Fictions of Authority: Women Writers and Narrative Voice

By Susan Sniader Lanser

Book Overview

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 Bront , 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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801480205
• ISBN13: 9780801480201
• Release Date: June 1992
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher