Book contents
- Sylvia Plath in Context
- Sylvia Plath in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Chronology
- Abbreviations and Textual Note
- Key Archives
- Introduction
- Part I Literary Contexts
- Part II Literary Technique and Influence
- Part III Cultural Contexts
- Part IV Sexual and Gender Contexts
- Chapter 16 ‘Minor Scandal’: Lesbian Writing Contexts for The Bell Jar
- Chapter 17 ‘Woman-haters Were Like Gods’: The Bell Jar and Violence Against Women in 1950s America
- Chapter 18 Plath and the Culture of Hygiene
- Part V Political and Religious Contexts
- Part VI Biographical Contexts
- Part VII Plath and Place
- Part VIII The Creative Afterlife
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 16 - ‘Minor Scandal’: Lesbian Writing Contexts for The Bell Jar
from Part IV - Sexual and Gender Contexts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 August 2019
- Sylvia Plath in Context
- Sylvia Plath in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Chronology
- Abbreviations and Textual Note
- Key Archives
- Introduction
- Part I Literary Contexts
- Part II Literary Technique and Influence
- Part III Cultural Contexts
- Part IV Sexual and Gender Contexts
- Chapter 16 ‘Minor Scandal’: Lesbian Writing Contexts for The Bell Jar
- Chapter 17 ‘Woman-haters Were Like Gods’: The Bell Jar and Violence Against Women in 1950s America
- Chapter 18 Plath and the Culture of Hygiene
- Part V Political and Religious Contexts
- Part VI Biographical Contexts
- Part VII Plath and Place
- Part VIII The Creative Afterlife
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Beatrice Hitchman situates The Bell Jar within an intriguing cultural moment for gay and lesbian fiction in the United States. She provides an original and fascinating account of the novel within the context of the boom in lesbian pulp fiction of the late 1950s and early 1960s, popular psychological writings, and the lesbian bar culture in West Village during the period, all of which helped to place images of lesbians in a wider circulation. Hitchman reads Joan Gilling as a lesbian character, considering The Bell Jar in the context of lesbian fiction of the time, offering a new account of the novel within a cultural moment of acceptance/rejection of lesbian rights.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Sylvia Plath in Context , pp. 169 - 179Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019