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Literary Criticism Feminist

Schools of Sympathy

Gender and Identification Through the Novel

by (author) Nancy Roberts

Publisher
McGill-Queen's University Press
Initial publish date
Sep 1997
Category
Feminist
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780773516687
    Publish Date
    Sep 1997
    List Price
    $125.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780773516854
    Publish Date
    Sep 1997
    List Price
    $37.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780773566873
    Publish Date
    Sep 1997
    List Price
    $95.00

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Description

Roberts argues that Clarissa's, Hester's, Isabel's, and Tess's "heroism" or "greatness" is measured not by her actions but by the extent to which others are moved by her. Therefore, the character cannot be studied without studying the response she generates, which, in these novels, is sympathy. Roberts asserts that each of the novels can be understood as a school of sympathy, through which we learn to behave and feel as gendered subjects, and that our response to the heroine is as carefully crafted as the character herself.

Schools of Sympathy addresses issues of masochism, female victimization, the power of passive seduction, and the possibilities of heroism. As a counterpoint to these eighteenth- and nineteenth-century male perspectives, Roberts examines works by Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter that explicitly address these issues.

About the author

Editorial Reviews

"Schools of Sympathy is an excellent work. Roberts convincingly argues that a comparison of constructions of female subjectivity in male- and female-authored novels provides for a critique of historical perceptions of female agency and of conditioned aesthetic responses to feminine representation. The author's graceful prose and discerning perceptions engage her readers, and her work provides a provocative and informative analysis of the texts under study." Priscilla Walton, Department of English, Carleton University