Event Title
A Friendly Discourse: How Should A Person Be? At the Intersection of Female Friendship and Epistolarity
Location
King Building 237
Document Type
Presentation
Start Date
4-27-2018 3:00 PM
End Date
4-27-2018 4:20 PM
Abstract
Though English literary conventions of the 18th and 19th centuries often underrate the value of friendship between women and maximize the importance of heterosexual romance in the form of the marriage plot, the “female friendship plot” began to emerge in the 1970s and is experiencing a contemporary resurgence in novels of the last few years. I look at Sheila Heti’s autobiographical novel How Should A Person Be? (2012) as a particular form of female friendship novel which integrates an epistolary structure. Because epistolarity, traditionally associated with erotic heterosexual romance, has been deconstructed by critics and novelists of the 20th century, my analysis locates Sheila Heti’s novel in a literary moment when amorous discourse through letters is problematized and female friendship is ripe territory for fiction. Ultimately my analysis combines a critical discussion of female friendship in fiction with a theoretical history of epistolarity and asks: what kind of “friendly discourse” can exist at the intersection, and what does it ultimately mean for two female characters who are friends?
Keywords:
female friendship, writing, écriture feminine, epistolary friendships
Recommended Citation
Cohen, Leah, "A Friendly Discourse: How Should A Person Be? At the Intersection of Female Friendship and Epistolarity" (04/27/18). Senior Symposium. 61.
https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/seniorsymp/2018/presentations/61
Major
English; Creative Writing
Advisor(s)
Gillian Johns, English
Sylvia Watanabe, Creative Writing
Project Mentor(s)
Sandy Zagarell, English
April 2018
A Friendly Discourse: How Should A Person Be? At the Intersection of Female Friendship and Epistolarity
King Building 237
Though English literary conventions of the 18th and 19th centuries often underrate the value of friendship between women and maximize the importance of heterosexual romance in the form of the marriage plot, the “female friendship plot” began to emerge in the 1970s and is experiencing a contemporary resurgence in novels of the last few years. I look at Sheila Heti’s autobiographical novel How Should A Person Be? (2012) as a particular form of female friendship novel which integrates an epistolary structure. Because epistolarity, traditionally associated with erotic heterosexual romance, has been deconstructed by critics and novelists of the 20th century, my analysis locates Sheila Heti’s novel in a literary moment when amorous discourse through letters is problematized and female friendship is ripe territory for fiction. Ultimately my analysis combines a critical discussion of female friendship in fiction with a theoretical history of epistolarity and asks: what kind of “friendly discourse” can exist at the intersection, and what does it ultimately mean for two female characters who are friends?
Notes
Session V, Panel 16 - Gendered | Culture
Moderator: Shelley Lee, Associate Professor and Chair of Comparative American Studies, Associate Professor of History