The Woman's View

An Anthology of Prose Passages about Women, from the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day

June Wedgwood Benn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000031287
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

What is it like being a woman – in society, in the home and as a person in one's own right? Originally published in 1967, here is a collection of passages, all linked by their theme, that of being a woman. They are taken from novels, essays, letters and diaries written by or about women concerning their psychology and position in society from the later eighteenth century onwards. In these days of emancipation and assumed equality (in some countries at any rate) it is as well to remember the very recent past and to look forward to the future, for all girls will have, certain problems to face just because they are girls. It is best to be prepared.

The anthology was chosen and organised for girls who were taking English, either for General Studies or in preparation for University. The extracts cover a wide range of styles and periods, and were selected both as representative of their time and as good examples of prose. Love, sex, marriage, motherhood and the wider role of women in society are among the topics covered, and there is an ample list of suggestions for further readings, biographical notes on the writers and suggested questions for discussions or essay-writing.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Young Girls from The House in Paris
• 2 Different Girls from The Waves
• 3 Being a girl from Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter
• 4 Growing Up I from The Member of the Wedding
• 5 Growing Up II from The Rainbow
• 6 Wanting a Chance in Life from The Story of an African Farm
• 7 Wanting Something More from Jane Eyre
• 8 A Young Girl’s Aspirations from Journals
• 9 Being Non-Educated from Letters
• 10 Weak Woman from A Vindication of the Rights of Women
• 11 Being in Love I from Emma
• 12 Planning for the Future from Middlemarch
• 13 Being a Governess from Agnes Grey
• 14 Being Engaged from The Egoist
• 15 Marriage for the Wrong Reasons—or to the Wrong Man from Portrait of a Lady
• 16 Love and Commonsense from Letters
• 17 Advising a Daughter on Life from Letters
• 18 Being Married from At the Bay
• 19 Being Married—and a Little Older from To The Lighthouse
• 20 Being a Bluestocking Married to a Genius from Letters
• 21 Wanting a Life of One’s Own from All Passion Spent
• 22 Escaping Temporarily from A View of the Harbour
• 23 How Life Passes from Tenterhooks
• 24 Coming Up for Air from Dangerous Ages
• 25 Bird in a Cage from A Doll’s House
• 26 Being an Outsider from The Holiday
• 27 Being Dissatisfied With the Love of Man from The Echoing Grove
• 28 Being a Sensitive Soul from Howards End
• 29 Loving from The Woodlanders
• 30 Being in Love II from Letters to Imlay
• 31 Man’s Ideal Wife—and Later from Middlemarch
• 32 Man’s Ideal of Woman from An Ideal Husband
• 33 Woman Playing Up to her role from An Ideal Husband
• 34 The Shavian Ideal of Woman and Man from Man and Superman
• 35 Being a ‘Free’ Woman from My Life
• 36 Bringing Up a Baby from A Proper Marriage
• 37 A Man Infatuated—and Out of Love from Liber Amoris
• 38 Being a Mother from Look the Other Way
• 39 A Man in two Minds from Nightmare Abbey
• 40 If Shakespeare had Been a Woman from A Room of One’s Own
• 41 Being a Political Woman from The New Machiavelli
• 42 Women and Fiction from Granite and Rainbow
• 43 Woman in Present Society from ‘The Guardian’
• Suggestions for Oral Discussion or Written Work
• Suggestions for Further Reading