The Odd Woman (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Gail Godwin
- First Published: 1974
- Type of Plot: Comic realism
- Time of Work: The early 1970’s
- Setting: A Midwestern university town, a Southern town, New York City, and Chicago
- Principal Characters: Jane Clifford, Edith Barnstorff, Kitty Sparks, Gabriel Weeks, Gerda Mulvaney
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction
- Subjects: Teaching or teachers, 1970’s, Family or family life, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., Self-discovery, United States or Americans, Mothers, Parents and children, South or Southerners, Literature, Marriage, Midwest, Chicago, Feminism, Women’s issues, Adultery, Women, Single people, Stepfamily, Happiness
- Locales: New York, NY, South (U.S.), Chicago, IL
The Novel
The title and central issue of Gail Godwin’s story are based upon George Gissing’s 1893 novel, The Odd Women—a pessimistic study of the possibilities of women in the late nineteenth century. Godwin’s The Odd Woman is one character’s search in the late twentieth century to resolve her personal story: Will Jane Clifford find a perfect faithfulness in marriage, the kind of love George Eliot and George Henry Lewes had, or will she remain “odd” in the sense of Gissing’s women, single, unpaired? The novel spans Jane’s semester break at a...
[The entire page is 2314 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
See Also
