Notes
Introduction 1. This term appears to have originated in a poem by Coventry Patmore from 1854, titled The Angel in the House, which cast women as pious, pure, submissive, and devoted to domesticity above all else. The repercussions of this idea are discussed in more detail on page 13 of this chapter. 2. I use the term “she-warriors” throughout this text to refer to vigilante heroines created by women authors. 3. Directed by Ridley Scott and starring Geena Davis as Thelma, and Susan Sarandon as Louise. 4. Directed by David Slade and starring Ellen Page. 5. Directed by Neil Jordan and starring Jodie Foster.
Chapter One: Great Vengeance and Furious Anger: The Female Avenger 1. In the original French, “L’Incontournable volume.” 2. This reading is borne out by the ending of Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, wherein Janie Crawford Woods is declared innocent of the shooting death of her husband, who attacks and attempts to murder her after he is stricken with Rabies. 3. Nevertheless, the members of the poor black Southern community where Sykes and Delia live understand the importance of Delia’s actions and do not bother to label them as crimes. Sykes, in fact, alienates himself from the community as a result of his laziness and fecklessness, while Delia remains within the good graces of her neighbors. 4. Helene Deutsch, author of The Psychology of Woman— A Psychoanalytical Interpretation (1944), attests, “While fully rec- ognising that woman’s position is subjected to external influence, I venture to say that the fundamental identities ‘feminine-passive’ and ‘masculine-active’ assert themselves in all known cultures and races, in various forms and various quantitative proportions” (qtd. in Friedan, Feminine Mystique, Ch 5). Although I disagree with this statement, I include it as evidence that this belief once held wide- spread currency. 172 NOTES
5. Rawlings is perhaps best known today for her later work, the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Yearling (1938) and the autobiographical Cross Creek (1942). 6. Such characters appear in other of Grau’s novels, for example, Roadwalkers (1994), her most recent novel, narrates the story of two homeless black children, who during the Great Depression travel like gypsies across the southern United States in search of food and shelter. 7. This paradox is a microcosm of the dilemma of vigilantism itself: when facing conflict, should a person rely on their personal morality of right and wrong, or should they abide by public law, which can be unjust and slow to change?
Chapter Two: Women Warriors and Women with Weapons 1. The middle- class ideology for femininity “developed in post-industrial England and America, [and] prescribed a woman who would be a Perfect Lady, an Angel in the House, contentedly submissive to men, but strong in her inner purity and religiosity, queen in her own realm in the Home” (Showalter 14). 2. Ann Jones writes, “properly understood . . . a motive is not the cause of [a] homicide, but the cause for the sake of which the homicide is committed.” In this chapter, when I speak of the motive for women to engage in armed combat, I am referring to the cause for the sake of which combat is undertaken. Ann Jones, Women Who Kill (New York: Fawcett Crest, 1980) 99. 3. Flanagan notes that transvestism is “viewed as an adult behavioral fetish, a means of procuring sexual gratification,” while transsexu- alism is a psychological condition that involves individuals who “identify with the opposite sex and may seek to live as a member of that sex.” Victoria Flanagan, Into the Closet: Cross-Dressing and the Gendered Body in Children’s Literature and Film (New York: Rutledge, Taylor & Francis, 2008) 3. 4. One example of this is Spenser’s Britomart from the canonical poem The Faerie Queene (1590). Britomart, disguised as a man, dressed in armor from head to toe, and armed with a phallic sword, fights in the name of Chastity. Spencer got the idea for this character from the fourteenth- century Italian epic poem Orlando Furioso, by Ludovico Ariosto, which features the female Christian warrior Bradamante. Spenser used the character of Britomart as a tribute to Queen Elizabeth, to justify the rule of an unmarried woman. The legendary Joan of Arc was also purported to be a virgin warrior. In 1429, at the age of 16, Joan donned male clothing and NOTES 173
a sword and mounted a horse to lead the Armagnac army to victory against the English army in Orleans. Joan was a mystic—she identi- fied two female saints and an archangel as the source of the voice compelling her to go to war. Anne Llewellyn Barstow writes, “Joan’s lesson for women is . . . to take themselves seriously . . . but the further message . . . is that women must not assume that their truth is accept- able in the world of male values.” Anne Llewellyn Barstow, Joan of Arc: Heretic, Mystic, Shaman (Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1986) xvi. 5. Rita Mae Brown was born on November 28, 1944, in Hanover, Pennsylvania, to an unwed mother. She was adopted by Ralph and Julia Brown, a working-class family who lived in Hanover until she was eleven years old, when the family moved to Florida. Brown attended the University of Florida on a full scholarship but was expelled from the school in 1964 for her political activity in the civil rights movement and for her outspoken lesbianism. She went on to receive a PhD in English and Political Science from the Institute of Policy Studies in Washington D.C. and has written more than fifteen novels to date. Harold Woodell, “Rita Mae Brown,” The History of Southern Women’s Literature, ed. Carolyn Perry and Mary Louise Weaks (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002). 6. The press was Daughters Inc., founded by June Arnold (see Chapter Four), Bertha Harris, and Charlotte Bunch. 7. Velazquez’s incredible career continued after her husband’s untimely death, when she became a Confederate spy and then published her shocking memoir. DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook, They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War (New York: Vintage, 2002) 178. 8. Quentin Compson, Buck McCaslin, and Thomas Sutpen, for example. 9. The verbena flower that Drusilla wears in her hair is representative of oppositions. Maryanne M. Gobble attests that it has historically been associated with “war and peace, love and death, and politics and domesticity,” and that according to legend, the early Romans declared war by “launching a spear decorated with verbena into the enemy’s territory” Maryanne M. Gobble, “The Significance of Verbena in William Faulkner’s ‘an Odor of Verbena’ ” Mississippi Quarterly 53.4 (2000). 572. 10. The portrait of Colonel Sartoris in The Unvanquished is closely mod- eled upon that of Colonel William Clark Falkner. (Rubin, Louis D. “Discovery of a Man’s Vocation.” Faulkner: Fifty Years after the Marble Faun. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1976). 174 NOTES
Chapter Three : The Woman Who Snaps, The Woman Who Kills 1. The fact that Beloved is unable to forgive Sethe for what she has done suggests, in a double entendre, that restitution can never adequately make up for the harms done to those forced to endure slavery. 2. Yet such an act would still be problematic, for it would, in the eyes of the slave owner and his men, affirm their opinion of blacks as “savage.” 3. I acknowledge that this might be argued otherwise in certain extreme cases, but I believe it is the exception rather than the rule. 4. Mikolchak argues that such desires “do not have a name,” because they are articulated within the patriarchal language structure that has no need to grant them expression. 5. Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, and Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” are examples of texts that invoke the metaphor of the caged bird to represent the restricted lives of women. This metaphor was especially common in the nineteenth century. 6. Perhaps arguably, because the reader is not witness to the death of Edna Pontellier. Rather, she swims out to sea until her arms and legs grow tired, and we are left to intuit the ending. 7. Susan Glaspell (1876–1948) was born in Davenport, Iowa, and graduated from Drake University. She is the author of more than 50 short stories, nine novels, eleven plays, and a biography; she won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Chapter Four: The Female Bandit/Outlaw 1. Lesbian feminist June Arnold was born in South Carolina but spent most of her life in Texas. She attended Vassar College and Rice University. After getting married and having four children, Arnold moved to New York City to become a writer. There she wrote and published her first novel, Applesauce (1966). Subsequently, Arnold moved to Vermont, where, with novelist Bertha Harris and political theorist Charlotte Bunch, she founded Daughters Inc. Press in 1973. In its five brief years of existence, Daughters Inc. published thirty titles, most notably Rita Mae Brown’s groundbreaking Rubyfruit Jungle (1973) and Harris’s innovative Lover (1976). The press also published Arnold’s next two novels, The Cook and the Carpenter, a Novel by the Carpenter (1973) and Baby Houston (1987) (published posthumously). Arnold died at age fifty-five in Houston in 1982. Carla Williams, “Arnold, June,” glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, NOTES 175
Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture (December 14, 2002), March 10, 2009
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abortion 107, 113 Baker, Charles 88 Abrahams, Roger D. 26 Bakhtin, Mikhail 34 Absher, Tom 82 banditry 9–10, 130, 132–33, abuse 28, 94–95, 117, 123, 125, 135–36, 140–41, 144, 154, 169 160–61, 169 Adie, Kate 74–75 acts of 145 ageism 130 illegal acts of 140, 169 Aisenberg, Nadya 43, 59–60, 75, bandits 2, 9–10, 80, 129–32, 79, 141 136–37, 141, 146–51, 154–57, Allen, Jeffner 58, 90, 165 159–61, 169 Allen, Paula Gunn 59–60, 75, 79 American 130 Althusser, Louis 116 women 9, 129 American women 2–3, 10, 55, 93, Barstow, Anne Llewellyn 173 108, 166 batterers 21, 24, 116 angel 4, 10, 171–72 Ben-Zvi, Linda 116 domestic 7, 56 Bendel-Simso, Mary M. 117–18 Aristotle 38 Berglund, Jeff 153 armor 66, 70, 72, 172 bird 118–19 army 70, 89 black community 24, 146 Confederate Army 74–75, 81 black men 11, 28, 84 Arnold, June 9, 129, 133, 135, black women 11, 22, 26, 28, 31, 137–38, 141–42, 145–46, 160, 40, 42, 79, 97, 120–21, 123, 169, 173–74 143, 152, 177 Sister Gin 9, 129, 132, 143–5, black women’s bodies 79 147, 149, 160, 169–70 blackness 153 assault 26 Blanton, DeAnne and Lauren M. sexual 14–15, 93 Cook 173 authority 26, 58, 66, 70, 77, 114, body, female 6, 20, 26–27, 32, 40, 131, 155–56 45, 52–53, 58, 61, 116 phallic 30–31, 124 bravery 46, 70, 88, 131, 153, 157, autobiography 23, 64–66 167, 170 avenger 17–18, 21, 31, 38, 40, 87, breasts 105 100, 102, 141, 150 Britomart 8, 172 virtuous 8, 17–19 Brooks, Cleanth 85 avenging female 7, 19, 28, 32, 51, Brown, Gillian 20 140 Brown, Richard Maxwell 29, 130 186 INDEX
Brown, Rita Mae 61, 73–74, Costello, Judy 63, 94, 151, 168 76–77, 79–82, 84, 90, 130, courage 30, 57, 62, 85–86, 125, 167, 173 134, 150, 154, 161 High Hearts 8, 55, 60, 73–74, crime 9, 11, 17, 19, 29, 31–32, 94, 77, 80, 84, 91, 167 96–98, 115, 118, 125, 129–31, Rubyfruit Jungle 73, 174 140, 147, 151, 153–54, 164, Bukoski, Anthony 45 166, 168, 171 Butler, Judith 78 criminals 5, 7, 131, 141–42 cross dressing 6, 68–70, 76, 78, care giving 10, 123 91 caregiver 39, 156 Culberson, William C. 5, 18–19, castration, symbolic 77, 88 28–29, 163 Cheung, King-Kok 66–67 cultural contexts 12 Chew, Martha 28, 73 culture 13, 49, 59, 66, 71, 73, Chinese women 65 103, 119, 126, 134, 160, 167, Chinese American 63–64, 171 72–73, 167 Chopin, Kate 3, 104, 108–10, de Beauvoir, Simone 107 114, 166, 174 death 14, 22, 27, 31, 43, 52, 57, The Awakening 3, 52, 104, 109, 62–63, 71, 96, 99–100, 102, 112–13, 166, 174 107, 112, 114–15, 160, 168, Civil War 74–75, 130, 154–55, 173–74 173 symbolic 49, 63 Cixous, Hélène 49–50, 58–59, defense 7, 25, 151–52 93, 106, 114, 119, 126 Delaney, Janice, Mary Jane Lupton, Clarke, Deborah 85, 87–88, and Emily Toth 135 155–56 demons 129, 141 clothes 22–23, 70, 84, 146 Deutsch, Helene 171 collective consciousness 51, 53 dignity 55, 110, 139–40 color, women of 122, 125 disempower 103, 125 communication 49, 91, 119 disguise 8, 68–70, 74–76, 78, 167 nonverbal 119 dominance 12, 24, 52, 56, 94–95, community 18, 29, 39, 41, 43, 135 45–46, 48–49, 53, 83–84, Dong, Lan 72 116, 131, 138, 140–41, 143, 145, 147, 158, 171 Eagleton, Terry 34 complicity, women’s 145 Edwards, Louise 68 conflict 7, 29, 41, 45, 52, 58, 95, elderly 140, 143 117, 161, 172 emotions 38, 55, 58, 108–09, social 40 135, 139 container 20–21, 25, 34, 48, 142 empathy 117–18 container metaphor 25 empowerment 7, 95, 130, 167 control 11–12, 20, 24, 43, 53, 56, new 6, 32 63, 76, 82, 110–13, 115–16, personal 8, 19 121, 123–24, 142, 156 women’s 144 women relinquish 110 Entzminger, Betina 2 INDEX 187 essentialism 57–58 Flagg, Fannie 9, 15, 144–46, euthanasia 96, 102 152–54, 160, 169–70 extralegal action 2, 21, 53, 95, Fried Green Tomatoes 129, 134, 125–26, 133, 145 139–40, 144–45, 152, 154, 160, 169 Fa Mu Lan see Mulan Flanagan, Victoria 32, 68–69, 76, failure 21, 46, 50, 89, 109 78, 172 family 2, 20, 25, 40–45, 48, Flaubert, Gustave 110, 114 61–62, 65, 67, 70, 76, 80, Madame Bovary 104, 107, 109 86, 98–99, 116–17, 123, 132, free will 126, 133, 143, 150, 164 143–44, 150, 152, 154, 156, freedom 3, 15–16, 45, 53, 63–64, 158–59, 164, 166, 173 69, 75, 81, 104–05, 112, 116, home 44, 48 120, 131, 133, 144, 156–57, Family Violence Prevention 165–66, 170 Fund 93 French, Peter A. 5, 17–19, 31, 38, Faulkner, William 10, 80–90, 99–100, 141 130, 154–57, 159–61, 173, Freud, Sigmund 136 175 concept of doubling 136 Absalom, Absalom 155 Flags in the Dust 155 Garber, Marjorie 69, 71, 85 The Unvanquished 10, 80, 130, Garcia, A. M. 11 154–55, 160–61, 173 Garner, Margaret 98 fear 14–15, 20, 24, 29, 45, 88, 94, gender 6–7, 12, 22, 27, 30, 45, 57, 102, 111, 113, 117, 119, 133, 66, 69–70, 77–78, 85–86, 88, 138–39, 141, 144, 150, 153, 91, 115–16, 121, 124–25, 148, 158 153, 155–57, 159, 167, 169 fear of women 142, 166 gender roles 7, 22, 36, 51, 70, female characters 16, 39, 74, 77–78, 156, 167 76–77, 81, 115, 154 traditional 61, 77 female container 34–35 gendered roles 96, 160 feminine 7, 11, 13, 22, 32, 35–36, Gilbert, Sandra M. 49 50, 59, 67, 70, 72, 76, 78, Gilligan, Carol 60, 67, 167 81–2, 85–88, 146–47, 155, Gilman, Charlotte Perkins 3, 121, 167 166 attributes 81–82, 87, 89 “The Yellow Wallpaper” 3, 121, behavior 69, 95, 126 166 characteristics 9, 82–83 girls 11, 39, 63, 65, 68, 71, 74, power 32, 87–88 79, 97, 99, 105, 107, 121, 123, traits 12, 78–79 138, 142–43 voice 119 Glaspell, Susan 9, 97, 114–15, femininity 3, 6, 10–12, 24, 30, 117–19, 168, 174 56, 59, 69, 85, 90–91, 107, “A Jury Of Her Peers” 114 172 Gobble, Maryanne M. 86, 173 feminism 11–12, 109, 133 God 23, 25, 157, 179 feminists 14, 149, 163, 165 government 18, 31, 96 Fictional World Theory 67 Grana, Sheryl J. 24, 116, 119 188 INDEX
Grau, Shirley Ann 7, 19, 39–42, housekeeper 37, 44, 121 44–45, 47, 49–50, 89, 164 housewife 9, 108–09, 111, 160 The Keepers of the House 7, 19, Hua Mulan see Mulan 39, 40, 50, 52–53, 89, 139, Hurston, Zora Neale 7, 19, 21–24, 164 26–33, 52, 123, 151, 164, 171 Greek warrior goddesses 2 Dust Tracks on a Road: An grotesque 34–35, 111 Autobiography 23 grotesque bodies 35 “Sweat” 7, 19, 21, 24, 26, 29, gun 18, 57, 124–25, 151 31–33, 45, 52, 123, 151, 164 pistols 86 Their Eyes Were Watching God 28, 171 Harbison, Sherrill 85 Heberle, Renée 97 illegal acts 2, 5, 69, 155–57 Heilbrun, Carolyn G. 4, 15 illegal violence 8, 19, 164 Heinzelman, Susan Sage 10 inaction 31 hero 59 India 103, 107, 109, 112, 114 heroines 3–4, 6–9, 12, 15, 19, 21, inequity 97, 120, 126, 143 49, 53, 55, 59, 61, 67–68, 71, infanticide 96, 102 74, 81–82, 90, 93, 95–97, 104, injustice 1, 7, 19, 38, 51, 53, 70, 110, 112, 114, 116, 126, 130, 98, 101–02, 126, 131, 140, 154, 164, 166–67, 169 144, 149, 169–70 adulterous 114 correct 140, 144, 150 heroism 7, 10, 62, 144, 150–51 Inness, Sherrie A. 65 Heyward, Carter 13 Irigaray, Luce 20, 27, 30, 51, hierarchy 24, 29, 39, 50, 88, 133, 58–59, 61, 163 152, 154 irony 83, 105 Hobsbawm, Eric 18, 131, 147–48, isolation 5, 116 157 home 6, 10, 14, 19–27, 29, 32–35, Jackson, Stevi 123 37, 39–43, 45, 48, 52–53, 57, Jacoby, Susan 2, 7, 17 72, 76, 81, 84, 86, 93, 98, Jones, Ann 15, 94, 113, 117, 126, 101–02, 108, 115–18, 121, 169, 172 142, 144, 164–65, 172 Jones, Anne Goodwyn 155 ancestral 48, 50, 53 jury 118–19, 166 family’s 45 justice 2, 4, 13, 19, 21–22, 28, husband’s 106 40–41, 53, 56, 90, 95, 97, 101, protagonist’s 25, 53 118, 120, 125–26, 131, 140, homelessness 14, 93 148, 150, 154, 160–61, 164, homicide 169, 172 166, 169–70, 175 honor 57, 59–61, 67, 75, 83, 85, vigilante 1, 6, 8, 32 87, 89, 91, 131, 157–59 hooks, bell 11, 57 Kelly, Liz 14 house 20, 22, 24–26, 30, 33–34, killers 2, 124 38–40, 42–45, 48, 50, 52–53, women who kill 93–96, 117, 64, 81, 89, 115–16, 139, 142, 126 171–72 killing 9, 100–01, 120, 168, 183 INDEX 189
Kingston, Maxine Hong 60–62, masculine 6, 12–13, 22, 25, 32, 64–68, 71–74, 81–82, 84, 90, 36, 50, 59, 67, 70, 72, 79, 150, 167 82–83, 87–89, 91, 95, 156, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of 167 a Girlhood Among Ghosts 8, masculinity 10–12, 69, 76, 84, 55, 60–62, 64–66, 69, 73, 91, 155, 181 150, 167 maternal 37, 39, 42, 77, 82, 144 Kinser, Brent E. 33 Maynard, Mary 11, 14, 165 Kissel, Susan 46 menopause 130, 132–36, 144, 175 Lacan, Jacques 58–59 menstruation 62, 71 Ladd, Barbara 11 metaphor 25–26, 35, 45, 63, 112, language 24, 48, 56, 58–59, 67, 116, 118, 121, 132–33, 174 73, 91, 109, 119, 166–67 Mikolchak, Maria 104, 109–11, 174 language system 56, 58–59, 119 mirroring 136–7 laughter 49, 89 miscegenation 40 law 3, 5–7, 14, 17, 19, 25, 27, 29, Mitchell, Juliet 13 42, 49, 70, 97–99, 116–18, money 22, 52, 100, 121–22, 142, 120, 122–23, 125–26, 158 129–30, 138, 142, 144–48, monsters 95 160–61, 165–66, 168–70, moral dilemmas 60 172 morality 3, 25, 31, 63 lawyer 5, 47–48, 120–24 Morrison, Toni 26, 96, 99–101, legal recourse 2, 19, 31 182 lesbianism 132–33, 136, 138 Beloved 96, 98–99, 101–02, 174 Lips, Hilary M. 11–12 mortality 60 Lizzie Thynne 138 Mother Nature 43 Locke, John 18, 31, 141 Mothering-morality 10, 130, love 61, 67, 75, 77, 80, 86, 91, 136–37, 145, 161 98, 101, 108, 113, 123, 136, Motomura, Koji 87 151–52, 163, 173 Mukherjee, Bharati 9, 96, 102– Lowe, John 28 03, 105–07, 110, 168 loyalty 45, 57, 67–68, 123, 152 Wife 9, 102–04, 109, 114, 120–21, 168 MacDonald, Myra 119 Mulan 64–65, 67–68, 72–73, 167 MacKinnon, Catherine A. 10–11, murder 9, 32, 41, 57, 91, 95–101, 83, 98–99, 112, 116, 122, 125, 104, 113–15, 117, 120, 125– 163 26, 151–53, 167–69, 171 madness 3, 86, 88–89, 95, 97, murderesses 94 168–69 Murphy, Jeffrie 17 Marcus, Jane 132, 136, 143 marriage 10, 23, 30, 43, 46, 72, narrator 39, 52, 62, 121–25, 75–76, 89, 104–08, 110–12, 137–38, 152 117, 119 nature 36, 43, 57, 59, 70–71, 74, Martindale, Kathleen 14, 58, 74, 155 90, 103, 123, 165 performative 159–60 190 INDEX
Noe, Marcia 115 129, 132, 134–35, 139, 149, nonviolence 9, 56–58, 62–63, 70, 152–53, 160, 175 90, 123, 125, 151, 165 social 42, 48 Nussbaum, Martha C. 158 uneven distribution of 134, 169 power dynamics 59, 66, 124 O’Connor, Thomas 5 powerlessness 33, 46, 55, 58, 63, Oleksy, Elzbieta 41 121, 124, 145–46, 165 Olsen, Tillie 3 Powers, Peter Kerry 23 Yonnondio 3 Prenshaw, Peggy Whitman 33 opposition 29, 76, 136, 138, 155, Price, Joshua 20 173, 175 primitivism 42–44, 152 oppression 2–3, 9, 13, 91, 97, protection 6, 34, 36, 63, 72, 96, 110, 114, 121, 123, 126, 144, 100, 120, 123, 126, 151 150–51, 163–64, 166–67 punish 21, 44, 47, 53, 100, 102, outlaws 18, 131, 147 142–43 ownership 27, 44, 101 punishment 2, 8, 17–19, 31–32, 50, 62, 100, 117, 141 Parker, Pamela Lorraine 46 purity 10, 70–71, 141 passive resistance 97, 123, 165 patriarchal justice system 119, 168 queens 2, 8, 10, 172 patriarchy 11–13, 39, 51, 56, 58, Quinby, Lee 73 68–69, 113, 134–35, 148, 164–65 Rabine, Leslie W. 66 Pavel, Thomas G. 65, 67 race 6, 11, 45, 49, 56, 79, 89, peace 73, 82, 84, 173 121–22, 148, 152–53, 155, Pearson, Patricia 14 158, 169, 171 personal identity 21–22, 53 rage 46, 57, 121, 123, 136, 143, personal transformation 51–52 157 personhood 3–4, 60, 74, 82, 107, rape 120–22, 141–43, 169 133, 135, 168–69 rapists 122–23, 141–42, 165 Peterson, Christopher 98 Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan 7, 19, phallus 58 32–35, 37–39, 52–53, 164, 172 Pipher, Mary 107 “Gal Young ‘Un” 7, 19, 32–39, Plath, Sylvia 3 52–53 The Bell Jar 3 Rawls, John 13 plot 1, 4, 15, 50, 66, 94, 104, realist texts 7, 94–95, 125 143, 169 reality 20, 37–38, 60, 65–67, 83, wifely adultery 104 106, 108, 110, 122, 146 women’s 3 realization, woman’s 160 women’s fictional 169–70 redemption 63, 90 women’s literary 2 relationship 13, 36, 39, 42–43, Polk, Noel 82, 84–85, 158–59 60, 83, 116, 120, 122–24, 131, power 8, 10–11, 13–14, 19, 136–37, 139, 152 21–27, 29, 35, 39, 48, 52, representations 11, 22, 49, 53, 55–58, 64, 70–73, 87, 91, 94, 56, 69–71, 91, 117, 130, 135, 96, 103, 107, 116, 123, 125, 152–53, 166 INDEX 191 resistance 2–3, 5, 7, 52, 94, 109, society 2, 4, 8, 12–13, 19, 29, 33, 123, 138–39, 164 35, 39–40, 51, 53, 65, 70, 80, individual acts of 9, 169 90, 94, 96, 113–14, 117, 132, women’s 94 135, 167 retaliate 8, 19, 164–65 soldiers 18, 59–60, 72, 75, 77, 80, retribution 19, 31, 86–87, 100 82, 155 revenge 2, 7, 17, 19, 25, 48, Southern womanhood 79 51–52, 73, 100, 124, 131 assertive 159 women’s 2 new 154 Rich, Adrienne 130, 137 Southern Women’s Literature 173 rights 105, 112, 144, 151, 169 Springer, Kimberly 79 women’s 5, 99, 163 Stacey, Jackie 12 Rockler, Naomi 152 status quo 1–2, 28, 82–83, 95, Rosoff, Betty 58 160–61 Rubin Jr., Louis D. 88 stereotypes 6, 11, 79–80, 85, 95, Rushdy, Ashraf H. A. 100 142 subordination 12, 87, 103 Saunders, Martha 14 suicide 3, 62, 95–97, 102, 114, Schipper, Mineke 20, 34 166, 168 Schlueter, Paul 40–42 surrender 9–10, 29, 55, 80 Seidel, Kathryn Lee 26 Sweeny, Megan 101 self-care 10, 137, 148–49 swordswoman 73 self-defense 19, 63, 94–95, 123, symbol 20, 29–30, 87, 108, 118 131, 151, 165 self-sacrifice 55–56, 62, 83, 89, Tarr, Rodger L. 32–33, 39 94–95, 103, 113–14, 126, 139, terror 18, 24, 119 148, 168 threat 23, 28–29, 65, 96, 123–24, sex 7, 12, 28, 58, 78, 87, 89, 159 112–13, 122–23, 135, 154, threshold 21, 53 167, 172 Thynne, Lizzie 138 sexuality 27, 30, 56–57, 68, tradition 51, 71, 81, 96, 103–04, 70–71, 91, 112, 133, 145, 159 121, 131, 140 shame 88, 134–35, 141, 158 transcend 59–60, 159 she–warrior 7, 56, 67, 83 transgress 48, 69–70, 155 Showalter, Elaine 10, 172 transvestism 68–69, 172 Simmons, Diane 62, 68 trial 107, 115, 151, 153 skillet 25, 151–52, 175 truth 13, 49–50, 67, 74, 131, 173 slavery 11, 79, 98–101, 158 Tung, Charlene 79 slaves 38, 64, 159 Twine, Richard T. 57 Slotkin, Richard 124, 131 Smith, Sidonie 66 unhappiness 111, 133–34, 149 snake 21, 29–31, 164–65 Union Army 155, 157 social constructions 91 Union soldiers 155–56 social dysfunction 35, 40 United States 2–3, 8, 14, 73–74, social order 3–4, 29, 32, 44, 129, 93, 103, 107, 112, 130, 143, 158 145, 160–61 192 INDEX values 12, 24, 40–41, 52, 61, 63, weapons 8, 25, 55, 57, 72, 91, 95, 84, 87, 129, 137, 142–43, 150, 122, 166, 172 158–59 wedding 84, 86, 106 vengeance 2, 5, 7, 17, 19, 31, 40, Wheelwright, Julie 70–71 48, 50, 67, 73, 96, 100, 102, whip 25, 30 129, 141, 164 whiteness 24, 45, 152 woman’s 2 Whitford, Margaret 20 victimization, women’s 127 widow 33–34 victims 11, 93–95, 131, 140, 166 wife 2, 9, 22, 27–28, 36, 46–47, victory 70, 72, 173 50, 64, 68, 71–72, 76–77, vigilante acts 8, 15, 63, 96, 102, 102–03, 109–10, 112, 114–15, 141, 145, 163–64 120–21, 168–69 vigilantes 3, 5–6, 8, 14 Wild West 1 vigilantism 3–6, 15, 17–18, 29, Williams, Carla 174 97–99, 102–04, 129, 138, 145, witches 141–42, 147 154, 163–64, 166, 172 woman destructive 8, 18 average 33 violence 7–8, 11, 14–15, 18–20, changed 144 51, 55, 60, 64, 79, 87–88, common 80 90–91, 93–97, 105, 116, elderly 145 119, 122, 151, 159, 164–65, elderly servant 152 167–68 false 50 domestic 57, 93–94 feminine 10 emotional 14, 53, 93 legendary 42 gendered 125 loose 148 household 24 mother- 109 physical 4, 9, 15, 38, 104, 116, newlywed 107 155, 168 situated 59 retributive 39, 86 slave 79 women’s 14, 96 sound 34 virgin 34, 71, 106, 149, 172 unmarried 172 woman-as-victim 94, 125 Walker, Alice 9, 26, 97, 120, 122– woman warrior’s arsenal 57 23, 125, 168 womanhood 11, 38–39, 76, 85, “How Did I Get Away With 95, 122, 136, 167 Killing One Of The Biggest actual 36 Lawyers In The State? It Was assertive 56 Easy” 9, 120, 168 womanly activity 25 Wall, Cheryl A. 22–24, 98 womanly behavior 6 warrior woman 8, 55, 60–66, woman’s body 9, 35 68–69, 71, 73, 80–81, 85, 150, womb 25, 34, 39, 126 160, 167 women warrior women 2, 57–58, 61, 64, abused 125 71–73, 80 battered 21 water 43, 62–63, 70, 98 fictional 60 INDEX 193
oppress 12–13 Woodell, Harold 173 real 55, 61, 63 Workman, Thom 58 strong 3, 84 Wyatt-Brown, Bertram 158–59 violent 96 younger 136, 149 Yaeger, Patricia 35, 43, 89, 111, younger generations of 13, 161 136 women writers 1, 3, 133, 167 “Amphora Princess” 35, 86, 89 women’s fiction 2–3, 15, 121 Dirt and Desire: Reconstructing women’s sphere 3 Southern Womens’s Wong, Sau-Ling Cynthia 71 Writing 35, 43, 74