The Home Plot: Women, Writing and Domestic Ritual

by ann-romines

In this study, the author builds on 20 years of feminist scholarship to show how domestic ritual - the practice and traditions of housekeeping - has helped to shape the substances and tone of some of the best fiction by American women. Examining works by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Willa Cather and Eudora Welty, this book argues that one cannot fully appreciate this writing unless one understands the domestic codes in which it is inscribed.

319 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1992

Reviews

[Rogue Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Women who broke with the tradition of silence and invisibility to write and be heard: Eudora Welty, Willa Cather, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sarah Orne Jewett. Important women's studies, domestic science work. Some treatment of cooking and occasionally of quilting, and more commonly housework as ritual that maintained order and gave women a sense of control. Really good.