Democracy (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Joan Didion
- First Published: 1984
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: The 1930’s to the 1980’s
- Setting: Hawaii, New York, and Southeast Asia
- Principal Characters: Inez Christian Victor, Harry Victor, Adlai, Carol Christian, Paul Christian, Dwight Christian, Janet Ziegler, Jack Lovett, R. W. “Billy” Dillon, Joan Didion
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Political fiction, Metafiction
- Subjects: 1950’s, 1960’s, 1970’s, Politics, Murder or homicide, Marriage, Alienation, Vietnam War, Adultery, Death or dying, Politicians, Lifestyles, Southeast Asia
- Locales: Saigon, Vietnam, Honolulu, HI, Southeast Asia
Form and Content
Joan Didion’s Democracy rewrites Henry’s Adams’ 1880 novel of the same name, about young widow Madeleine Lee’s attraction to and eventual distaste for American political power, from a more contemporary and specifically female point of view. Seven years in the making, Democracy, first titled “Angel Visits,” was originally set on Hawaii and dealt with three generations of a family that had benefited from and been shaped by the colonial imperative. Vestiges of that novel, “a study of provincial manners, in the acute tyrannies of class...
[The entire page is 2700 words long]
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