English 133	Kathie Linehan
Fictions of Female Development	Rice 10, ext. 8578/email: flinehan
Fall 1998	M 3:30-4:30, Th 4:30-5:30

Goal: This course aims to build skills in composition and literary analysis while studying interactions of gender, genre, and culture in a variety of female coming- of-age stories.

Texts available at Co-op Bookstore:

Harriet the Spy, Louise Fitzhugh (Harper; orig. pub. 1964)

The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston (Random Hse; orig. pub. 1975)

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (Penguin, ed. Showalter; orig. pub. 1868-69)

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (Penguin; orig. pub. 1813)

The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Orchis; orig. pub. 1891)

Sula, Toni Morrison (Signet/Dutton; orig. pub. 1975).

Requirements: 1) Involved attendance (repeated absences will lower your grade); 2) three graded papers (4-5 pp. each) due on dates shown below (late papers down- graded one-half grade per day); 3) four to six exercise papers (1-2 pp.) on Cr (+/-) NE basis, due in class on dates TBA. No midterm or final exam.

Schedule

W 9/2

Introduction; finish early to allow attendance at Maxine Hong Kingston's open session with students at 3 p.m. in Wilder 115.

NB also 8 p.m. on evening of Weds. Sep. 2 (assigned):

Maxine Hong Kingston's public address in Finney Chapel

Unit One: Cultural Shapings of Gender Identity in Childhood

F 9/4

Read xeroxes (distributed 9/2) of two fairy tales, "Snow White" and "Beauty and the Beast." Read also Anne Sexton's poem ""Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Questions to consider for discussion: What are the grounds for appeal to children in the fairy tales? Are feminists right to be exercised about the possible gender messages sent by stories like "Snow White" and "Beauty and the Beast"?

 

Also, bring with you to this class a 1-2 page exercise paper (Cr/NE) responding to the following question: what childhood reading do you look back on as having especially strongly influenced your sense of personal identity or value, and why was it important for you?

W 9/9

Harriet the Spy, ch. 1-12. Keep an eye out for issues of sex role expectations, work, adult role models--and these things in relation to the age of the kids (Harriet is eleven) and when the book was written (publication date is 1964).

F 9/11

Finish Harriet (ch. 13-16). How and where do you feel an authorial presence shaping your take on this story? How do you account for the novel's three-part division, its plot shape, its closing emphases?

M 9/14-W 9/23

Woman Warrior (in five sections; one per class)

F 9/25

Workshop on draft of 4-5 page scene analysis paper due in class (bring two copies). You can pick any scene you want in either Harriet the Spy or The Woman Warrior as a subject for this paper. You may be directed by an interest in feminist or aesthetic or psychological or sociohistorical or other concerns. In any case, develop a thesis about why this scene is important in the book (e.g. key point of revelation or change for reader or character; touchstone of mood or emotion; pulls together threads of imagery or symbolism that help consolidate meaning, etc.) and how it achieves its effects. Give the paper a title that clues your reader in to your central focus or claim.

M 9/28

Bring revised papers to class to turn in (we'll discuss findings).

Unit Two: The Taming of Tomboys in Marriage

F 10/2

Excerpts from Ruskin, Taylor, and Charlotte Bronte (distributed in advance) to be read as background for presentation from me on Victorian ideals of womanhood. Read also the Introduction and first two chapters of Little Women.

M 10/5-W 10/14

Little Women (covering remaining chapters, 3-47, in increments of five chapters per class). One or two 1-2 page exercise papers to be assigned en route.

F 10/16

No class; trade-off for assigned attendance at Kingston events 9/2.

M 10/26

Background for Pride and Prejudice. Read ch. l of the novel.

W 10/28-M 11/9

Pride and Prejudice (cover remaining chapters in six increments: Bk I, 2-12, Bk. I, 13-23, Bk II, 1-9, Bk II 10-19, Bk III, 1-9, Bk III 10-19). One or two 1-2 page exercise papers to be assigned en route.

W 11/11

Workshop on draft of 4-5 page paper due in class (bring two copies). Probable topic: argue for or against the "victims of convention" claim (to be explained) as it applies to some stage in the developmental progress of a female protagonist in either Little Women or Pride and Prejudice.

F 11/13

Bring revised papers to class to turn in (and again we'll use the class to review and discuss what you're coming up with)

Unit Three: The Rocky Road of Female Adulthood

M 11/16-W 11/18

The Yellow Wallpaper (likely brief exercise paper to be assigned; we'll also work in some consideration of feminist criticism)

F 11-20

Three poems by Margaret Atwood, to be distributed in advance

M 11/23-F 12/4

Sula (five classes, with skip for the Friday after Thanksgiving)

M 12/7-W 12/9

Conferences on drafts of 4-5 pp. Sula papers (suggestions for topics to be circulated in advance).

F 12/11

Course evaluations; turn in final version of 4-5 pp Sula papers.