Unbecoming Women

Susan Fraiman argues persuasively that an antiromantic, oppositional, even subversive tradition is intrinsic to canonical "women's fiction"--perhaps accounting for its continued vitality. She makes her case by careful, shrewd, highly readable readings of four well-loved, respected "classics" by Burney, Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and George Eliot. From the first chapter--about the conduct books for girls that nourished the roots of courtship novels--to the brilliant final contention that the ending of The Mill on the Floss challenges not only the genre of the Bildungsroman but the ideology of individualism, Fraiman is logical and pellucid, sometimes colloquial, often witty, and always accessible. Embedded in current political and critical concerns and debates, this book is never overwhelme or deflected by them. This is a subtle work of sophisticated literary criticism with a sound moral center--gratifying to read.--Rachel M. Brownstein, Author of Becoming a Heroine: Reading About Women in Novels In these elegant rereadings of female novels of development, Susan Fraiman redefines the gendering of the female Bildungsroman. By examining competing class narratives, contradictory Romance ideology, and hidden homosocial subplots in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women's fiction, Fraiman violates the Bildungsroman's staid generic boundaries and delineates new anatomies of struggle and sorrow in British women's fiction.--Patricia Yaeger, University of Michigan Fraiman's argument is thoroughly researched and carefully detailed. She particularly excels at laying bare the hidden gender and class dynamics prompting the demands of structure, of locating narrative questions within a critical tradition and history.--Laurie Langbauer, Swarthmore College