{"product_id":"the-feminization-of-quest-romance-radical-departures-9780292724716","title":"The Feminization of Quest-Romance: Radical Departures","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhat happens when a woman dares to imagine herself a hero? Questing, she sets out for unknown regions. Lighting a torch, she elicits from the darkness stories never told or heard before. The woman hero sails against the tides of great legends that recount the adventures of heroic men, legends deemed universal, timeless, and essential to our understanding of the natural order that holds us and completes us in its spiral. Yet these myths and rituals do not fulfill her need for an empowering self-image nor do they grant her the mobility she requires to imagine, enact, and represent her quest for authentic self-knowledge.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Feminization of Quest-Romance\u003c\/i\u003e proposes that a female quest is a revolutionary step in both literary and cultural terms. Indeed, despite the difficulty that women writers face in challenging myths, rituals, psychological theories, and literary conventions deemed universal by a culture that exalts masculine ideals and universalizes male experience, a number of revolutionary texts have come into existence in the second half of the twentieth century by such American women writers as Jean Stafford, Mary McCarthy, Anne Moody, Marilynne Robinson, and Mona Simpson, all of them working to redefine the literary portrayal of American women's quests. They work, in part, by presenting questing female characters who refuse to accept the roles accorded them by restrictive social norms, even if it means sacrificing themselves in the name of rebellion. In later texts, female heroes survive their \"lighting out\" experiences to explore diverse alternatives to the limiting roles that have circumscribed female development.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis study of \u003ci\u003eThe Mountain Lion\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMemories of a Catholic Girlhood\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eComing of Age in Mississippi\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eHousekeeping\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eAnywhere but Here\u003c\/i\u003e identifies transformations of the quest-romance that support a viable theory of female development and offer literary patterns that challenge the male monopoly on transformative knowledge and heroic action.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Dana a. Heller\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Texas Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 02\/01\/1991\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 151\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.38lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.51h x 5.53w x 0.43d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780292724716\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDana A. Heller is Professor of English at Old Dominion University.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Texas Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":39949025345651,"sku":"9.78E+12","price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0555\/9255\/0515\/products\/img_3bfad0e1-b468-4be2-9f49-4a57a5e3d05d.jpg?v=1648475208","url":"https:\/\/bookstorenmore.com\/products\/the-feminization-of-quest-romance-radical-departures-9780292724716","provider":"Bookstore N More","version":"1.0","type":"link"}