The Artist as Outsider in the Novels of Toni Morrison and Virginia Woolf

On first consideration, Nobel prize winning African-American author Toni Morrison would seem to have little in common with Virginia Woolf, the British writer who challenged Victorian concepts of womanhood. But Woolf's achievement and influence have been enduring, so much so that Morrison wrote her masters thesis on Woolf and William Faulkner. In that thesis, Morrison gives special attention to issues of isolation, and she notes that for Woolf, isolation brought a sense of freedom that the attached could never comprehend. This book examines the literary relationship between Woolf and Morrison.

In her own novels, Morrison redefined Woolf's concept of isolation in terms of American racism. While Morrison's female characters are clearly outsiders, they can nevertheless experience a sense of community that Woolf's characters cannot. Woolf's female characters, on the other hand, are often alienated because of their repressed erotic longing for women. Both Morrison and Woolf consider the severe obstacles the female artist must encounter and overcome before she can create art. This volume looks at the similarities that link Morrison and Woolf together despite their racial, ethnic, national, and historical differences, and it examines how differing structures of domination define their art.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction
The Voyage Out
The Bluest Eye
Mrs. Dalloway
Sula
To the Lighthouse
Beloved
Epilogue
Index

Über den Autor / die Autorin

LISA WILLIAMS is Associate Professor of Literature at Ramapo College of New Jersey, where she teaches writing, literature, and women's studies. She has published essays and reviews in Women's Studies Quarterly, Virginia Woolf Miscellany, and Transformations: A Resource for Curriculum Transformation and Scholarship. Her poetry has appeared in For She is the Tree of Life: Grandmothers Through the Eyes of Women Writers.

Produktdetails

• Autoren: Lisa Williams
• Verlag: Bloomsbury
• Sprache: Englisch
• Altersempfehlung: 7 bis 17 Jahre
• Produktform: Fester Einband
• Erschienen: 30.08.2000
• EAN: 9780313311901
• ISBN: 978-0-313-31190-1
• Seiten: 208
• Gewicht: 510 g
• Serie: Contributions in Women's Studies
• Themen: Belletristik > Lyrik, Dramatik; USA, England, Ethnic Studies, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Gender Studies, 20th Century, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, The arts, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, American English, United States of America, USA, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Gender studies, gender groups, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, LITERARY CRITICISM / Novel as Form, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Cultural & Ethnic Studies / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Subjects & Themes / Gender Identity