Language and Gender in American Fiction: Howells, James, Wharton and Cather

Nettels, Elsa

Elsa Nettels's analysis of American fiction and criticism of the post-Civil War era unearths the prevailing assumptions about language and gender as revealed in definitions of masculine and feminine, and in comparisons of men's and women's speech and writing. Chapters on William Dean Howells, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, and Utopian fiction show how individual writers both reinforced and subverted gender ideology in their treatment of language and social class and in their construction of dialogue and the discourse of first and third person narrators.

Details

Published by: Palgrave Macmillan

Publication Date: 1997-01-01

Format: Paperback

ISBN-13: 9781349114085

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-11406-1

Dimensions: 216cm x140cm

Pages: 214