From Girl to Woman

Christy Rishoi

Description

From Girl to Woman examines the coming-of-age narratives of a diverse group of American women writers, including Annie Dillard, Zora Neale Hurston, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Mary McCarthy, and explores the crucial role of such narratives in the development of American feminism. Women have long known that identity is complex and contradictory, but in the twentieth century their coming-of-age narratives finally voice this knowledge. Addressing a variety of themes—awakening sexuality, the body's metamorphosis in puberty, consciousness of difference from males, and the socialization into feminine gender roles—these narratives reject the heroine's narrative ending in romance, allowing American women writers to create alternative subjectivities by rejecting the notion that identity is ever fixed. While activists have succeeded in winning legal battles that have changed the legal status of women, these narratives perform the cultural work of exposing the painful contradictions faced by women as they come of age.

Acknowledgments

1. Identity and the Coming-of-Age Narrative

Recreating Womanhood

2. Feminism, Autobiography, and Theories of Subjectivity

Feminism and the Autobiographical Act
Western Theories of Subjectivity
Feminist Poststructuralist Revisions of Subjectivity

3. Coming of Age in America

Historical Accounts of Adolescence
Psychological Accounts of Adolescence
Literary Accounts of Coming of Age
The Coming-of-Age Narrative
American Grand Narratives of Coming of Age

4. Specifying American Girlhood: Annie Dillard and Anne Moody

Specifying the Universal in An American Childhood
Hegemonic Inscription of the Body in Coming of Age in Mississippi

5. "Lying Contests": Fictional Autobiography and Autobiographical Fiction

"Lying Contests": Signifying Coming of Age
Janie's Ways of Knowing

6. "Room for Paradoxes": Creating a Hybrid Identity

A "World of Paper Strengths": The Education of Kate Simon
Mythology and Narrative in the Creation of Identity: The Woman Warrior

Notes
Works Cited
Index

Sujets

• USA
• United States of America
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791486887
• Langue: English

Extrait

FROM GIRL TO WOMAN

SUNY Series in Feminist Criticism and Theory Michelle A. Massé, editor

AND

SUNY Series in Postmodern Culture Joseph Natoli, editor

From Girl to Woman 

American Women’s Coming-of-Age Narratives

BY Christy Rishoi

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2003 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

Production by Christine L. Hamel Marketing by Jennifer Giovani

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Rishoi, Christy, 1958– From girl to woman : American women’s coming-of-age narratives / by Christy Rishoi. p. cm. — (SUNY series in feminist criticism and theory) (SUNY series in postmodern culture) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-7914-5721-4 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-7914-5722-2 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Women’s studies—United States—Biographical methods. 2. Women—Identity. 3. Social role. 4. Maturation (Psychology) 5. Self-realization. 6. Autobiography— Women authors. 7. Feminist criticism. I. Title. II. Series. III. Series: SUNY series in postmodern culture

HQ1186.A9 R57 2003 305.42—dc21

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2002030478

For Helen Rishoi

In memory of Don Rishoi

and

for Larry—

who makes my heart sing

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I never read an autobiography in which the parts devoted to the earlier years were not far the most interesting. —C. S. Lewis

I feel that I have had a blow; but it is not, as I thought as a child, simply a blow from an enemy hidden behind the cotton wool of daily life; it is a token of some real thing behind appearances; and I make it real by putting it into words. It is only by putting it into words that I make it whole; this wholeness means that it has lost its power to hurt me; it gives me, perhaps because by doing so I take away the pain, a great delight to put the severed parts together. —Virginia Woolf

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Contents

Acknowledgments

1  Identity and the Coming-of-Age Narrative Recreating Womanhood

2  Feminism, Autobiography, and Theories of Subjectivity Feminism and the Autobiographical Act Western Theories of Subjectivity Feminist Poststructuralist Revisions of Subjectivity

3  Coming of Age in America Historical Accounts of Adolescence Psychological Accounts of Adolescence Literary Accounts of Coming of Age The Coming-of-Age Narrative American Grand Narratives of Coming of Age

4  Specifying American Girlhood: Annie Dillard and Anne Moody Specifying the Universal inAn American Childhood Hegemonic Inscription of the Body inComing of Age in Mississippi

5  “Lying Contests”: Fictional Autobiography and Autobiographical Fiction “Lying Contests”: Signifying Coming of Age Janie’s Ways of Knowing

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