The Awakening (novel)

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Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the Kate Chopin novel. For other novels with the same title, see Awakening (disambiguation).

The Awakening
Author Country Language Genre(s) Media type ISBN OCLC Number Kate Chopin United States English Novel Print 978-1-907727-21-4 1226208

The Awakening is a novel by Kate Chopin, first published in 1899 (see 1899 in literature). Set in New Orleans and the Southern Louisiana coast at the end of the nineteenth century, the plot centers around Edna Pontellier and her struggle to reconcile her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century South. It is one of the earliest American novels that focuses on women's issues without condescension. It is also widely seen as a landmark work of early feminism. The novel's blend of realistic narrative, incisive social commentary, and psychological complexity makes The Awakening a precursor of American modernism and prefigures the works of American novelists such as William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway and echoes the works of contemporaries such as Edith Wharton and Henry James. It can also be considered among the first Southern works in a tradition that would culminate with the modern masterpieces of Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, Katherine Anne Porter, and Tennessee Williams.

Contents
[hide]

1 Primary characters o 1.1 Edna Pontellier o 1.2 Robert Lebrun o 1.3 Lonce Pontellier o 1.4 Alce Arobin o 1.5 Adle Ratignolle o 1.6 Mademoiselle Reisz 2 Plot summary 3 Style 4 Publication and critical reception 5 Legacy 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Primary characters

[edit] Edna Pontellier
The novel's protagonist. The wife of Leonce and the mother of two boys, she is presented as a complex and emotionally dynamic character (a rarity for female characters of the period).[1] Her "awakening" to the stifling realities of being a woman at the end of the nineteenth century forms the core of the plot.

[edit] Robert Lebrun

The son of the proprietor of the Grand Isle resort where the Pontellier family spends its summers. Edna and Robert develop a mutual attraction that forms the central conflict of the novel. He relocates to Mexico (under the pretext of seeking business opportunities) in order to escape a relationship that has no chance of survival. His return from Mexico further complicates matters and leads to the novel's tragic climax.[1]

[edit] Lonce Pontellier

Ednas husband. Lonce is both a stern patriarch and a fond husband with very clear ideas about what a woman's preoccupations should be. In his eyes, Edna's only aim in life is the orderly maintenance of the family estate and the care of their two children. He becomes genuinely confused at his wife's gradual desire for emancipation, as it goes against all the social conventions of the time, and his absence on an extended business trip to New York City provides Edna the room to reconsider her situation.

[edit] Alce Arobin

When Robert Lebrun leaves for Mexico, Alce actively seeks Edna's attention and affections. At first ambivalent at the prospect, eventually Edna allows him to court her. Alce comes with a womanizing reputation but treats Edna in a chivalrous (if aggressively infatuated) manner.

[edit] Adle Ratignolle

Friend of the Pontellier family. She is set up in opposition to Edna as an almost unthinkingly self-sacrificing mother. She is the traditional ideal of femininity for the late 1800s but is also a warm, generous, and boisterous presence. As Edna struggles with her place in the home and in society at large, Adle reminds her to think of her children and put them above all else, even herself.

[edit] Mademoiselle Reisz

A pianist. While barely a fringe member of New Orleans society (she is renowned as a gifted pianist but is not a part of the "in crowd"), Edna seeks out Mlle Reisz both for advice and because Mlle Reisz is in communication with Robert Lebrun while he is in Mexico. A perceptive and bluntly honest woman, she is almost shamanistic as she helps Edna sort out her emotions. Reisz is very much a foil to Madame Ratignolle's character; she has no family and happily lives alone without a care for what society thinks of her.

[edit] Plot summary

The novel opens with the Pontellier family vacationing on Grand Isle at a resort on the Gulf of Mexico managed by Madame Lebrun and her two sons, Robert and Victor. The Pontellier family is composed of Lonce Pontellier (a businessman of Acadian heritage) and Edna (his twenty-eight year old wife). They have two sons, Etienne and Raoul who do not feature prominently in the plot and who are largely symbols of Edna's proscribed existence. Edna spends most of her time with her close friend Adle Ratignolle. In a boisterious and cheery manner, Adle reminds Edna of her duties as a wife and mother. At Grand Isle, Edna eventually forms a connection with Robert Lebrun, a charming and earnest young man who actively seeks Edna's attention (and affections). They start to fall deeply in love, but Robert, sensing the doomed nature of any relationship that would develop between them, flees to Mexico under the guise of pursuing a nameless business venture. At this point in the novel, the narrative focus shifts to Edna's complex and shifting emotions as she reconciles her filial duties with her desire to be with Robert and her desire for social freedom. The summer vacation over, Edna and the family return to New Orleans. Gradually, Edna begins to take an active role in her own happiness and reassesses her personal priorities. She starts to isolate herself from New Orleans society and withdraw from some of the duties traditionally associated with motherhood. Lonce eventually calls in a doctor to diagnose her, fearing she is losing her mental faculties. The doctor advises Lonce to let her be. Lonce decides to leave Edna home as he travels to New York City on business. The children are sent to stay with his mother, leaving Edna alone at the house for an extended period. This gives Edna physical and emotional room to breathe and think over various aspects of her life. While her husband is still in New York, Edna decides to

move out of her house and into a small bungalow nearby. During this period of transition she begins an abortive affair with Alce Arobin, a persistent suitor with a reputation for being free with his affections. It's the first time in the novel Edna is shown as a sexual being, but the affair proves awkward and emotionally fraught. The other person to whom Edna reaches out during this period of solitude is Mademoiselle Reisz, a gifted recitalist whose playing is renowned throughout New Orleans but who maintains a generally hermetic existence. At a party earlier in the novel, Edna is profoundly moved by Mlle. Reisz's playing. Mlle. Reisz is in contact with Robert while he is in Mexico, receiving letters from him regularly. Edna begs her to reveal their contents, which she does, proving to Edna that Robert is thinking about her. Eventually Robert returns to New Orleans. At first aloof (and finding excuses not to be near Edna), he eventually confesses his passionate love for her. He admits that the business trip to Mexico was an excuse to get away from a relationship that would never work. Edna is called away to help Adle with a difficult childbirth. Adle pleads with Edna to think of what she would be turning her back on if she did not behave appropriately. When Edna returns home, she finds a note from Robert stating that he has left and will not be returning. Edna is devastated. She goes immediately back to Grand Isle, where she first met Robert Lebrun. It is also where she learned to swim earlier in the novel, an episode that was both exhilarating and terrifying, and an episode that perfectly encapsulated the conflicting emotions she wrestled with during the course of the novel. The novel ends with Edna allowing herself to be overtaken by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.[2]

[edit] Style
Kate Chopin's narrative style in The Awakening can be categorized as naturalism, with its focus on the banalities of everyday life and the consequences of social norms. Chopin's admiration for the French short story writer Guy de Maupassant is evident in The Awakening, yet another example of the enormous influence Maupassant exercised on nineteenth century literary realism. Chopin's novel bears the hallmarks of Maupassant's style: a perceptive focus on human behavior and the complexities of social structures. However, Chopin's style could more accurately be described as a hybrid that captures contemporary narrative currents and looks forward to various trends in Southern and European literatures. Mixed into Chopin's overarching nineteenth century realism is an incisive and often humorous skewering of upper class pretension, reminiscent of direct contemporaries such as Oscar Wilde, Henry James, Edith Wharton, and George Bernard Shaw. Also evident in The Awakening is the future of the Southern novel as a distinct genre, not just in setting and subject matter but in narrative style. Chopin's lyrical portrayal of

her protagonist's shifting emotions is a narrative technique that Faulkner would expand upon in novels like Absalom, Absalom! and The Sound and the Fury. Alternately (almost contradictory), the stark absence of sentimentality and the uncluttered nature of the plot look forward to the stories of Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor and the plays of William Inge, while Edna Pontellier's emotional crises and her eventual tragic fall look ahead to the complex female characters of Tennessee Williams's plays. Aspects of Chopin's style also prefigure the intensely lyrical and experimental style of novelists such as Virginia Woolf and the unsentimental focus on female intellectual and emotional growth in the novels of Sigrid Undset and Doris Lessing. Perhaps Chopin's most important stylistic legacy is the detachment of the narrator. Not only does the narrator treat women's issues without condescension, they offer neither an assessment of nor an opinion on the protagonist's behavior. This is wholly at odds with the contemporary Victorian tendency toward narrative judgment and editorial commentary. The narrator neither cheers on nor condemns Edna. The reader is left to assess the protagonist's decisions, which is arguably the novel's boldest stylistic choice.

[edit] Publication and critical reception

The Awakening was particularly controversial upon publication in 1899. Chopin's novel was considered immoral not only for its comparatively frank depictions of female sexual desire but for its depiction of a protagonist who chafed against social norms and established gender roles. The public reaction to the novel was similar to the protests which greeted the publication and performance of Henrik Ibsen's landmark drama A Doll's House (1879), a work with which The Awakening shares an almost identical theme. However, published reviews ran the gamut from outright condemnation to the recognition of The Awakening as an important work of fiction by a gifted practitioner. A good example of this can be found in the divergent reactions of two newspapers in Kate Chopin's hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. The St. Louis Mirror said: "One would fain beg the gods, in pure cowardice, for sleep unending rather than to know what an ugly, cruel, loathsome Monster Passion can be when, like a tiger, it slowly awakens. This is the kind of awakening that impresses the reader in Mrs. Chopin's heroine." Later in the same year, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch would write in praise of the novel in an essay entitled "A St. Louis Woman Who Has Turned Fame Into Literature." Some reviews clucked in disappointment at Chopin's choice of subject: "It was not necessary for a writer of so great refinement and poetic grace to enter the over-worked field of sex-fiction," (Chicago Times Herald). Others mourned the loss of good taste as when The Nation referred to Chopin as "one more clever writer gone wrong." And some reviews indulged in outright vitriol, as when Public Opinion stated: "We are well-satisfied when [Edna Pontellier] drowns herself." Chopin did not garner unqualifiedly negative reviews. The Dial called The Awakening a "poignant spiritual tragedy" with the caveat that the novel was "not altogether

wholesome in its tendencies." In the Pittsburgh Leader, Willa Cather set The Awakening alongside Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert's equally notorious and equally reviled novel of suburban ennui and unapologetic adulterythough Cather was no more impressed with the heroine than were most of her contemporaries. Cather concluded her review: "next time I hope that Miss Chopin will devote that flexible, iridescent style of hers to a better cause."

[edit] Legacy
Kate Chopin did not write another novel after The Awakening and had understandable difficulty in trying to publish stories after its publication; but today it is regarded as a classic of feminist fiction. The Awakening was dramatized in a film known as Grand Isle in 1991.[3]

The Female Man

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The Female Man

Cover of first edition (paperback) Author Joanna Russ

Country Language Genre(s) Publisher Publication date Media type Pages ISBN OCLC Number

United States English Science fiction novel Bantam Books 1975 Print (Paperback) 214 pp 0-807-06299-5 46425908

The Female Man is a feminist science fiction novel written by Joanna Russ. It was originally written in 1970 and first published in 1975. The book was re-released in 2000. Russ is an avid feminist and challenged sexist views during the 1970s with her novels, short stories, and nonfiction works. These works include We Who Are About To, "When It Changed", and What Are We Fighting For?: Sex, Race, Class, and the Future of Feminism. The novel follows the lives of four women living in parallel worlds that differ in time and place. When they cross over to each others worlds, their different views on gender roles startle each others preexisting notions of womanhood. In the end, their encounters influence them to evaluate their lives and shape their ideas of what it means to be a woman.

Contents
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1 Explanation of the novel's title 2 Setting 3 Plot summary 4 Character summary o 4.1 Major characters o 4.2 Minor characters 5 Major themes and symbols o 5.1 Gender roles o 5.2 Sexuality

5.3 Nature vs. nurture 5.4 The moon 5.5 Technology 6 Structure and format 7 Literary significance and reception 8 Allusions and references o 8.1 Allusions to other works o 8.2 Allusions to history 9 Awards and nominations 10 Publication history 11 References 12 Further reading
o o o

13 External links

[edit] Explanation of the novel's title

The character Joanna calls herself the female man because she believes that she must forego her identity as a woman in order to be respected (5). She states that there is one and only one way to possess that in which we are defectiveBecome it (139). Her metaphorical transformation refers to her decision to seek equality by rejecting womens dependence on men.

[edit] Setting
The Female Man includes several fictional worlds. Joanna's World: Joanna exists in a world that similar to Earth in the 1970s. Jeannine's World: Jeannine lives in a world where the Great Depression never ended. Whileaway (Janet's World): Whileaway is a utopian society in the far future where all the men died from a gender-specific plague over 800 years ago. Women dedicate their lives to coexisting with each other through hard work. Although the world is technologically advanced, their societies are mostly agrarian. Their technology enables them to genetically merge ovula in order to procreate. Jael's World: Jael's world is a dystopia where men and women are literally engaged in a "battle of the sexes". Although they have been in conflict for over 40 years, the two societies still participate in trade with each other. Women trade children in exchange for resources. In order for the men to cope with their sexual desires, young boys undergo cosmetic surgery that physically changes their appearance so that they look like women.

[edit] Plot summary

The novel begins when Janet Evason suddenly arrives in Jeannine Dadiers world. Janet is from Whileaway, a futuristic world where a plague killed all of the men over 800 years ago, and Jeannine lives in a world that never experienced the end of the Great

Depression. Janet finds Jeannine at a Chinese New Year festival and takes her to Joannas world. Joanna comes from a world that is beginning its feminist movement. Acting as a guide, Joanna takes Janet to a party in her world to show her how women and men interact with each other. Janet quickly finds herself the object of a mans attention, and after he harasses her, Janet knocks the man down and mocks him. Because Joannas world believes that women are inferior to men, everyone is shocked. Janet expresses her desire to experience living with a typical family so Joanna takes Janet to the Wildings household. Janet meets their daughter Laura Rose who instantly admires Janets confidence and independence as a woman. Laura realizes that she is attracted to Janet and begins to pursue a sexual relationship with her. This is transgressive for both of them, as Whileaway's taboo against cross-generational relationships (having a relationship with someone old enough to be your parent or child) is as strong as the taboo against same-sex relationships on Laura's world. The novel then follows Jeannine and Joanna as they accompany Janet back to Whileaway. They meet Vittoria, Janets wife, and stay at their home. Joanna finds herself under scrutiny when Vittoria uses a story about a bear trapped between two worlds as a metaphor for her life. Jeannine returns to her world with Joanna, and they both go to vacation at her brothers house. Jeannines mother pesters her about her love life and whether she is going to get married soon. Jeannine goes on a few dates with some men but still finds herself dissatisfied. Jeannine begins to doubt her sense of reality, but soon decides that she wants to assimilate into her role as a woman. She calls Cal and agrees to marry him. Joanna, Jeannine, Janet, and Laura are lounging in Laura's house. Laura tries to glorify Janets status in Whileaway, but Janet explains that her world does not value her particularly, but chose her as inter-dimensional explorer because she was more expendable than others ("I am stupid," she explains). At 3 a.m., Joanna comes down, unable to sleep, and finds Jeannine and Janet awake as well. Suddenly they are no longer at Lauras house but in another world. Joanna, Jeannine, and Janet have arrived in Jaels world which is experiencing a 40-year old war between male and female societies. Jael explains that she works for the Bureau of Comparative Ethnology, an organization that concentrates on peoples various counterparts in different parallel worlds. She reveals that she is the one who brought all of them together because they are essentially four versions of the same woman (162). Jael takes all of them with her into enemy territory because she appears to be negotiating a deal with one of the male leaders. At first, the male leader appears to be promoting equality, but Jael quickly realizes that he still believes in the inferiority of women. Jael reveals herself as a ruthless assassin, kills the man, and shuttles all of the women back to her house. Jael finally tells the other women why she has assembled all of them. She wants to create bases in the other womens worlds without the male society knowing and eventually empower women to overthrow oppressive men and their gender roles for women. In the end, Jeannine and Joanna agree to help Jael and assimilate the women soldiers into their worlds, but Janet refuses. Jeannine and Joanna appear to have become stronger individuals and are excited to rise up against their gender roles. Janet is not moved by Jaels intentions so Jael tells Janet that the reason for the absence of men on

Whileaway is not because of a plague but because the women won the war and killed all of the men. Janet refuses to believe Jael, and the other women are annoyed at Janets resistance. The novel ends with the women separating and returning to their worlds, each with a new perspective on her life, her world, and her identity as a woman.

[edit] Character summary

[edit] Major characters
Jeannine Dadier is a librarian who lives in a world that never escaped the Great Depression. She believes that there is a barrier between [her] and real life which can be removed only by a man or marriage (120). She doubts her boyfriend Cals ability to make her happy, yet eventually she succumbs and becomes engaged to him. At the end of the novel, Jeannine appears to have broken from the expectations of marriage and welcomes the social revolution against men. Joanna, living in the 1970s, comes from a world remarkably similar to Earth. The feminist movement has just begun, and Joanna is determined to refute her worlds belief that women are inferior to men. Joanna is witty and smart; however, she struggles to assert her abilities and intelligence among her male peers. She repeatedly refers to herself as the female man (5) to indicate her adoption of the male gender role and separate herself from being identified as just another woman. Janet Evason Belin comes from a futuristic world called Whileaway where all the men died of a gender specific plague over 800 years ago. She is a Safety and Peace officer, similar to a police officer, and has just become an emissary to other worlds. She is married with Vittoria and has two children. In addition to being confident and assertive, Janet is perhaps the most independent from men because she has never experienced a mans presence. Alice Jael Reasoner, often referred to as Jael, is an assassin living in a world where a 40-year old war has caused men and women to separate into warring societies. She is a radical and does not appeal much to her emotion but, focuses solely on facts as they are presented to her. Jael is the instigator behind the four womens meeting and appears to be proposing a revolution against all men.

[edit] Minor characters

Laura Rose is the daughter in the family that Janet stays with when she is visiting Joannas world. She proclaims to be a victim of penis envy, frustrated that she must stifle her potential in order to become a housewife (65). Janets confidence and independence from men fascinates Laura, and Laura begins to pursue a sexual relationship with her. Laura is the only character other than the four major ones to have the narrative told through her perspective. Cal is Jeannines boyfriend and soon-to-be fianc. Jeannine does not believe that Cal is masculine enough to provide for her.

Mrs. Dadier is Jeannines mother who lives with Jeannines brother and his family. When Jeannine spends a vacation at her brothers house, Mrs. Dadier plagues Jeannine with lectures regarding the importance of marriage.

[edit] Major themes and symbols

[edit] Gender roles
Written during the 1970s when the feminist movement was at its height, The Female Man studies how women struggle to retain their identity as women yet still assert themselves as equals to men. The novels main theme of gender roles occurs in each of the four characters worlds. Because of the different environments in which they were raised, each woman has a different idea on what it means to be a woman. Jeannine believes that only marriage can validate her existence while Janet, because of the absence of men in her world, does not understand how women can be inferior to men. Joanna searches to establish her identity as a strong individual and believes that she must adopt masculine characteristics in order to be viewed as an equal. Because Jael is in war with men, she believes that men are expendable and should be eliminated. The novel investigates each of the womens views and questions how far women should go to break gender roles.

[edit] Sexuality
Sexuality becomes a recurring theme throughout the novel, primarily explored through Janet's experiences. Janet believes in an active sexual life, and her sexual relations with other women stems from her desire for emotional intimacy. Men do not exist in Janets world, and the women of Whileaway therefore have relationships only with other women. Although Janet cannot have sexual intercourse with a woman in the same way she would with a man, her relationships with women exceeds the physical satisfaction that she believes men can provide. When Janet and Laura are intimate with each other, they are both emotionally pleased because, as women, they understand each others needs better than a man would understand. Ultimately, the text suggests that, for women, emotional fulfillment is more important than physical pleasure.

[edit] Nature vs. nurture

The differences between each of the womens personalities suggest that the environment/civilization from which they come shape their beliefs and actions. Jael says, Given a reasonable variation, we are the same racial typewhat you see is essentially the same genotype, modified by age, by circumstances, by education, by, diet, by learning, by God knows what(161). Through Jaels revelation that they are in fact each others counterparts, the text shows that though the women have the same genetics, the radical differences between the womens views must be a result of their varying environments. The text sheds light on the importance of environment because the feminist movement sought to reconstruct societys preexisting ideas of womens roles.

[edit] The moon

The moon is a recurring symbol that appears when the narrative focuses on Jeannine and Joannas perspectives. Jeannines first sentence is See the moon, and when Jeannine runs away from her family, Joanna finds her looking at the moon (111,113). Joanna realizes that all of the significant figures in any field are always male, and she laments that she was never on the moon (135). The moon may be a reference to the Greek goddess Artemis, the ultimate independent woman warrior. Jeannines obsession with the moon is her unconscious desire to be free from societys limitations on women. Joannas statement can be interpreted as her inability to ever achieve true independence since she must reject her femininity in order to be regarded as an equal to men. The moon is relevant only to Jeannine and Joanna because they live in worlds where women are considered subordinate to men. Janet recalls that her first sentence was also "see the moon" which provides support for the interpretation that the four J's are essentially the same person.

[edit] Technology
The symbol of technology is represented most prominently in Janet's all-female utopian future of Whileaway. The text implies that the futuristic technology of Whileaway is how the women of Whileaway can become the strongest, most advanced, best-equipped version of themselves to ensure ease in carrying out vocational and professional tasks. Technology on Whileaway is the factor that ensured an increased overall intelligence through genetic engineering. Technology is approached as something that is essential to Whileaway culture and its ability to grow and thrive. The women do not show either a strong appreciation for or disregard of their world's technology. They treat it, rather, as something that is just present and does not need explanation or background. Technology is used in Jael's dystopian, sex-warring world in much the same regard; simply as an integral, ever-present entity. "Representations of technology provide [Russ] a way of talking about temporality and change, about historicity and futurity, including agential social change" (406).[1]

[edit] Structure and format

The novel is divided into nine parts, with each further divided into chapters. The sections of the novel are usually dedicated to one characters perspective, but often the point-of-view changes between the four characters and skips from location and time. For example, part five begins in Jeannines world yet the narrative is through Joannas perspective. The novel never clearly indicates who is speaking and, as a result, often creates confusion in the narration. The novel does provide clues, however, so that the reader can infer the identity of the narrator. Joanna, Janet, and Jaels perspectives are expressed through the first person narrative, but they often refer to themselves in the third person while the narration is still through their point of view. Jeannines perspective is initially told solely through a third person narrative. Jeannine does eventually adopt a first person narrative, indicating her emerging doubt of her dependence on a man and her fate as a dutiful wife. Joanna recognizes that her own style of narration reflects a feminine quality. Joanna says, I have no structuremy thoughts seep out shapelessly like menstrual fluid, it is all very female and deep and full of essences, it is very primitive and full of ands, it is called run-on sentences (137). Joanna also inserts common conversations in the form of a

script that demonstrate her frustration with mens ignorance of women. Janet often gives background history on Whileaway to provide insight on the nature of her world. Jael is slightly introduced in part two, signaled by an italicized text; however, her story begins in part eight with a repetition of the italicized chapter. The novel mostly focuses on Jaels perspective until the end of the novel except for a few moments when the narrative is told through the other threes point-of-view.

[edit] Literary significance and reception

Because the field of science fiction was largely male-dominated, The Female Man was initially received as negative propaganda[citation needed]. As the feminist movement began to gain attention, however, many regarded the novel as one of the most influential works in feminist literature and its wide acceptance heralded the start of feminist science fiction. A work of frightening power, but it is also a work of great fictional subtletyit should appeal to all intelligent people who look for exciting ideation, crackling dialogue, provocative fictional games-playing in their reading. Douglas Barbour, Toronto Star A stunning book, a work to be read with great respect. Its also screamingly funny.Elizabeth Lynn, San Francisco Review of books "In sum, it is a superior SF novel, though perhaps too demanding in an emotional sense ever to be popular even with those expressing the currently fashionable opinions on women's liberation." --R.D. Mullen

[edit] Allusions and references

[edit] Allusions to other works

"When It Changed" by Joanna Russ

The character Janet, and a different version of Whileaway (a planet colonized from Earth, rather than a future version of Earth itself), exist in both the novel and the short story "When It Changed".

Beowulf from oral tradition

Joanna alludes to Grendel's mother to demonstrate that a woman can be both a nurturing mother and an aggressive, strong woman.

The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill

Joanna references Mill when she lists the many examples of how men have historically oppressed women.

The Bible

Jael is named after Yael, who kills Sisera by driving a tent peg through his skull while he sleeps. At one point Russ describes Jael in words paraphrased from the Book of Judges: "At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead" (Jdg. 5:27).

[edit] Allusions to history

Russs novel refers to the problematic issues in the 1970s when the feminist movement rose to power. Because The Female Man was written during the 1970s, the character Joannas world is most similar to the world the author lived in. The novel also addresses the environmental movement as shown through Janets utopian society. Though Janets world is extremely technologically advanced, the women choose to live in agrarian societies. Whileaway forms an idealistic image of an organic environment where nature is preserved despite the radical development of technology. Joanna (the author) also mentions the Great Depression, which occurs in 1929 when economies all over the world took a devastating turning point. In Jeannines world, however, the Great Depression never ended. The text suggests that the continuation of the Great Depression forced women to seek husbands for financial support and prohibited women from finding jobs of their own. As a result, the text implies that the Great Depression perpetuated gender roles.

[edit] Awards and nominations

The Female Man won one of three Retrospective Tiptree Awards (1996). It was also a nominee for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1975.