The+Female+Hero+in+American+and+British+Lit

Title:  The Female Hero in American and British Literature Author(s):   [|John Alexander Allen] Source:  [|Hollins Critic.] 19.5 (Dec. 1982): p14. Document Type:  Book review Bookmark:  [|Bookmark this Document] The Female   Hero  in American and British Literature. By Carol Pearson and Katherine Pope. New York and London : R. R. Bowker Co. $24.95 (h.b.); $12.95 (p.b.) Near the beginning of The Female   Hero , Pearson and Pope quote Joseph Campbell on the rivalry of "the son against the father for the mastery of the universe, and the daughter against the mother to be the mastered world" (The  Hero  with a Thousand Faces, p. 136). To this, they respond, "If one conceives of women as heroic, or even human, Campbell 's statement makes no sense. How can a human being "be the mastered world'?" The literalness of this remark, and the outrage reflected in it, are typical of the polemical style and method that are used throughout The Female   Hero  . The book sets out to do for the  female  protagonist what Campbell did for the mate; but Campbell deals with myth, whereas Pearson and Pope are concerned with a social problem--the oppression of women in a patriarchal society--as it is reflected in fiction. They neither know nor greatly care about myth, although, properly understood, it could contribute useful support for their feminist thesis.  In setting forth a paradigm of the fictional  female  hero's effort to cast off the tyranny of the male and of male values, Pearson and Pope precis a great many novels and stories and cite a number of relevant poems and non-fiction studies. Chronologically, they reach back to Defoe, Richardson, Austen and Charlotte Bronte. Their accounts of these books are entirely uncritical and not always strictly accurate, but they do provide abundant evidence that writers in England and America are deeply concerned with the liberation and fulfillment of female  individuality. The bibliography provided is a useful guide to recent fiction, particularly that produced by women. The novels themselves are often better than the precis suggest--certainly less bluntly militant--and, as a whole, of impressive quality. To cite a few of the best, I would recommend Margaret Drabble's The Realms of Gold, Margaret Atwood's Lady Oracle, Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women, and Lisa Alther's Kinflicks. As the authors point out, these books are characterized by a de-emphasis on linear plot, by accurate and frequently satirical observation, and by pervasive humor, good-nature, and a certain optimism regarding the human potentialities of both sexes. It is exciting to realize how many good women novelists are now writing. Doubtless every reader will regret omission of certain favorite authors, but I will mention only Eudora Welty, who is represented in The Female   Hero  by a single short story ("A Worn Path"). Although Welty is not, in any doctrinaire sense, a feminist, she is a writer of established excellence who has persuasively suggested in her work that criteria for genuine heroism are essentially the same for both sexes. Her fiction should receive due representation in a book whose concern is humanistic as well as feminist. One can agree that men--or patriarchal values--deserve the opprobrium that is heaped on them in The Female   Hero  and still believe, as Welty apparently does, that both sexes require liberation from "the tyranny of the dull mind" and must assist each other in the difficult work of attaining it. Allen, John Alexander Source Citation:     Allen,   John   Alexander. "The Female Hero in American and British Literature." Hollins Critic. 19.5 (Dec. 1982): p14. Literature    Resource     Center. Gale. ARAPAHOE    HIGH SCHOOL. 30 Apr. 2008 .