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Women's Lives: The View from the Threshold
by Carolyn G. Heilbrun (Toronto: University
of Toronto Pr., 1999) ISBN 0-8020-8228-9
111 pp.
As I picked up this slim volume for review,
I remarked to a friend that its brevity
would stand as a positive characteristic.
At just over a hundred pages, it is a quick,
although provocative read. In setting out
to demonstrate the impact of feminism on
the study of literature, particularly literary
biography, Carolyn Heilbrun turns to an
exploration of the concept of liminality
and the potential for realizing freedom
through change.
The word ‘limen' describes a threshold,
a space of shifting ground, of movement
between one thing and another, or others.
Heilbrun posits that there is a certain
power in occupying a ‘failing to be' position;
i.e. not congruent with prevailing feminine
ideals, not beautiful, not maternal etc.
By exploring the biographies and memoirs
of women who occupied space ‘betwixt and
between', she demonstrates the possibilities
available to women, both on the public stage
and within private walls, "to explore another
way of female life" (28). Heilbrun devotes
her second chapter to examining the evolution
of the female memoir, demonstrating the
differences in female/male narrative patterns:
male narratives follow a linear path from
arousal through to climax, whereas female
narratives meander in multiple circular
configurations, the pattern of which becomes
visible by the completion of the text.
Heilbrun connects feminism with the liminal
state. Coming to feminism involves a consciousness-raising
borne out of the passage from one place
(mainstream society) to another (feminist
consciousness). Freedom is achieved through
the rejection of the comfortable, the known,
the accepted and expected roles women traditionally
held. Tightly argued, impressive in references,
conversational in style, this work is a
insightful examination of women on shifting
ground and the promise of power in embracing
the difference in ourselves.
Margaret Shkimba
A copy of this book is available the
Women's Health Office
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