Courting Failure: Women and the Law in Twentieth-century LiteratureFor the past twenty years, the law and literature movement has been gaining ground. More recently, a feminist perspective has enriched the field. With Courting Failure: Women and the Law in Twentieth-Century Literature, Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson adds a compelling voice to the discussion. Courting Failure critically explores the representation of women, fictional and historical, in conflict with the law. Macpherson focuses on the judicial system and the staging of women's guilt, examining both the female suspect and the female victim in a wide variety of media, including novels like Toni Morrison's Beloved and Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace, theatrical plays, movies such as I Want to Live! and Legally Blonde, and the television series Ally McBeal. In these texts and others, canonical or popular, Macpherson exposes the court as an arena in which women often fail, or succeed only by subverting the system. Combining feminist literary theory with the discourse of the law and literature movement, Courting Failure is a highly readable and analytically rigorous study of justice and gender on the page and screen. |
From inside the book
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Page 1
... fictional , dramatic , or filmic counterparts ) , but it is rather an exploration of what is still a rel- atively underexplored aspect of the law and literature field ( s ) : women and the law in contemporary literature and culture . My ...
... fictional , dramatic , or filmic counterparts ) , but it is rather an exploration of what is still a rel- atively underexplored aspect of the law and literature field ( s ) : women and the law in contemporary literature and culture . My ...
Page 29
... fictional or real , and to begin . to discuss some aspects of confinement and release that characterize her position . Looking forward , the conclusion surveys the critical debates and asks what the future holds for women and the law ...
... fictional or real , and to begin . to discuss some aspects of confinement and release that characterize her position . Looking forward , the conclusion surveys the critical debates and asks what the future holds for women and the law ...
Page 32
... fictional prisoners step outside their prisons and wrest control from those who seek to contain them . While the purpose of the panopticon , as Foucault reminds us , is " to see constantly and recognize immediately , " in these fictional ...
... fictional prisoners step outside their prisons and wrest control from those who seek to contain them . While the purpose of the panopticon , as Foucault reminds us , is " to see constantly and recognize immediately , " in these fictional ...
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Courting Failure: Women and the Law in Twentieth-century Literature Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
abuse Adam African American Alias Grace Alice Ally McBeal Amanda Andrea Pia Yates Anna Anne Annette Bennington appears argues Aristodemou Atwood chapter child constructed context court courtroom crime criminal critics Culture death Dessa Rose Dessa's Doris edited episode example explore fact female femininity Feminism feminist fictional film focuses Foucault gaze gender Grace Marks Graham guilty Hays Code historical husband Ibid innocence Isla italics in original Jacqueline St judge Judith Resnik jury Justice killed Kingston Penitentiary law and literature Law Review lawyer Legally Blonde lesbian literary Lizzie Borden London male Manon Margaret mother motherhood murder novel offers Oxford panopticon play position Press Gang prison punishment rape relation Resnik Robin West Roddy role Rufel Sarah scene Sethe Sethe's sexual Sibyl slave Slave Narratives slavery social stance story suggests Susan texts tion trial University Press violence voice Weisberg woman women Wuornos Yates York