Three Lives (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Gertrude Stein
- First Published: 1909
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: The early twentieth century
- Setting: The fictional town of Bridgepoint
- Principal Characters: Anna Federner, Miss Mathilda, Mrs. Lehntman, Melanctha Herbert, Rose Johnson, Jane Harden, Dr. Jeff Campbell, Jem Richards, Lena Mainz, Mrs. Haydon, Herman Kreder, Mrs. Kreder
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Naturalistic literature
- Subjects: African Americans, United States or Americans, Love or romance, Sex or sexuality, Twentieth century, Nineteenth century, Class consciousness, Immigration or emigration, Women’s issues, Servants, Tuberculosis
- Locales: Bridgepoint (fictive)
Form and Content
Three Lives consists of three episodes, the novella-length “Melanctha” and two short pieces, “The Good Anna” and “The Gentle Lena.” The work is generally called a novel because of its thematic unity, although it is not a novel in the conventional sense of the word. Stein set out to portray “the bottom nature,” as she called it, of three lower-middle-class women employed as domestic servants. In all three episodes, Stein pushes language to its extremes, using her rhetoric to reflect salient elements in the three women about whom she...
[The entire page is 2429 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
See Also
