Identifying marks
Subtitle: race, gender, and the marked body in nineteenth-century America
By: Jennifer Putzi.
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Athens
Language: eng
Number of pages: 195
ISBN-13: 9780820328126
Subjects: American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Body, Human, in literature; Branding (Punishment) -- United States; Tattooing -- United States; Sex role in literature; Race in literature
Description: "What we know of the marked body in nineteenth-century American literature and culture often begins with The Scarlet Letter's Hester Prynne and ends with Moby Dick's Queequeg. This study looks at the presence of marked men and women in a more challenging array of canonical and lesser-known works, including exploration narratives, romances, and frontier novels. Jennifer Putzi shows how tattoos, scars, and brands can function both as stigma and as emblem of healing and survival, thus blurring the borderline between the biological and social, the corporeal and spiritual."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.