The dialogic self
Subtitle: reconstructing subjectivity in Woolf, Lessing, and Atwood
By: Roxanne J. Fand.
Publisher: Susquehanna University Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Selinsgrove
Language: eng
Number of pages: 241
Subjects: Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941 -- Criticism and interpretation.; Lessing, Doris May, 1919- -- Criticism and interpretation.; Atwood, Margaret Eleanor, 1939- -- Criticism and interpretation.; English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; English fiction -- Women authors -- History and criticism.; Women and literature -- England -- History -- 20th century.; Women and literature -- Canada -- History -- 20th century.; Subjectivity in literature.; Self in literature.
Description: This study addresses the dilemma of the female subject whereby women claim empowerment and the right to authorize themselves, yet so resist the idea of patriarchal authority, that in undermining all authority they may deny their own.

By theorizing subjectivity according to the dialogic model of Mikhail Bakhtin, author Roxanne J. Fand posits a moderating self-narrator who, rather than imposing a single authoritarian voice of fixed ideology and identity, negotiates among diverse internalized voices of one's social-ecological milieu.

Fand analyzes the lives and work of Virginia Woolf, Doris Lessing, and Margaret Atwood in the light of various literary, psychoanalytic, sociolinguistic, and postmodern theories in order to show how each writer formulates her dialogic view of subjectivity, considering her historical moment in feminism.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 206-231) and index.