Gail Godwin: Short Stories

Themes

Most of Godwin's works are based on themes or events taken from her own life.[1] The characters, settings and narratives vary from novel-to-novel, but common topics have included family, the position of women in society and relationships, a woman's artistic and career pursuits, and the role of religious faith.[12] According to The Intellectual in Twentieth-Century Southern Literature, Godwin's characters "struggle intellectually to navigate the mazes of race, class, gender, family, faith and religion."[36] According to Contemporary Literary Criticism, "she writes about issues pertaining to women - male-female roles, marriage, family, personal freedom, self-concept, and self-actualization."[19] Author Jane Hill said Godwin's books are about co-existing with authorities, the role of decision-making in life, careers as an artist, and the consequences of thwarted ambition.[4] Much of her emphasis is on the concept of the self[25] and one's struggles with society.[4]

Most of the academic analysis of Godwin's work focuses on challenges her characters have as women.[1] According to Contemporary Fiction Writers of the South, a typical protagonist in Godwin's novels is a young woman that "in search of herself, confronts obstacles caused by her family, her lovers, her husband, or her own inanition as she struggles to establish her independence and secure her identity through her work."[39] The main character may be personally flawed, then achieve self-reflection or personal growth thanks to the support of their community or a mentor.[3] Main characters often make poor choices, but become a better person, learn to make better decisions and build stronger bonds often as a result of intellectual pursuits.[36] According to critic Anne Cheney, the protagonist may be "searching for happiness, academic or artistic achievement, love, respect, or, more generally, meaning in life."[40]

According to Warren French from the University of Wales, Godwin's works are most often seen as having two primary themes: gender roles and southern settings. French said Godwin herself disapproves of being categorized, which she feels creates "externally imposed limitations" on the themes she covers.[4] However scholars continue to attempt to put her work into a distinctive literary category.[12] In her early works Godwin was seen as a "woman" writer, because her books appealed to a mostly female audience and because she is a woman.[4] After publishing A Southern Family she began being identified as a southern writer.[4][36] According to The Times (London), Godwin has a "pesky resistance to categorisation" and she often changes themes even after being commercially successful with one.[41] Academic Lihong Xie said Godwin could be identified with the literary tradition of the Bildungsroman, which focuses on the moral and psychological development of a character.[42] Many other critics posit that a quest for meaning and self-identification are Godwin's primary themes.[40]

Other themes in Godwin's work have included escaping the cultural expectations of becoming a "southern lady,"[43] childhood abandonment,[21][44] depression and suicide,[3] racial discrimination, social class[1] and succeeding without a male companion.[1] Her work has spanned different literary categories, such as realism, fantasy and allegory.[45]

Early works

All of Godwin's books written from 1970 to 1990 are fictional stories based on themes taken from Godwin's life.[46] Her early works focus on women hoping for a relationship with a male companion, but at the same time wanting independence and freedom.[4] The main protagonist is often restricted by family, tradition[11] and patriarchy.[25] Most of Godwin's early works include a prominent mother-daughter relationship as well.[4]

Her first three books, The Perfectionists (1970), Glass People (1972) and The Odd Woman (1974), have protagonists who find that their relationship with a male companion restricts their personal and professional development.[46] The first two books are each about a female character who feels trapped in an unhappy marriage.[47] According to Contemporary Southern Writers, "unlike fairy tale romances, these novels present a realistic depiction of feminist concerns and struggles."[46] Lihong Xie comments that Godwin's protagonists are southern women that "caught between the ideal of southern womanhood and contemporary feminism, struggle to form a personal identity  ..."[42]

Violet Clay (1978) and A Mother and Two Daughters (1982) are each about an unmarried protagonist's career in a creative profession.[1][3][11][47] In A Mother and Two Daughters the main character resists the temptation to get married and chooses instead to focus on her work.[1][3] A Mother and Two Daughters and A Southern Family (1987) each depend heavily on a southern setting and employ themes traditionally associated with social problems in the South. Some of their themes include racial discrimination, social-economic class and the cultural differences between generations.[1] Many characters struggle to reduce the gap between the rich and poor or try to break free from a dominant cultural tradition, with mixed success.[1]

In Godwin's early books, the female protagonists tend to be fearful, passive and repeating of their mistakes.[43] The protagonist is often depicted as a victim who has failed to achieve independence and is struggling to form a personal identity that could exist beyond that of their relationship with a male companion.[42] In her next books, Godwin begins to introduce stronger and more independent central characters.[1] Violet Clay (1978) for example, features a more assertive character than those in prior novels.[1][3] According to Susan S. Kissel Adams from Northern Kentucky University, Godwin's later characters:[43]

come to value inclusion and connection over exclusion and isolation in their lives. They seek ways to combine their private and their public selves, open and extend family structures, take political action, and fulfill their social responsibilities  ... In their struggle against southern codes and family structures that retain a powerful hold even in the late twentieth century. Godwin's daughters of the South grow from a state of dependency and arrested development: they begin to embark on mature, adult lives of their own.

Later works

As in her earlier novels, Godwin's work in the 1970s and 1980s still centers mostly on difficulties female characters experienced as women.[47] However, she departs from this theme in The Finishing School (1984), which is about two women of different generations and the student-mentor relationship between them, rather than their relationship with men.[46] According to Lihong Xie, Godwin's work during this period continues to be about "the female self" and a woman's intimate relationships with husbands, fathers and God.[42]

Godwin's books begin to incorporate religious themes starting with Father Melancholy's Daughter (1991). The novel is told from the perspective of multiple characters, each of whom has a different perspective on religion.[40] Father Melancholy's Daughter was followed by several books that centered on the Episcopal church and Christian practices. In these novels female and male characters have a more equal influence on the events and plot than in prior novels.[21][47] Godwin's books neither evangelize nor mock the practices of the Episcopal Church, but rather treat it as a routine aspect of life,[43] or as a subject of intellectual interest.[40] During these years Godwin's books continued to show father figures who have died or are absent. By 1996 two of her books had fathers that died and five had stepfathers that are depicted as intruding on the mother-daughter relationship.[43]

According to Narrative Magazine, Godwin transitions from female protagonists who are "looking for ways to get out of traps and confinements" to those who make "interesting or dangerous life choices."[32] Some of Godwin's later works depict successful, but unconventional marriages. In The Good Husband (1994) both partners accept the wife's career as having a priority over the husband's.[12] The Good Husband is also a return to the theme of marriage that is typical of some of Godwin's earlier works.[19] According to Contemporary Southern Writers, The Good Husband "explores the dying experience."[46] Godwin also published several non-fiction works based on her own life during this period.[32]

Godwin's short story collections Dream Children and Mr. Bedford and the Muses focus on themes similar to those in her novels, but also incorporate dreams and myth.[46] They tend to be less auto-biographical than her novels.[12] According to philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Godwin's approach to dream-worlds is radical, because the dream is incorporated into the characters' real-world experiences. Her characters compare their real and dream worlds to each other in order to "negotiate their sense of destiny." She said Dream Children challenges the distinction between reality and dream experiences, where the dream does not "violate one's theory of reality."[48]

USA Today said that the subjects covered in Unfinished Desires (2010) include "Mean girls. Lesbian kisses. Learning disabilities. Domestic violence. Alcoholism. [and] Roman Catholic nuns."[49] According to The Times (London), Flora (2013) "encompasses most of the themes that have preoccupied [Godwin] throughout her career." It takes place in the South in the mid-1940s in the mountains, where a widowed schoolmaster raises his ten-year-old daughter.[41] In a 2015 interview, Godwin says that her work has become less "angry". She said her early works showed a frustration with not being heard, and that her later books focuses on her enemies. Now she's working to understand "the villains' villains."[50]


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