Schools of sympathy : gender and identification through the novel / Nancy Roberts.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Roberts, Nancy, 1948-

Contributor:

UBC Academic Women's Association.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English fiction--History and criticism.

English fiction.

Feminism and literature--Great Britain--History.

Feminism and literature.

American fiction--History and criticism.

American fiction.

Gender identity in literature.

Sympathy in literature.

Victims in literature.

Women in literature.

Physical Description:

xii, 179 p. ; 24 cm.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

[Vancouver] : University of British Columbia, Academic Women's Association ; Montreal ; Buffalo : McGill-Queen's University Press, c1997.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Roberts argues that Clarissa's, Hester's, Isabel's, and Tess's "heroism" or "greatness" is measured not by her actions but by the extent to which others are moved by her. Therefore, the character cannot be studied without studying the response she generates, which, in these novels, is sympathy. Roberts asserts that each of the novels can be understood as a school of sympathy, through which we learn to behave and feel as gendered subjects, and that our response to the heroine is as carefully crafted as the character herself. Schools of Sympathy addresses issues of masochism, female victimization, the power of passive seduction, and the possibilities of heroism. As a counterpoint to these eighteenth- and nineteenth-century male perspectives, Roberts examines works by Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter that explicitly address these issues.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Schools of Sympathy

Clarissa: Novel as Trial

The Scarlet Letter and "The Spectacle of the Scaffold”

Changing Places: Gender and Identity in The Portrait of a Lady

"A Thousand Pities": The Reader and Tess of the d'Urbervilles

"Back Talk": The Work of Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter

Postscript

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Co-published by the University of British Columbia, Academic Women's Association.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [165]-174) and index.

ISBN:

1-282-85477-1

9786612854774

0-7735-6687-2

OCLC:

929121890