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Year 2005, Issue: 21, 17 - 25, 01.04.2005

Abstract

References

  • Anderson, David D., ed. Critical Essays on Sherwood Anderson. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1981.
  • Bunge, Nancy. “Women in Sherwood Anderson’s Fiction.” Critical Essays on Sherwood Anderson. Ed. David D. Anderson. 242-49.
  • Chi, Wei-jan. “The Power of the Imagination in ‘The Man Who Became a Woman.’ ” Fu-Jen Studies 21 (1988): 61-72.
  • Ferguson, Mary Anne. “Sherwood Anderson’s ‘Death in the Woods’: Toward a New Realism.” Critical Essays on Sherwood Anderson. Ed. David D. Anderson. 217-34.
  • Gregory, Horace, ed. The Portable Sherwood Anderson. Sherwood Anderson. New York: Penguin, 1972, 1977.
  • Gold, Herbert. “The Purity and Cunning of Sherwood Anderson.” Critical Essays on Sherwood Anderson. Ed. David D. Anderson. 138-45.
  • Lause, Sean. “The Paradox of Isolation and Sherwood Anderson’s Almost Silent Women.” The Winesburg Eagle 27.2 (1992): 1-8.
  • Miller, William V. “Earth-Mothers, Succubi, and Other Ectoplasmic Spirits: The Women in Sherwood Anderson’s Short Stories.” Critical Essays on Sherwood Anderson. Ed. David D. Anderson. 196-209.
  • Pearson, Norman Holmes. “Anderson and the New Puritanism. Critical Essays on Sherwood Anderson. Ed. David D. Anderson. 102-10.
  • White, Ray Lewis. Introduction to this Edition. The Achievement of Sherwood Anderson: Essays in Criticism. Chapel Hill: The U of North Carolina P, 1966.
  • Zanger, Jules. “Cold Pastoral: Sherwood Anderson’s ‘Death in the Woods.’ ” The Old Northwest 15.1-2 (1990): 19-28.

Over Her Dead Body: Sherwood Anderson’s “The Man Who Became a Woman” and “Death in the Woods”

Year 2005, Issue: 21, 17 - 25, 01.04.2005

Abstract

The most poetic of all subjects, according to Edgar Allan Poe, is “the death of a beautiful woman.” Likewise, in Sherwood Anderson's stories, “The Man Who Became a Woman” and “Death in the Woods,” the death of the female body provides the impetus for the young male artist's initiation. Both narrators in these stories perpetuate the patriarchal equation of art and culture with the male and present initiation into manhood and artistic creativity—storytelling in this case—not only as complementary and interchangeable but also as an epic quest. The “hero” faces two female archetypes to conquer: In “The Man Who Became a Woman” the sorceress, the lover, who bewitches and seduces men with her sexual prowess, has to be surmounted whereas in “Death in the Woods” the mother archetype has to be slain. The former story deals with a private experience; the narrator's quest is directed at purging the woman out of himself and joining the fraternity among men. To achieve this firstly, an externalization of the woman that resides in the male psyche is required. Secondly, once the woman has been made “the other,” she can easily be subordinated to the service of man-kind reducing her to her functions only as mother and feeder. In the latter story, a radical purgative act, however, has to follow; the mother must be expelled from the collective consciousness so that the social “umbilical cord” could be broken off completely. Thus, taken together, the two stories provide a pattern for the epic of man’s mastery over woman.

References

  • Anderson, David D., ed. Critical Essays on Sherwood Anderson. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1981.
  • Bunge, Nancy. “Women in Sherwood Anderson’s Fiction.” Critical Essays on Sherwood Anderson. Ed. David D. Anderson. 242-49.
  • Chi, Wei-jan. “The Power of the Imagination in ‘The Man Who Became a Woman.’ ” Fu-Jen Studies 21 (1988): 61-72.
  • Ferguson, Mary Anne. “Sherwood Anderson’s ‘Death in the Woods’: Toward a New Realism.” Critical Essays on Sherwood Anderson. Ed. David D. Anderson. 217-34.
  • Gregory, Horace, ed. The Portable Sherwood Anderson. Sherwood Anderson. New York: Penguin, 1972, 1977.
  • Gold, Herbert. “The Purity and Cunning of Sherwood Anderson.” Critical Essays on Sherwood Anderson. Ed. David D. Anderson. 138-45.
  • Lause, Sean. “The Paradox of Isolation and Sherwood Anderson’s Almost Silent Women.” The Winesburg Eagle 27.2 (1992): 1-8.
  • Miller, William V. “Earth-Mothers, Succubi, and Other Ectoplasmic Spirits: The Women in Sherwood Anderson’s Short Stories.” Critical Essays on Sherwood Anderson. Ed. David D. Anderson. 196-209.
  • Pearson, Norman Holmes. “Anderson and the New Puritanism. Critical Essays on Sherwood Anderson. Ed. David D. Anderson. 102-10.
  • White, Ray Lewis. Introduction to this Edition. The Achievement of Sherwood Anderson: Essays in Criticism. Chapel Hill: The U of North Carolina P, 1966.
  • Zanger, Jules. “Cold Pastoral: Sherwood Anderson’s ‘Death in the Woods.’ ” The Old Northwest 15.1-2 (1990): 19-28.
There are 11 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Journal Section Research Article
Authors

Nilsen Gökçen This is me

Nazmi Ağıl This is me

Publication Date April 1, 2005
Published in Issue Year 2005 Issue: 21

Cite

MLA Gökçen, Nilsen and Nazmi Ağıl. “Over Her Dead Body: Sherwood Anderson’s “The Man Who Became a Woman” and ‘Death in the Woods’”. Journal of American Studies of Turkey, no. 21, 2005, pp. 17-25.

JAST - Journal of American Studies of Turkey