Adventures of the Spirit: The Older Woman in the Works of Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, and Other Contemporary Women WritersPhyllis Sternberg Perrakis In Adventures of the Spirit, Phyllis Sternberg Perrakis brings together eleven American and Canadian "literary gerontologists" to examine a new kind of adventure for the older woman in literature. This volume of critical essays analyzes recent works by contemporary women writers whose characters' midlife and later life changes are mapped in their narratives.Rather than focusing on the painful losses undergone by women of a certain age, recent narratives explore a new kind of adventure of aging, one that is spiritual in nature, enabling new ways of being and becoming, but open-ended and capable of great variation in practice. In particular, these journeys of the spirit focus on the retrospective movement undergone by a midlife or older woman as she is led by inner or outer forces to assess where she has come from and decipher a shape or pattern to her journey.These journeys do not leave the body behind as they map new spiritual territory. Rather they honor spirit's embrace of the natural world and relationships as well as its aspirations for evolving development and eternal existence. The essays in Adventures of the Spirit employ a wide variety of critical lenses to chart these adventures, including archetypal, Sufi, post-colonial, and feminist analysis; archival research; aboriginal life writing; and trauma theory. These studies bring a new understanding to women's adventure of age in both literary texts and in life. |
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Page 133
... seemed to know which was required of them at any given moment , and would switch around according to the moods and inclinations " of the men ( 353–54 ) . Alex , in his own tinted storytelling , seems to be warning Iris that perfectly ...
... seemed to know which was required of them at any given moment , and would switch around according to the moods and inclinations " of the men ( 353–54 ) . Alex , in his own tinted storytelling , seems to be warning Iris that perfectly ...
Page 221
... seemed charged with mystery , all new and unknown " ( 326 ) . Within " the generosity of Connor's listening ' ( 317 ) , Sidda has contemplated the key and the magic moment it con- jured up and found her way to accept the wisdom that her ...
... seemed charged with mystery , all new and unknown " ( 326 ) . Within " the generosity of Connor's listening ' ( 317 ) , Sidda has contemplated the key and the magic moment it con- jured up and found her way to accept the wisdom that her ...
Page 288
... seemed to pull together in perfect imitation of another moment , long ago , just after a heavy rainfall . " Finally , her terror dissolves the boundaries between her inner reality and outer 288 Part III : Other Contemporary Women Writers.
... seemed to pull together in perfect imitation of another moment , long ago , just after a heavy rainfall . " Finally , her terror dissolves the boundaries between her inner reality and outer 288 Part III : Other Contemporary Women Writers.
Contents
Spiritual Adventuring by Other Contemporary Women Writers | 17 |
The Surfacing of Buried Grief in Doris Lessings | 27 |
Navigating the Spiritual Cycle in Memoirs of a Survivor and Shikasta | 47 |
Copyright | |
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abuse adventure Alias Grace attunement Avey Johnson Bahá'u'lláh become beginning Blind Assassin body Candida Canopean Canopus chapter characters Charis Charis's child childhood contemporary crone cultural death detachment Divine Secrets Doris Lessing Doris Lessing's essay experience Fahim Felicity Felicity's female fiction goddess Handmaid's Tale human Ibn Arabi imagined inner Iris Iris's Johor Kerewin Keri Hulme Laura Little Altars Everywhere lives luminous face Mala Mala's Margaret Atwood Margaret Atwood's Martha Quest Medusa Memoirs memories midlife mirror Mootoo mother myth mythic narrative narrator novel Oryx and Crake outer pain past Perrakis Phyllis Sternberg poem Praisesong protagonist Psyche psychic Rachel readers retrospective Robber Bride sense Seven Sisters sexual Shikasta Sidda Sidney Sidney's soul spiritual journey story storytelling Sufi suggests Survivor symbolic tale tion Tony Tony's traditional transformation trauma Tyler understanding victim vision Vivi Wilber woman words writing Ya-Ya York Yukon Zenia Zone