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Author Ellerby, Janet Mason, author

Title Embroidering the Scarlet A : unwed mothers and illegitimate children in American fiction and film / Janet Mason Ellerby
Published Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2015]

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Description 1 online resource
Contents Introduction -- The unwed mothers of the early American Novel -- Theodore Dreiser's all-giving angel: Jennie Gerhardt -- Edith Wharton's female enforcers -- The scarlet women of William Faulkner's The sound and the fury -- The unwed mother triumphant: Celie and Alice Walker's The color purple -- Illegitimacy and sexual violence -- Birthmothers in exile -- Fathering iIllegitimacy -- The legacy of secrets -- Birthmothers in the adoption triangle: Caroline Leavitt's Girls in trouble and Tim Kirkman's Loggerheads -- Comedy and the unwed mother -- Bearing sorrow -- Conclusion
Summary "Embroidering the Scarlet A traces the evolution of the "fallen woman" from the earliest novels to recent representations in fiction and film, including The Scarlet Letter, The Sound and the Fury, The Color Purple, and Love Medicine, and the films Juno and Mother and Child. Interweaving her own experience as a pregnant teen forced to surrender her daughter and pledge secrecy for decades, Ellerby interrogates "out-of-wedlock" motherhood, mapping the ways archetypal scarlet women and their children have been exiled as social pariahs, pardoned as blameless pawns, and transformed into empowered women. Drawing on narrative, feminist, and autobiographical theory, the book examines the ways that the texts have affirmed, subverted, or challenged dominant thinking and the prevailing moral standards as they have shifted over time. Using her own life experience and her uniquely informed perspective, Ellerby assesses the effect these stories have on the lives of real women and children. By inhabiting the space where ideology meets narrative, Ellerby questions the constricting historical, cultural, and social parameters of female sexuality and permissible maternity. As a feminist cultural critique, a moving autobiographical journey, and an historical investigation that addresses both fiction and film, Embroidering the Scarlet A will appeal to students and scholars of literature, history, sociology, psychology, women's and gender studies, and film studies. The book will also interest general readers, as it relates the experience of surrendering a child to adoption at a time when birthmothers were still exiled, birth records were locked away, and secrecy was still mandatory. It will also appeal to those concerned with adoption or the cultural shifts that have changed our thinking about illegitimacy"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-272) and index
Notes Description based on print version record
Subject Ellerby, Janet Mason
SUBJECT Ellerby, Janet Mason. fast (OCoLC)fst01558524
Subject American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism
American fiction -- 21st century -- History and criticism
Unmarried mothers in literature.
Illegitimate children in literature.
Unmarried mothers in motion pictures.
Illegitimate children in motion pictures.
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Women's Studies.
LITERARY COLLECTIONS / American / General.
American fiction.
Illegitimate children in literature.
Illegitimate children in motion pictures.
Unmarried mothers in literature.
Unmarried mothers in motion pictures.
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2020707080
ISBN 9780472121052
0472121057
Other Titles Unwed mothers and illegitimate children in American fiction and film