Overview
This is an important contribution to scholarship on late nineteenth-century American women writers. Hausmann describes how female characters in literary environments operate literally and symbolically to reveal conceptual complexities that challenge traditional notions about women and how their attitudes toward cultural and social influences shape women's lives. This work examines the use of spatial imagery by three nineteenth-century New England regionalist authors, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Rose Terry Cooke. In each of the works examined, spatial imagery is used to explore how women negotiate feminist issues. Looking at texts through the lens of spatial imagery is constructive given the centrality of spatial imagery in feminist literature and the way space is often gendered. As a particular image, parabolic space allows for complexity and resists dichotomous oversimplification. This way of reading is particularly suited to New England regionalism, with its emphasis on small settings and larger issues.
Full Product Details
Author: Jessica L. Hausmann
Publisher: The Edwin Mellen Press Ltd
Imprint: Edwin Mellen Press Ltd
ISBN: 9780773435179
ISBN 10: 0773435174
Pages: 184
Publication Date: August 2014
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
"""This book analyzes the relationship between New England women writers and the parabolic uses of space. Women often use space differently than male writers...this book offers a more complex way to look into the uses of space for New England women writers."" (Dr. Mary C. Chinery, Assistant Provost/Professor of English Georgian Court University) ""Professor Hausmann's work introduces a revisionist reading of the way the referenced writers redefine female protagonists' spatial relationships. Using the symbolic language of space and space imagery, Freeman, Jewett, and Cooke show how the space women occupy - home, open, imagined and even the space women's bodies take up - can, in fact, empower rather than subjugate them."" (Dr. Geraldine Smith-Wright, Drew University)"
This book analyzes the relationship between New England women writers and the parabolic uses of space. Women often use space differently than male writers...this book offers a more complex way to look into the uses of space for New England women writers. (Dr. Mary C. Chinery, Assistant Provost/Professor of English Georgian Court University) Professor Hausmann's work introduces a revisionist reading of the way the referenced writers redefine female protagonists' spatial relationships. Using the symbolic language of space and space imagery, Freeman, Jewett, and Cooke show how the space women occupy - home, open, imagined and even the space women's bodies take up - can, in fact, empower rather than subjugate them. (Dr. Geraldine Smith-Wright, Drew University)
Author Information
Dr. Jessica L. Hausmann received her Ph.D. in English Literature with emphasis on American and Women's Literature from Drew University. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Georgian Court University in Lakewood, NJ.
