Last Friday I did a post about five great feminist books in the non-fiction realm. Then in my comments I was asked about some FICTION titles so I figured that would make a good post today. Now, in all honesty, I just started to get into my fiction literature craze about a year ago, so I don't have too many titles to even look at and pull from here. But I still think the selection I've chosen is a good one to start. I can't revisit after I've read more and make a new list of course, nothing is set in stone...yet. Please, if you have any good ones I need to get to reading, TELL ME! I love reading a good feminist fiction book. But there is something to be said for having no idea that said book you're reading is going to have a feminist theme and then being utterly surprised. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside :) So here you are: five fantastic feminist fiction novels! Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Who hasn't read this one? My mother read it to me when I was a little girl. Ah memories! And of course I identified with writer and tomboy Jo.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
My favorite novel of all time. There have been debates on the feminist aspects of this book but I believe it is definitely in the feminist camp. Jane is a woman that follows her own voice and makes her own way, even when it goes against her heart. Read it for yourself and decide.
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Washington Square by Henry James
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
What are yours? Please share!
6 comments:
i love all of those books and for different reasons...
I haven't read Washington Square, but you've made me want to go grab it off the shelf.
I am absolutely with you on The Handmaid's Tale. Basically anything by Margaret Atwood in the 70s and 80s should be on your reading list... she's moved more fully into Dystopian with some of her more recent novels, and I wouldn't call Oryx and Crake a feminist novel, but I haven't read The Year of the Flood yet... that might be.
Other good feminist literature? Pretty much all of Virginia Woolf's novels (not to mention the non-fiction A Room of One's Own), ranging from her more traditionally-written The Voyage Out to the gender-bending Orlando. The Awakening by Kate Chopin. The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston.
And for YA Lit -- Stolen by Lucy Christopher and A Northern Light by Jennifer Connelly, for starters.
As I'm more of a contemporary lit kinda gal, these are more recent hits but I'm pretty convinced you'll like 'em. I was introduced to them via a MA paper I did a couple of years back called Women Desire and Narrative. Brilliant stuff. Here they are:
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
and, of course, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.
Jane Eyre was one of the first "classic" novels I read in High School & loved, & has always had my heart. Would love to reread it!
I Love Handmaid's Tale, but--my Lord!-- that is one awful cover!
LOL Perri! I'm not much of a fan of the cover either! ;)
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