If You Were Teaching...

[intertext]

a one semester 2nd year college course in "Women's Lit," what novel would you teach???

I'm thinking about Jane Eyre, but would welcome other suggestions, just NOT The Handmaid's Tale, please.

ETA and not Mrs Dalloway, much as I love it, because I teach it in my 20th century lit course that some of my students in this upcoming course might have taken. And lidocafe teaches it in hers, so the same argument applies.

Comments

[intertext.livejournal.com]

Pretty much anything written by a woman. I don't consider it means that it's FOR women or necessarily "feminist" (although one could argue that everything that deals with women's lives in some way is intrinsically that)

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

OK. Part of me definitely wants to suggest Stella Gibbon's Cold Comfort Farm. It's such a sly, allusive novel that can be read on so many levels. I also have a big soft spot for iris Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea though that might be a bit challenging.

If I really hated your students I'd suggest Keri Hume's The Bone People. It's a terrific novel but horribly bleak.

[intertext.livejournal.com]

Oh my. The Bone People Yes. I LOVED that novel, but you're right, it IS terribly bleak. Interesting idea, though...

And I like Iris Murdoch, too, though I agree that she is challenging.

Heh. I also rather like the idea of Cold Comfort Farm. It would be fun. The problem is that the allusiveness is over their heads, and it gets tiresome having to explain jokes.