ACL 1001: Reading Contemporary Fiction

1. ACL 1001: Reading Contemporary Fiction Lecture 8: Feminism and the Novel

2. What is feminism? • What doe it mean to be a feminist? • What is the purpose of feminist literary criticism? • How can it affect the way we read? (Morris, 1993, 1)

3. Definition of Feminism • It is a political perception based on two fundamental premises: (1) that gender difference is the foundation of a structural inequality between men and women, by which women suffer systematic social injustice, and (2) that the inequality between the sexes is not the result of biological necessity but is produced by the cultural construction of gender difference (Morris, 1993, p. 1).

4. Female, Feminine, Feminist • ‘female’ - designating biological sex • ‘feminine’ - referring to cultural conceptions of gender • ‘feminist’ - political perceptions and aims (Morris, 1993, 2)

5. Literature • What does the study of literature have to do with these political and ethical debates? • How can an understanding of literature promote understanding of the nature and causes of women’s inequality in the nonfictional world and help to change it? (Morris, 1993, p. 6)

6. According to Ellen Rooney (2006), feminist literary theory and feminist novels are concerned with challenging patriarchy; disputing the stereotypes of women (and men); ‘rewriting’ femininity; and questioning the construction of the literary canon in terms of its exclusion of novels by female writers and the way in which women are represented in the novels that are included. • As Simone de Beauvoir stated: ‘One is not born, but rather becomes a woman’

7. Feminists and the Literary Canon • Feminists ‘are concerned to discover how literature as a cultural practice may be involved in producing the meanings and values that lock women into inequality, rather than simply reflecting the already existing reality of women’s lives in literary texts’ (Morris, 1993, 8)

8. Feminism and the Novel • The novel is ‘the extended exploration of individual characters’ consciousness through the imagination, that is of distinctive value in extending feminist understanding’ • ‘At every stage of its development, feminism needs understanding of women’s changing consciousness; the novel is an essential means of alerting us, sensitising us and enhancing our use of the imagination to this end’ (Thornton, 2006, p. 39)

9. Importance of the Novel to Feminism • The novel is important to feminism as it ‘giv[es] imaginative entry into the inside or conscious life of women (particular characters) in the circumstances of their time and place’ (2006, 40) • Reading Cat’s Eye is dependent on an understanding of time and place i.e 1940’s/1980’s Canada; the history of colonialism etc

10. Cat’s Eye • The novel is narrated by its protagonist, Elaine Risley. • It operatesvia flashbacks from the present to the past and vice versa; from Elaine’s present as a middle-aged artist to her childhood, adolescence and young adulthood. • It centres around a retrospective of Elaine’s art which explores the intersections between art and life, and enables her to deal with the trauma of her childhood and also the social expectations of women in the 1940s.

11. Cat’s Eye – a feminist novel? • Cat’s Eye fits with the concerns of feminist projects both fictional and non-fictional. However, it does not offer a simplistic or stereotyped approach to feminist thinking; its protagonist is complex in the way she engages with and rejects aspects of feminism. • The novel questions and challenges the gender binary male/female; masculine/feminine. • It does this through an examination of the process of gender socialisation.

12. Socialisation • Socialisation is the process through which we are taught to behave in ways society considers acceptable. Socialisation is based on the understanding that there are two distinct genders with social roles attached to them e.g men – breadwinners; women – mothers/housewives • In Cat’s Eye, the family, the education system and the church, three main agents of socialisation, are criticized for creating gender divisions within society and for ‘normalising’ the sex-role stereotypes to which men and women in 1940’s Canada were expected to adhere.

13. The Family • The novel explores the social roles for men and women pre and post World War 2. • By focusing on the families of Elaine and her female ‘friends’, the novel presents a picture of the patriarchal family structure in order to critique it. • The novel explores issues of power within the family; the division between the public (read: masculine) sphere of work and the private (read: feminine) sphere of the home; and the links between the socialisation of girls and the rise of consumerist culture in the post-war era.

14. Female Friendships • Elaine’s ‘friendship’ with Cordelia, Grace, and Carol highlights the way in which children replicate the power dynamic shown to them by adults, particularly within the family unit; it also shows the way in which girls tend to use relational aggression to wield power over each other. • The trauma of Elaine’s socialisation into the world of girls impacts on her future relationships with women (she usually feels uncomfortable and unsafe), leads her to view the world of girls with contempt, and renders her unable (to some extent) to feel empathy for other women (thus complicating her foray into second wave feminism later in life, and her designation as a feminist artist).

15. Difference • In order to question the extent to which gender is ‘natural’, Atwood contrasts Elaine’s family with the families of her friends; she also points out the way in which Elaine and her brother are more similar than different prior to entering the gendered environment of the school. • The novel also draws on the issue of racial difference e.g the character of Mr Banerji to make a point about being considered ‘the other’ in an homogenous environment, whether that be based on gender, class, or cultural norms.

16. Second Wave Feminism • Elaine’s career as an artist is contrasted with that of her male counterparts, such as Mr Hrbik and Jon, whose attitudes to women shape her thinking about femininity and feminism. • The novel explores the discrimination against female artists in Toronto’s art world, and uses this as a metonym for the public sphere in general. • Whilst Elaine joins a feminist consciousness-raising group, she expresses her discomfort and scepticism about the feminist movement and its aims, particularly its notion of sisterhood based on an homogenous notion of feminism.