SSStttooonnnyyy BBBrrrooooookkk UUUnnniiivvveeerrrsssiiitttyyy The official electronic file of this thesis or dissertation is maintained by the University Libraries on behalf of The Graduate School at Stony Brook University. ©©© AAAllllll RRRiiiggghhhtttsss RRReeessseeerrrvvveeeddd bbbyyy AAAuuuttthhhooorrr... When the Personal Became Political: First-Person Fictions and Second-Wave Feminism A Dissertation Presented by Megan Behrent to The Graduate School in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Stony Brook University August 2013 Copyright by Megan Behrent 2013 Stony Brook University The Graduate School Megan Behrent We, the dissertation committee for the above candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, hereby recommend acceptance of this dissertation. Susan Scheckel – Dissertation Advisor Associate Professor, Department of English Mary Jo Bona – Chairperson of Defense Professor, Department of Cultural Analysis and Theory Victoria Hesford Assistant Professor, Department of Cultural Analysis and Theory Helen Scott Associate Professor, Department of English, The University of Vermont This dissertation is accepted by the Graduate School Charles Taber Interim Dean of the Graduate School ii Abstract of the Dissertation When the Personal Became Political: First-Person Fictions and Second-Wave Feminism by Megan Behrent Doctor of Philosophy in English Stony Brook University 2013 Second-wave feminism made famous the slogan, “The personal is political.” This dissertation explores the relationship between the personal and political in fictional narratives associated with the development of second-wave feminism in the United States in the 1960s and 70s. Deeply engaged with the political movements that arose amidst this turbulent period in American history, these narratives reflect—in both form and content—the political discourses that dominated both the women’s liberation movement and the New Left. The first-person fictions of feminist writers that emerge in this period traverse, and subvert, the boundaries between truth and fiction as well the personal and political while probing the limits of conventional literary forms. These narratives emphasize the validity of personal experience and assert narrative authenticity and "truth" despite the fictional dimensions of the text. Many of these writers turn to meta-fiction to challenge the limits of conventional novelistic forms so as to highlight the personal and political role of the woman writer within the feminist movement. The realm of psychology also features prominently as feminist writers engage with the notion of “madness” as a metaphor for both the condition of women in society and society itself. This dissertation focuses on emblematic texts, beginning with Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook. These works played a critical role in shaping later feminist literary narratives such as Dorothy Bryant’s Ella Price’s Journal, a prime example of the “consciousness raising” novels that gave expression to the growing radicalization of women in the 1960s and 1970s. The impact of the civil rights and Black Power movements—and their relationship to the feminist movement—is also explored through an analysis of Octavia Butler’s Kindred. The project concludes by investigating the political trajectory from feminism to post- feminism through an analysis of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary and Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying. The focus throughout the dissertation is on the political implications of each narrative and its relationship to the women’s liberation movement as well as the political implications of form, as each narrative struggles with—and defies—conventional literary forms. iii For my mother, Mary Elizabeth Behrent iv Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter One Writing from the Bell Jar: The Curious Case of Sylvia Plath ................................................................ 26 Chapter Two From 1956 to 1968: Free Women of the Old and New Lefts in Lessing’s The Golden Notebook ..................................................................................................................................................................... 59 Chapter Three The Radicalization of Dorothy Bryant’s Ella Price: Feminism, Consciousness-Raising & the Liberation of the American Housewife ......................................................................................................... 92 Chapter Four The Personal is Historical: Slavery, Black Power, and the Construction of Personal, Family, and National Histories in Octavia Butler’s Kindred .............................................................................. 141 Conclusion: Feminism and the Fear of Failing: from Isadora Wing to Bridget Jones ............ 181 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………………….211 v Acknowledgments I am indebted to many people who have provided the support, encouragement, and guidance that made this dissertation possible – and, who maintained faith that I would someday finish it, even when that seemed unlikely. First and foremost, I want to think my committee for their support, wisdom and guidance. Susan Scheckel has been an amazing adviser and mentor. Not only has her intellectual support and feedback been crucial in shaping my work, but her enthusiasm, encouragement and constant advocacy on my behalf has been invaluable. It is no exaggeration to say that without her, this dissertation would not have been possible. I am also deeply indebted to Victoria Hesford for her scholarship as well as her close reading and extremely perceptive suggestions and comments which played a particularly important role in shaping the early chapters of the project. I owe a special thanks to Mary Jo Bona for her warmth and generosity in agreeing to share her expertise and insights in the final stages of the project and helping guide it to completion. I must also express my gratitude to Helen Scott, not only for her important role in shaping my political and literary interests during my undergraduate years but for her incredibly smart feedback and thought-provoking questions as an outside reader. I feel honored to have benefitted from the insight and wisdom of such an amazing group of women. To my family – particularly my parents—I owe a deep debt of gratitude. And, a special thank you to my brother Michael, my dissertation conscience, whose unflagging support and willingness to read and comment on drafts was instrumental. I am also grateful to Sarah Grey for sharing her sharp eye and immense talent in helping me to edit the dissertation. Lastly, I want to extend a deep and heartfelt thanks all my friends, who have provided me with the intellectual and emotional support that got me through this, especially: Anthony Arnove, Melissa Chinchillo, Seewan Eng, Christy Jones, Deepa Kumar, Peter Lamphere, Elaine McNamara, Vanessa Taylor, Sarah Watchorn and Lee Wengraf. In particular, I want to thank Lee Sustar for his advice, encouragement, generosity and friendship. vi Introduction It is no longer possible to ignore that voice, to dismiss the desperation of so many American women. This is not what being a woman means, no matter what the experts say. For human suffering there is a reason; perhaps the reason has not been found because the right questions have not been asked, or pressed far enough . The women who suffer this problem have a hunger that food cannot fill. We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: “I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.” —Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 1963 With these words, Betty Friedan launched the first conscious and widely recognized expression of second-wave feminism in the United States. By exposing the “problem with no name” plaguing millions of American women, Friedan’s pivotal work The Feminine Mystique provided a decisive spark to the long-quiet but smoldering anger of women in the United States. This spark would eventually ignite one of the most important mass movements of the 1960s and challenge the social, economic, and cultural basis of American society in pursuit of women’s liberation. For too long, women had been held hostage by the 1950s myth of the domestic bliss of the American housewife. As the reality of women’s lives increasingly came into contradiction with the Ozzie and Harriet image of American womanhood, it became clear that what had been deemed “personal” was, in fact, profoundly political. And, thus, a movement was born—one in which making the personal public was crucial to politicizing the domestic entrapment of women and challenging the very notion of separate “public” and “private” spheres. In a 2006 obituary, the New York Times wrote of Friedan that she “would be forever known as the suburban housewife who started a revolution with The Feminine Mystique. Rarely has a single book been responsible for such sweeping, tumultuous and continuing social transformation” (Fox). That The Feminine Mystique was a formative text for the incipient women’s liberation movement is uncontestable. The larger question remains: Why, at this specific moment of history, did such a book reignite a movement which up until then had seemed dead? For all their revolutionary potency, the ideas in Friedan’s work were not particularly new; they built on the work of the earlier women’s suffrage