Daughters of Time: Creating Woman's Voice in Southern Story

by Lucinda H. MacKethan

Overview

Drawing upon letters, autobiographies, and novels, Daughters of Time examines the strategies that various southern women writers have used to create their own "voice," their own unique expression of mind and selfhood. Lucinda H. MacKethan shows that, despite the constraining and muting effects of the South's historically patriarchal society, the region has been graced by the remarkably strong presence of women storytellers, black and white, who have asserted their determination to become themselves through creative acts of voicing.

Within a chronological structure, MacKethan examines the letters of the plantation mistress Catherine Hammond; the memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs; the autobiographical writings of Ellen Glasgow, Zora Neale Hurston, and Eudora Welty, as well as their novels Barren Ground, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and The Optimist's Daughter; and finally, Alice Walker's The Co

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820314440
Publisher:	University of Georgia Press
Publication date:	04/01/1992
Series:	Mercer University Lamar Memorial Lectures , #32
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

LUCINDA H. MacKETHAN is a professor of English at North Carolina State University and the author of The Dream of Arcady.

LUCINDA H. MacKETHAN is a professor of English at North Carolina State University and the author of The Dream of Arcady.

Editorial Reviews

"A straightforward and sensible study, written in a refreshingly jargon-free style that makes it accessible to a variety of readers. MacKethan's approach to the authors she considers invites us to listen carefully to the voices in stories by other Southern women, especially those writing today, for whom heritage and place seem to be as significant as they were for earlier generations."--"Mississippi Quarterly"

"An eloquent analysis of the role of 'voicing' in southern women's fiction . . . Examining texts by both black and white women writers MacKethan demonstrates that, despite their vastly different experiences of oppression, southern women--and perhaps all women writers--achieve and express selfhood in similar ways."--"Southern Quarterly"

"Elegant, concise, and comprehensive . . . Overall, the text provides a persuasive argument for an understanding of southern women's literature, which spans centuries, races, and genres. Strongly recommended."--"Choice"

From the Publisher