person, which connect the reader to the women’s condition as well as it works as a kind of asking for partnership by the narrators to feel part of this connection of feelings and situations in which the characters are involved. Keywords: Women’s writing. Short story. Cape Verdean Literature. Dina Salústio. Women’s condition.

scholarly journals Repression, Isolation and Paranoia: A Psychoanalytic Feminist Study of ‘The Nightmare’ by Rukhsana Ahmad

2018 ◽  
pp. 47-59
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Short Fiction ◽  
Adult Life ◽  
Psychological Disorders ◽  
Married Women ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
Feminist Study ◽  
Adult Lives

Generally, literature written by Pakistani women writers in English depicts women as victims of patriarchy, social and cultural oppression. Meanwhile, in recent times the short fiction is exploring new paradigms related to the psychological oppression of married women in Pakistan. The following paper selects the short story, ‘The Nightmare’ by Pakistani writer, Rukhsana Ahmad, where a housewife suffers from paranoia because of disconsolate marriage. Therefore, this research aims to study the causes of psychological disorders specifically paranoia among apparently happy housewives. Moreover, the causes and effects of repression and isolation on personality of women would be discussed from the psychoanalytic feminist perspective using the framework of Sigmund Freud (1973- 86) through the character of Fariha. Through the method of character analysis (Dobie, 2011) this paper concludes that the childhood experiences of repression are the reason for victim’s passiveness towards psychological oppression during adult life. This paper would also help in establishing the conclusion that women who suffer abuse in their childhood are more likely to face abuse in their adult lives, which becomes the cause of their psychological instability.

scholarly journals Social Themes in Saudi Women Short Stories: Making the voice of Women Heard

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdulrahman Mokbel Mahyoub Hezam
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Saudi Women ◽  
Arabic Speakers ◽  
The Social

Few studies in English have been carried out to explore the realm of Saudi short stories in general and women writers' works in particular. The aim of this paper is to examine how Saudi women short story writers used a western literary form to depict the realities of their country. It also delineates the magnificent representation of social themes through storytelling and provides non-Arabic speakers with an insight into the writings of Saudi female writers. It tries to present a vivid picture of how these stories reflect the social reality in Saudi Arabia in the last few decades of the 20th century and the challenges facing women in this transitional period. Moreover, the study tries to examine how women writers participated in the contentious debates regarding women that dominated the Saudi society especially on questions like marriage, divorce and women education. The present study is basically a text-based research that involves an analysis of major primary sources chosen. Selected short stories written by Saudi women writers are examined from a thematic perspective to reveal the ways in which women writers incited social change by defining notions of gender and social space and how they give voice to the Saudi women.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Cox
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Body Image ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Selection Of

This chapter offers an overview of Ovidian reception at the turn of the millennium, and identifies a new trend of contemporary women writers turning to Ovid. It analyses the intersections between Ovid’s playful subversiveness and the concerns of third-wave feminists, which extend much further than the second-wave recuperation of women’s lost voices, couched in terms that in fact excluded the vast majority of women. In the hands of contemporary women writers Ovid speaks of a multitude of issues, including contemporary politics, of body image, illness, global warming, and the financial crisis. After the criteria governing the selection of women writers to be discussed have been established, a short story of A. S. Byatt is analysed, illustrating the ways in which she alludes to Ovidian myth while simultaneously portraying a world of illness, grief, and ultimately liberation.

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