I am a student from Taiwan. When I read the article- "Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness" from Showalter,Elaine,I really like it and want to read more about her's book. But in Taiwan,I could n't got more news about this. I was so excite to find this 'amazon' shop and hope can get more news about Feminist criticisms. Finally, thank you very much that provided for me.

As a grad student in Folklore and Folklife, I discovered this book during a research project on community cookbooks, of all things, and found its interpretations of literature relating to quilts applicable to my concentration in needlework. Without a background in literature, I was eager to read some of the pieces discussed in the various chapters, particularly "A Jury of her Peers." The book is written in a style that is appropriate for a general audience, and would be a wonderful addition to the library of anyone interested in American literature, women's studies, or material culture. I was so constantly fighting over the book by recalling it from other students through the University's library that I've decided to invest in my own copy and stop hogging the library's copy. It will definitely be used plenty in my academic program.

Professor Showalter's book about the teaching of literature is the most honest, realistic, directly applicable work in the field. Avoiding the jargantuan language of the educational establishment, she has put together a most readable work that should aid the beginning instructor as well as the most experienced. Her mind is open to a wide range of pegagogical techniques, recognizing the need for flexible and pragmatic solutions to a highly complex activity. While it is aimed at teachers of literature much of it applies to all areas and levels of teaching. Her background of experience and the range of her interests make the advice she gives credible. I only wish I had been able to read such a work when I began teaching over fifty years ago.

Hanson and Messick have done a fine job of translating these two linked novels about a woman artist at the turn of the century and the destructiveness of the mental health care system that is supposedly there to help her. The basic premise is simple: put a stressed-out but fundamentally sane person in an oppressive and prison-like asylum and it will drive her to the brink of madness and possibly beyond. Skram is the Scandinavian master of Naturalism, and her descriptions of the mentally disturbed are chilling, the doctors downright terrifying!

The heartwarming book, Little Women, has won its readers love and support. The generalized assessment shows fondness to the realistic viewpoint of the lives of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy and descriptive details that transport the reader into the beloved fairy tale. The plot of the story centers upon the girls' lives as they grow up during the Civil War. Each of the girls is extremely distinct in their character, taste, and dreams for their future. The positive role model and personal advisor to all of the girls is Mrs. March. I feel that she advised all of her daughter in making good decisions, except for when she agreed with Jo that Laurie was not a suitable match. The change the girls undergo as they get older is completely intriguing as each has special qualities and drawbacks to their character. The realistic aspects of the tale is one of my favorite characteristics of Louisa May Alcott's writing style. The detailed descriptions sent picturesque scenes through my mind. The variety of emotions throughout the duration of the book takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster ride.

The first time I read Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, I fell in love with the story. Little Women is the story of four girls that were coming of age during the civil war. Each of the girls, all sisters, has different personality traits and characteristics that are developed throughout the book. Meg, the oldest, is the sensible sister, while Jo is hot-headed and independent. Beth is musical and Amy, the youngest, is the more material of the four. The girls grew up in a very close family and strived to support each other in their dreams. But Jo, the second-born, has a difficult time seeing all of them growing up and leaving home. She wants things to remain the same, always. Change is inevitable, however, and throughout the book, the girls' love for each other is strong, as they face different challenges and joys of growing up. They keep their strong sense of family... I thoroughly enjoyed reading Little Women. It has been awhile since I was able to sit down and read a book I so love. Louisa May Alcott's character, Meg, did not hold much interest for me... Amy, the baby of the family, was too materialistic for my taste. The character I related to the most was Jo. I do not know if it is because I am like her, or if it was her spunk that I really liked. I loved to see the blossoming love Laurie had for Jo... I think that Louisa May Alcott did a wonderful job in writing Little Women. I could relate to the book and with how the four sisters were at home with their mother and their father was off doing military things. I grew up with a father in the Navy and he was gone a lot. My mom, brother and I had to take care of things while he was gone. Life goes on even if the whole family is not together.
I fell in love with the Little Women at a young age and I hope to read this book to my children as they get older... This is a great book for teaching these things to children.

Little Women focuses on the four March girls; Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, as they grow up from childhood to adulthood. The characters in the book try to teach each other helpful lessons about life, virtue, and morality. The novel is a real eye opener for everyone. Each of the mistakes the girls in the novel make are intended to provide some guidance for the reader. Society is explained, the harsh winters are described, and the profound work ethic of the people is described to also give the reader a strong sense of what life was like during the nineteenth century. I can strongly relate to all the character's feelings which are strongly depicted in Alcott's writing. I firmly believe all teenage girls should read the novel to hopefully be as strongly influenced as I was. The girls are constantly troubled by the necessity of being good, even when they feel the desire to be bad. There are also many issues on relationships between girls and boys. Friendship turns into love and vice versa, making a strong theme out of gender relations. The girls also struggle with the ideas of motherhood, sisterhood, pride, education, and marriage. After reading this novel, the reader will hopefully look more at their own life and his/her morales. Through the novel there is clear representation of the benefits of what good does.

"The Bad Seed" is packed with symbols. Rhoda is a murderous child who will stop at nothing to get what she desires.

Her braids were looped back like "hangman nooses." Hangman nooses are the ropes over which a hanged person dies. The hangma itself is the pillory upon which people were hanged.

"Penmark" is a nod to the mark of the pen; the "penmanship improvement medal" is yet another nod to the author's fascination with handwriting. Various references are made to character and penmanship. Rhoda is described as having very neat, precise handwriting.

The vegetation, e.g. the types of trees, plants and flowers mentioned cause one to believe that the Baltimore Penmarks have been relocated to a southern locale.

The movie adaptation of this story (the passable 1956 original and the dreadful 1985 remake) portray Leroy as Caucasian. Yet, in the book, upon reading his dialect and his grumblings about his "sharecropper boyhood," makes one wonder if Leroy is black. The names "Leroy" and "Thelma," his wife have traditionally, but not exclusively been used by black families; their speech patterns also create the impression that possibly they are black. 1950s prejudice often prevailed, so black characters more often than not were peripheral characters at best, stereotypes or villians at worst. Leroy fell into the latter category.

Lastly, Leroy's neighborhood on "General Jackson Street." It is described as a decaying, crumbling neighborhood where "nobody had nothing nice," and Leroy himself didn't have a car, not even something you "couldn't give to the junkman." General Jackson Street sounds like it could be a dividing line among the races in this genteel southern town; it could just simply be a less than satisfactory neighborhood where these characters reside. Leroy has to walk two miles to work at the apartment building where Rhoda lives. "Rich people's children," his wife Thelma calls them. She tells Leroy not to "mess with" these children; she tells him he'll be dragged down to the station house where the police will "kick his teeth in." Although Leroy is never racially identified in the book, the overall description of his character does raise the question of whether or not he was black.

Females, minorities, psychiatry, homosexuality, pedophilia = all of these are powerful themes that are woven into the fabric of this story. Leroy is a pedophile (the author, on the other hand was a pedophobe), Mrs. Breedlove and the Fern Sisters are described in hostile terms; Bessie Denker, Rhoda's maternal grandmother as well as Rhoda herself are the darkest characters in this line up. Hortense Daigle, the mother of Rhoda's slain classmate is portrayed in an unflattering light. Her behavior is quite understandable given the fact that her only child was killed, but I didn't like the way the author described her. She was one of the few sympathetic characters.

Mrs. Breedlove's brother is described as being gay; the Fern Sisters as repressed Victorian women who repressed their sexuality by remaining single and running that school. Freudian themes emerge here -- the sisters repressed sexuality, Emory's repressed homosexuality, Leroy's obsession with Rhoda and Mrs. Breedlove's antics. A bawdy, outspoken woman, Mrs. Breedlove is actually quite funny.

This book is quite a read!

It's a shame this book has become all but unknown behind the enormously successful movie with its God-awful copout ending (although Patty McCormick's deliciously chilling perfomance of its anti-heroine is a gem in itself), because the book is infinitely better than the movie (I can't speak for the Broadway production because I never saw it). In fact, most people who saw or heard of 'The Bad Seed' as a play or a movie never knew it was derived from William March's terrific book. March tells the story of Rhoda Penmark, eight years old, a devil lurking inside an angel's facade. To her adult neighbors, she's every parent's dream: obedient, unassuming, compliant, always neat and well-groomed, quiet, polite to her elders. She does her homework without being prodded and she gets all the answers correct on her Sunday school quiz. Those who know her more intimately suspect there's something ugly underneath all the surface charm; her peers can't stand her, her teachers see a disturbing lack of feeling or sensitivity in her, and her parents, who dote on her, wonder if she is capable of love, affection, remorse, or any of the characteristics that make us human. For Rhoda goes after what she wants with a single-minded purposefulness and anybody who gets in her way better watch out. Rhoda's father is absent throughout all but the last few pages of the book (he's away on a business trip that is important to his career advancement), so Christine, her mother, is left to deal with Rhoda on her own. Christine is a fasinating character, one of the most tragic in contemporary fiction, a decent, compliant, earnest woman, whose identity is totally bound up in being a good wife and a devoted mother; what she learns about her own history shatters her world, especially when she realizes that her daughter is the 'bad seed' she unwittingly transmitted from her own diabolical mother. And as Christine cannot accept that she is blameless in this transmission, that she did not cause her daughter's criminal behavior any more than she caused her own mother's, so she feels she must not drag anyone else, even her husband, into her private hell; she created it, so she must deal with it alone, and it undoes her. How else could Christine have acted, is left to the reader to speculate. I'm not going to tell how the book ended, except to say that it's a much more satisfying (because more realistic) ending than in the movie. But it's a spooky little gem of a horror story that deserves a much wider readership. It's well written, well plotted, and a great read. I loved it!

The term "bad seed" has become a much used phrase to describe a person who is thoroughly evil from birth. William March wrote "The Bad Seed" in the 1950's and it was later adapted for the stage and screen. After reading this compelling story, I can well understand its popularity.

Rhoda Penmark is an eight-year-old girl who is so self-contained, aloof and uncaring that her peers shun her. Rhoda's gentle parents, Kenneth and Christine, know that Rhoda is not exactly like other little girls. When she plays, she never gets dirty. She has trouble expressing genuine affection. On two occasions, a mysterious death has occurred (one involving an elderly lady and the other a pet dog), and Rhoda was the only witness. It turns out that Rhoda had a motive for wanting both the old lady and the dog dead. Is it possible that this innocent looking girl could be a murderess?

Things come to a head when the Penmark family moves to Alabama to start fresh. Kenneth is away on business while Christine tries to cope alone. Rhoda is a student at the Fern grammar school. She covets a gold medal that is given for penmanship at school, but the prize goes to a mamma's boy named Claude Daigle. Rhoda is incredulous and she refuses to accept her defeat. She hounds the boy to give her the medal that she feels is rightfully hers, until at an outing one day, Claude mysteriously drowns. You guessed it. Rhoda is the last person to have seen the boy alive.

The book focuses not so much on Rhoda as it does on her mother, Christine. March lets us observe through Christine's eyes her growing horror, as she realizes that her daughter may very well be a monster. When Christine finds the penmanship medal hidden among Rhoda's things, she is sure that Rhoda must have killed Claude Daigle to get the medal for herself.

March masterfully builds Christine's psychological horror as the book progresses. She learns that there is a secret in her own past that may explain her daughter's warped personality and she cannot bear the burden of guilt which this secret imposes on her.

In the skilled way of good suspense writers, March does not just pile on the horror. "The Bad Seed" has a great deal of humor, much of it centered on the character of Monica Breedlove. She is an insufferable and interfering busybody who talks incessantly and who thinks that she is an expert on psychological analysis. Another memorable character is Leroy, a caretaker who himself is evil and who is obsessed with Rhoda. Leroy recognizes too late that he is no match for the little girl, and that teasing Rhoda can be dangerous to his health.

A few passages in the book are heavy-handed. The author talks through the words of some passersby about the age of violence and anxiety in which we live and March seems to be conveying some message about the potential evil that lurks in all of us. These passages were not necessary, since the story of Rhoda is so filled with horror and dark irony, that it needs no tacked on message. "The Bad Seed" is a classic novel of psychological suspense and horror.

Reading "Trilby" is like listening to a lively, friendly raconteur taking you into his confidence. All the characters are interesting and lovable despite their faults. Ultimately, du Maurier even has a soft spot for Svengali. Sentimental, yes...but effervescent and with a broad tolerance for life and human weaknesses. It's a fun, memorable read and easy to see why it was a huge hit of the 1890's.

The book which put "Svengali" into the English language. I had heard of this book long ago, of course, though i can't remember whether it was first from learning about Svengali or finding out that du Maurier was Daphne du Maurier's father. But i had never read it. In a way i'm glad i didn't, becuase that has given me the opportunity to read it now, for the first time. It has taken me a little longer than i might have expected, but was well worth the time. The story of the tragic Trilby, who cannot sing a note to save her life, and how she is moulded into the singer who takes Europe by storm, by the evil (?)(i'm not sure) musician Svengali, who uses mesmerism of some kind to play her as an instrument. The story is told from the persepective of three Englishmen who lived in Paris during the time Trilby was an artists' model, before she fell under Svengali's spell. The three, Taffy, the Laird, and Little Billee, who was her fiancé at one point, briefly, are artists, of a sort; they love Trilby for herself, and are devastated when she is removed from them by events. Naturally, they are shocked by her reappearance in the world of Culture. But they are delighted at the possibility of renewing her acquaintance.

I could wish that du Maurier had not been so cute with his French as "spoken" by the English. I could wish that there is less French altogether, as it does slow down the reading ~ perhaps one reason "Trilby" isn't read any more (is it?). It does generate an atmosphere, though, and you begin to know what Western Europe was like in the middle years of two centuries ago. This edition, Dover, has over a hundred illustrations by du Maurier, who had made his name as a cartoonist for Punch. They are lovely, and add immeasurably to the book.

I have to disagree with the reviewer who commented that this novel is at best a curiosity and that it deserved to fade into obscurity. I read this in a course on 19th century novels and fell in love with du Maurier's writings and his drawings. He uses such wonderful devices to flavor the text and in many ways this satirical view of the aesthetic movement informs the period as much as Oscar Wilde's work does. That the work has some anti-Semitic sentiment it is no more worrisome than anything in Shakespeare (meaning that you must take the work as a work in a period of time). The character types are common enough and the message of the story is timeless--I'll leave the discernment of the message to the reader. Reading this was like uncovering your grandad's favorite toy in the attic and realizing it was still fun to play with today.

This is a sweeping look at feminist women, concentrating not so much on their theories but their lives, with the center of gravity squarely on Showalter and her generation of academic feminists. Women included: Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Simone de Beauvoir, Mary McCarthy, Germaine Greer, Susan Sontag and Camille Paglia. The focus is on the social background of these women and how they rebelled to create themselves, often through great hardship and isolation. Many other women are included, though the photos on the cover may lead the innocent reader astray - not much is said about Zora Neale Hurston, and Plath must have made the cover as a recognizable face, only. And where is Virginia Woolf? Vera Brittain and Rebecca West are included in her stead, but she is missing. Some may dispute the inclusion of Diana and Oprah, but overall it is a solid, vividly told and yes, funny book.

"In The Odd Women there is not a single major character whose life is not ruined either by having too little money, or by getting it too late in life, or by the pressure of social conventions which are obviously absurd but which cannot be questioned." --George Orwell

George Gissing was a very odd man himself. Despite the fact that all his novels deal with social issues of the day, notably women, money, and class relations, he was neither a socialist nor a social reformer. He simply described in novels what he knew of degredation, misery, and the tortures "respectable" English society inflicted upon its outcasts and marginal figures. In The Odd Women Gissing chose to focus on the predicament of the extra females of Britain's disproporionate population ratio. These were the "odd" women who would never be matched with a man. Gissing's Madden sisters endured a representative sampling of the a dreary employment opportunities available for genteel but impoverished women in the 1890s. Of the two eldest Madden sisters, Alice was a governess until her health broke down; Virginia was lady's companion (poorly-paid drudge to an elderly tyrant) who has suffered from "mental lassitude" and taken to secret drinking. Another sister, a luckless "hard-featured" girl, is dead before the story begins; she taught in a girl's school until she committed suicide in despair. Monica, the youngest and only good-looking sister, spends twelve to sixteen hours a day on her feet in a large dry-goods shop and lives in an unsanitary dormitory with other shopgirls, some of whom supplement their wages by prostitution. Her sisters fear that Monica's health will also break down under this regime, and that she will lose her looks and her chance of marriage.

Enter Miss Rhoda Nunn and Miss Elinor Barfoot, two enterprising women who have founded a school to teach "odd" women business skills to enable them to compete economically, or at least rise above the general level of ill-paid drudgery. Barfoot and Nunn are early feminists; they wish to live and teach other women to live without feeling diminished by their unmarried status. Monica Madden considers enrolling in their school, but she has managed to meet and attract a man, a middle-aged bachelor named Widdowson, whom she marries instead. The substance of the novel involves the wreck of Monica's life following her disastrous marriage, and Rhoda Nunn's struggle to deal with her relationship with a man she is attracted to, but whom she cannot marry or live with without suffering diminishment and the loss of her role as a teacher and leader.

Gissing's book is a serious and sympathetic treatment of the much-discussed "woman question," and written from a point of view somewhat in advance of his time. The Odd Women has been mostly out of print for the last hundred years, and it is to be hoped that the recent appearance of three new editions heralds a long-delayed recognition of its merits.

I'm actually reading the story "Where are you going, where have you been?" in my English 11 class. I'm looking for some help on interpreting it... I really don't understand it at all! I'm wondering if it is a dream sequence, or if it really "happened"... It reminds me of "The Yellow Wallpaper". I have no idea why... But it does. Anyone up to helping me get his story? My e-mail is ...

There is something very unnerving to me about these stories, something that makes me feel exposed and unsettled. Many of the stories deal with awkwardness and youthful vulnerability, and the mood is contagious.

Regarding the famous title story "Where Are You Going", my husband suggested that it is a dream sequence about a young girl's decision to lose her virginity, rather than an actual occurrence. This makes it a little less tense ~ but only a little.

Every story is very well-written and captivating, though not exactly pleasant. These subjects are hard to look in the eye.

I first read "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" in a english course I took and it had such a profound effect on me I was prompted to pick up a copy of this book. To say the least her stories are profoundly moving, thought provoking and insightful. If you don't know much of her work, I would recomend this collection as a starter.