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The Bleeding Heart

KAREN ALKALAY-GUT (REVIEW DATE FALL 1983)

SOURCE: Alkalay-Gut, Karen. "The 'Stirring Conversation': American Literature and The Bleeding Heart." Atlantis: A Women's Studies Journal 9, no. 1 (fall 1983): 129-31.

In the following review, Alkalay-Gut examines the plot, structure, and characters in The Bleeding Heart, concluding that French's examination of gender roles in the novel is a "step in the right direction."

When Marilyn French's The Bleeding Heart was first reviewed, the major criticism levelled against it was that there was too much talking about issues. "Overly polemical," says Julia Klein of The New Republic.¹ "… It is hard to believe it is her incessant rhetoric that instructs either her lover or her reader," says Rosellen Brown in The New York Times Book...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Primary Sources
   1. Marilyn French (Essay Date 1990)
4. Title Commentary
   1. The Women's Room
   2. The Bleeding Heart
   3. Her Mother's Daughter
5. Further Reading
6. Copyright

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