The usual disclaimer, that this is not an academic review.
Published in 1989, with an eclectic mix of essays moving from thoughts on writing, writing process, nineteenth-century literary themes, and popular culture, this was an enjoyable and engaging read. I predominantly purchased this for the essays exploring Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, both of which provided an interesting analysis of the texts, and form the basis for the rest of this review.
Oates begins by delving into the philosophical undertones of Shelley’s horror story, ‘in which ideas are given ponderous but occasionally quite moving dramatic utterance’ and then looks at the allegorical purposive intent of the demon and his creator. As she reaches the end of her insightful and well-reasoned essay on Shelley, she looks to Shelley’s precarious personal life to contextualise the creation of the novel itself, a personal life dominated by the loss of her infant children, and a non-marriage to a man already married to another.
In her essay on Jane Eyre, Oates seeks to identify the commonality of concerns that can be seen between Shelley and Brontë, both of which had a pre-occupation with the Edenic story depicted in John Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Underlying her essays is Oates’s concern with female agency and the constraints that operated on it. I will be referencing this book in my forthcoming PhD thesis, but in the meantime, I recommend this as read if you have any interest at all in women’s writing. It is a powerful testament to the process, the resilience, and the work it takes for the woman to become the writer.
Deborah Siddoway 