Fictions of Authority: Women Writers and Narrative Voice

by Susan Sniader Lanser

Drawing on narratological and feminist theory, Susan Sniader Lanser explores patterns of narration in a wide range of novels by women of England, France, and the United States from the 1740s to the present. She sheds light on the history of "voice" as a narrative strategy and as a means of attaining social power. She considers the dynamics in personal voice in authors such as Mary Shelley, Charlotte Brontë, Zora Neale Hurston, and Jamaica Kincaid. In writers who attempt a "communal voice"―including Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Gaskell, Joan Chase, and Monique Wittig―she finds innovative strategies that challenge the conventions of Western narrative.

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Hilary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I buy what she's saying. But this wasn't especially useful to me right now, and is pretty dense, so... I read carefully the intro and then skimmed most of the chapters until the conclusion.

Her basic argument is this: 1. Voice, in literature, is crucial. 2. Narrative structures and women's writing in particular are determined by complex power structures. 3. The authority of a given text is produced by social and rhetorical properties. 4. Three narrative modes in particular, as well as the distinction between things like private and public voice have/continue to regulate women's discursive authority.

This was totally academic and not conversational/entertaining enough to be "enjoyable" like other books on my list have been thus far. Sigh. Oh well. There's always tomorrow.

[Yuki · Rating 5 out of 5]

feminism