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

by Elsa Nettels

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781349114085
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	01/01/1997
Edition description:	1st ed. 1997
Pages:	214
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements - List of Abbreviations - Introduction - Language and Gender in Victorian America - The Voices of Men and Women in Howells's Fiction and Drama - Masculine and Feminine in James's Criticism and Fiction - Language and Convention in Wharton's Hieroglyphic World - Singers, Writers, and Storytellers in Cather's America - Illusions of Change in Utopian Fiction - Conclusion - Notes - Index