From the Hearth to the Open Road: A Feminist Study of Aging in Contemporary Literature [Hardcover]

Barbara Frey Waxman (Author)

Price:	CDN$ 117.80 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Usually ships within 1 to 3 weeks.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca. Gift-wrap available.

Product Details

Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Praeger (May 1990)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0313266506
ISBN-13: 978-0313266508
Product Dimensions: 1.4 x 2.2 x 0.2 cm
Shipping Weight: 386 g

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

Review

?Waxman traces the changing image of aging women in popular magazines and fiction. She asserts that a new genre is emerging, which she dubs the Reifungsroman, or 'novel of ripening.' She compares this to the more familiar term Bildungsroman, as each kind of fiction portrays a character's growth, but at a different stage of life. The characteristics of this new genre, according to Waxman, include a confessional tone, a rambling narrative, exploration of sexual passion, a journey/quest motif, the desire to name, and dreams/flashbacks that allow the character to come to terms with her past. The establishment of this new genre and the creation of a bibliography are the most valuable aspects of the book. Waxman's analysis of individual works of fiction is competent but lacklustre, offering few new insights. She includes the following writers: Doris Lessing, Alice Adams, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Pym, Paule Marshall, Margaret Laurence, and May Sarton; she devotes her opening chapter to the depiction of old age in periodical literature of 1890-1920 and of 1950-1980s, establishing a backdrop for her discussion of contemporary fiction. The overall impact of Waxman's book is to point out a rather dramatic move away from ageism in recent fiction by and about women.?-Choice

Book Description

This literary critical book deals exclusively with contemporary fiction by women on the subject of aging. It discusses the emergence of a new fictional genre--the novel of ripening or Reifungsroman. The book contains an extensive bibliography of 20th-century popular periodical articles on aging (Canadian, American, and British), literary critical articles on aging in the fiction of Doris Lessing, Alice Adams, Paule Marshall, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Pym, May Sarton, and Margaret Laurence, as well a general literary critical works on these authors, and some general (nonliterary) studies of aging, such as Simone de Beavoir's The Coming Age.

See all Product Description

Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
That Simone de Beauvoir, hailed by feminist theorist Toril Moi as "the greatest feminist theorist of our time" for her groundbreaking book on women's position in society, The Second Sex (92), also penned a pioneering philosophic, scientific, anthropological, and socially reformist work on aging and the elderly is an appropriate observation with which to begin this book. Read the first page

Explore More
Concordance