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 157
... play Machinal , by Sophie Treadwell , that legal logic obscures the female experience . First performed in 1928 , Treadwell's play is divided into nine " episodes " with the following preface : THE PLOT is the story of a woman who ...
... play Machinal , by Sophie Treadwell , that legal logic obscures the female experience . First performed in 1928 , Treadwell's play is divided into nine " episodes " with the following preface : THE PLOT is the story of a woman who ...
Page 160
... play , performance , script - the words themselves are indicative of the " staging " of guilt or innocence , and the way in which the " real- ity " of the female criminal's position is difficult to unravel . Such is the case in ...
... play , performance , script - the words themselves are indicative of the " staging " of guilt or innocence , and the way in which the " real- ity " of the female criminal's position is difficult to unravel . Such is the case in ...
Page 166
... play is " message - oriented , " and while this may potentially make it appear overly didactic , " Masterpieces ' episodic structure does not pro- duce the same effect that Treadwell's expressionist play does . If Machinal potentially ...
... play is " message - oriented , " and while this may potentially make it appear overly didactic , " Masterpieces ' episodic structure does not pro- duce the same effect that Treadwell's expressionist play does . If Machinal potentially ...
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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