TY - BOOK ID - 77860526 TI - From girl to woman : American women's coming-of-age narratives PY - 2003 SN - 9781417524138 0791486885 1417524138 9781417524136 0791457214 9780791457214 0791457222 9780791457221 9780791486887 PB - Albany : State University of New York Press, DB - UniCat KW - Feminist criticism. KW - Women and literature KW - Autobiography KW - Self-realization. KW - Maturation (Psychology) KW - Social role. KW - Women KW - Women's studies KW - Criticism KW - Autobiography of women KW - Women's autobiography KW - Fulfillment (Ethics) KW - Self-fulfillment KW - Ethics KW - Success KW - Satisfaction KW - Growth (Psychology) KW - Personal development KW - Personal growth KW - Developmental psychology KW - Role, Social KW - Social psychology KW - Social status KW - Female identity KW - Feminine identity KW - Identity (Psychology) KW - Literature KW - Female studies KW - Feminist studies KW - Women studies KW - Education KW - Women authors. KW - Identity. KW - Biographical methods. KW - Study and teaching KW - Curricula KW - Role (Sociology) UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:77860526 AB - From Girl to Woman examines the coming-of-age narratives of a diverse group of American women writers, including Annie Dillard, Zora Neale Hurston, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Mary McCarthy, and explores the crucial role of such narratives in the development of American feminism. Women have long known that identity is complex and contradictory, but in the twentieth century their coming-of-age narratives finally voice this knowledge. Addressing a variety of themes—awakening sexuality, the body's metamorphosis in puberty, consciousness of difference from males, and the socialization into feminine gender roles—these narratives reject the heroine's narrative ending in romance, allowing American women writers to create alternative subjectivities by rejecting the notion that identity is ever fixed. While activists have succeeded in winning legal battles that have changed the legal status of women, these narratives perform the cultural work of exposing the painful contradictions faced by women as they come of age. ER -