num_pages: 387
description: This edition reprints the text of Stein's three avant-garde novellas of working-class women together with a wide spectrum of thematically arranged historical documents. The accompanying selections address the role and perception of women at the turn of the century; the impact of medical science, philosophy, modern art, and realism on Gertrude Stein as a developing writer; and issues of gender, race, religion, class, and sexual orientation. Excerpts from Stanton, Cooper, Wilder, Freud, James, and Du Bois enhance students' understanding and appreciation of Stein's 1909 literary experiment with character, language, and style.Gertrude Stein, as a college student at Radcliffe and a medical student at Johns Hopkins Medical School, was a privileged woman, but she was surrounded by women who were trapped by poverty, class, and race into lives that offered little choice. Her portraits of Anna and Lena are examples of realistic depictions of immigrant women who had no occupational choice but to become domestic workers. This collection of documents from the history of women's suffrage, medical history, modernist art, and literature enables readers to see how radical Stein's subject was.
language: English
title: Three Lives
titlecomplete: Three Lives (Bedford Cultural Editions)
genres: Fiction, American, Short Stories, Womens, Literature, Classics, Feminism, Novels, 20th Century, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 3985
publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's