Female Outcasts

Book excerpt: This book analyses the cultural and social subordination of women in American society as represented in the American novelistic tradition in the context of sociological, psychological, and historical perspectives peculiar to the period. The selection of the novels has been based on a wide range of different cultural and historical periods, which enables the reader to witness the general outcast position of woman as depicted in the American novel and her subordination in this society by way of some historical and cultural forces. The endeavor has been to illustrate how, from the earliest examples of the American novel depicting colonial life to the contemporary ethnic and minority novels, the persistent negative image as social stereotypes are imposed on women as an unavoidable and unalterable destiny.