Virginia Woolf and Doris Lessing: A Study of the Emergence of the Feminine Perspective in Literature
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Authors
McCartney, Randa
Issue Date
1975
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
Literature is the result of the synthesis of experience
and insight. An author may have tremendous insight enabling
him to perceive in specificity a universality that speaks to
all of mankind. But it is the specific experience that acts
as the proverbial food for thought. Consequently, literature
is frequently subject to the same social and cultural prejudices
that shape the experience of authors.
One of the most historically prevalent of these prejudices
is the presumption about the effect of gender upon the
needs and capacities of the individual. A male author's experience
and therefore, his literature, is colored by these
presumptions about his masculinity. Attempts to broaden his
perspective to include the feminine experience can only result
in the masculine perception of femininity. The beginnings
of the opportunity for women to enjoy artistic freedom
equivalent to that of men, makes possible the addition of the
feminine perspective to the literary tradition. This addition
increases the potential of literature to be truly enlightening
of the totality of human experience.
The enrichment of this tradition is one of content more
than style. The styles of female authors vary as widely as
those of male authors. But female characters created by female
authors have a depth and a reality that can only come
from an intimate understanding of the feminine experience.
Virginia Woolf and Doris Lessing are representative of this
emerging feminine literature. Their styles are widely diverse.
Woolf, through stream of consciousness, emphasizes the process
of thought in her characters. In contrast, Lessing uses a
third person narrator to convey a full range of physical and
social, as well as intellectual, experience in her development
of characters. But despite these and other stylistic
differences, Woolf and Lessing merge at the point of expressing
the range of feminine responses to the societal definition
of woman.
The same anger, frustration, weakness and strength emerge
through their various female characters. And through these
women, Woolf and Lessing speak to men and women alike of the
pain and limitation that result from society's definition of
sexual roles. The beginning of an androgynous literary tradition
is an important step in the process of increasing human
understanding and decreasing limitation in both art and life.
Description
iii, 57 p.
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