Persuasive fictions
Subtitle: feminist narrative and critical myth
By: Anna Wilson.
Publisher: Bucknell University Press; Associated University Presses
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Lewisburg [Pa.]; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 161
Subjects: Wollstonecraft, Mary, 1759-1797 -- Fictional works; Lorde, Audre -- Criticism and interpretation; French, Marilyn, 1929-; American literature -- Women authors -- History and criticism; Feminism and literature -- United States -- History -- 20th century; Feminism and literature -- England -- History -- 18th century; American literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism; Feminism and motion pictures; Rape in motion pictures; Women and literature; Women in literature; Narration (Rhetoric)
Description: "Anna Wilson's Persuasive Fictions: Feminist Narrative and Critical Myth offers a new picture of how feminist texts have historically succeeded or failed to change people's lives. Using a range of narrative genres - novels and autobiographies, feature and documentary films, political pamphlets and feminist critical narratives - Wilson challenges the critical myth that feminist texts are naturally effective instruments for raising consciousness or promoting social change.

From Mary Wollstonecraft's novels to Thelma and Louise or the prose and films of Audre Lorde, her book documents how the first reception of a feminist work - whether in the 1790s or the 1990s - generates a truly unpredictable history of personal and political responses among readers, including the later critical interpretations that try to decide whether a text successfully "resists" the dominant values and powers of its culture."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 148-156) and index.