Women, compulsion, modernity : the moment of American naturalism / Jennifer L. Fleissner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fleissner, Jennifer (Jennifer L.), author.

Series:

Women in culture and society.

Women in Culture and Society

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

American fiction.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (353 pages).

Place of Publication:

Chicago, Illinois ; London : The University of Chicago Press, [2004]

Summary:

The 1890s have long been thought one of the most male-oriented eras in American history. But in reading such writers as Frank Norris with Mary Wilkins Freeman and Charlotte Perkins Gilman with Stephen Crane, Jennifer L. Fleissner boldly argues that feminist claims in fact shaped the period's cultural mainstream. Women, Compulsion, Modernity reopens a moment when the young American woman embodied both the promise and threat of a modernizing world. Fleissner shows that this era's expanding opportunities for women were inseparable from the same modern developments—industrialization, consumerism—typically believed to constrain human freedom. With Women, Compulsion, and Modernity, Fleissner creates a new language for the strange way the writings of the time both broaden and question individual agency.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction. The “Feminization” of American Naturalism

1. The compulsion to describe Naturalist Subjects, Naturalist History

2. The great indoors Regionalism, Feminism, and Obsessional Domesticity

3. A mania for the moment Fadmongering and Feminism in Henry James

4. The new woman and the old man Sentimentality and “Drift” in Dreiser and Wharton

5. Saving herself Gender, Preservation, and Futurity in McTeague

6. The rhythm method Unmothering the Race in Chopin, Stein, and Grimké

Conclusion

Notes

Works cited

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780226805764

022680576X

OCLC:

1243311150