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Literary
Women
Non-fiction book synopsis
The proposed book, aimed predominantly at female readers, would take
an in depth look at ten popular female characters from selected 19th
and 20th century novels to investigate the reasons for the characters'
enduring appeal and to examine the extent to which the characters'
social and emotional lives and experiences are relevant to women's
lives today.
The popularity of recent national polls, such as the BBC's Big Read
and the Woman's Hour Watershed Fiction poll, reveals a healthy
current interest in literary fiction, and this book would interest
both readers who are familiar with the characters under discussion
and would like to know more, and others who may not be familiar with
the characters but are interested to discover why they have gained
and retained such popularity with readers over the decades.
The book would fill an evident gap in the popular non-fiction market
as, while there are a number of academic books on this theme aimed
at university students of literature, there appears to be none aimed
to appeal to a more general readership who would enjoy learning more
about their favourite female literary characters and their relevance
to their own lived experience, but do not want to wade through an
academic text on the subject.
My interest in and ability to write about this subject arose from
my degree studies and from my subsequent experience in teaching English
literature to GCSE, A level and undergraduate students. I hold a first
class combined honours degree in English literature and sociology.
It is suggested that the book would be around 60,000 words in length
and contain an introductory chapter, one chapter on each of the characters
chosen for analysis, and a concluding chapter. The choice of characters
for inclusion would be based on the findings of polls conducted by
the BBC, the Orange Prize for Fiction and others, into women's favourite
books and favourite female literary characters.
The introductory chapter would look at the pleasures offered to female
readers in terms of the sense of identification with characters that
may be gained from our reading, and would pose questions about the
characters and our identification that would be answered in the following
individual chapters. The concluding chapter would summarise and discuss
the main findings.
Based on my initial research, the proposed ten characters for inclusion
would be:
1.Catherine Earnshaw - Wuthering Heights
2. Jane Eyre - Jane Eyre
3. Mrs de Winter/Rebecca - Rebecca
4. Elizabeth Bennet - Pride and Prejudice
5. Jo March - Little Women
6. Scarlett O'Hara - Gone With the Wind
7. Tess Durbeyfield - Tess of the D'Urbervilles
8. Anna Karenina - Anna Karenina
9. Offred - The Handmaid's Tale
10. Sarah Woodruff - The French Lieutenant's Woman
The book would look, in particular, at aspects of social, cultural
and emotional importance to women as these are revealed throuph analyses
of the characters. My own character analyses would be supported by
quotes from works by experts in the fields of literary criticism,
women's studies, sociology and psychology, as well as through evidence
from the novels themselves. |
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