Search - Understanding Jill McCorkle (Understanding Contemporary American Literature)

Understanding Jill McCorkle - Understanding Contemporary American Literature
Author: Barbara Bennett

"Understanding Jill McCorkle" introduces readers to the novels and short story collections of Jill McCorkle's growing canon. Since 1984 McCorkle has written five novels and two books of short stories, entering the publishing world, as one reviewer noted, "with the literary equivalent of a rebel yell". Filling the gap of critical study on McCorkl...  more »e, Barbara Bennett analyzes the widely read and admired output of this prolific southern woman writer. Bennett identifies and discusses the diverse characters, thematic concerns and keen sense of language that distinguish McCorkle's work. Bennett offers a brief overview of McCorkle's life, traces the influence on her work, and places her decisively in the "third generation" of 20th-century southern writers. While noting McCorkle's links to such prominent southern women writers as Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor, Bennett explains how McCorkle's characterizations, attitude of affirmation and references to popular culture distance her from her predecessors. Bennett devotes individual chapters to each of McCorkle's novels and story collections. She discusses the themes that unify these diverse works, including the tension between independence and dependence, the imbuing presence of strength in femininity, the direct conflict between the nurturing of others and the preservation of self, and the opposition of purity and virginity to sexual freedom and expression. Bennett explores McCorkle's development of characters ranging from a young white girl approaching womanhood to a troubled middle-aged man reviewing his life's choices, from an elderly black woman on the verge of retirement to a yound minister struggling with his career path. She finds that in such rich and varied voices, McCorkle crafts stories of a region no longer burdened by the past but now grappling with ordinary family problems.  « less

Post This Book

Login | Register

ISBN-13: 9781570033506
ISBN-10: 1570033501
Pages: 190
Rating:

  ?

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
Book Type: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

• Literature & Fiction >> Books & Reading >> Women Writers & Feminist Theory
• Literature & Fiction >> General
• Literature & Fiction >> General >> Contemporary
• Literature & Fiction >> History & Criticism >> Criticism & Theory >> General
• Literature & Fiction >> Short Stories & Anthologies >> British
• Literature & Fiction >> World Literature >> United States >> Classics >> General
• Literature & Fiction >> History & Criticism >> Regional & Cultural >> United States >> General
• Literature & Fiction >> History & Criticism >> Regional & Cultural >> United States >> Literary Theory
• Literature & Fiction >> History & Criticism >> Regional & Cultural >> United States >> Women
• Literature & Fiction >> World Literature >> United States >> Women Writers
• Literature & Fiction >> World Literature >> United States >> 20th Century
• Literature & Fiction >> British & Irish >> 20th Century
• Literature & Fiction >> British & Irish >> General
• Nonfiction >> Women's Studies >> General
• Nonfiction >> Women's Studies >> Women Writers