Explore the profound impact of women writers in this course, focusing on Virginia Woolf, Alice Munro, Elizabeth Strout, and Jhumpa Lahiri. We discuss the way these writers engage with ideas about identity and belonging and identify their innovative narrative techniques. Examine Woolf’s exploration of gender and the complexity of interior life, Munro’s ability to reveal the extraordinary in the ordinary, Strout’s portrayal of ageing and existentialism, and Lahiri’s insights into cultural identity and displacement. Through these texts, gain a deeper understanding of the multifaceted experiences of women and the authors’ significant contributions to literature.
- Woolf, V., To the Lighthouse
- Woolf, V., A Room of One’s Own
- Munro, A., The Beggar Maid
- Strout, E., Olive Kitteridge
- Lahiri, J., Interpreter of Maladies
- While she never won any major literary prizes in her lifetime, Virginia Woolf’s oeuvre has an enduring legacy. A Room of One’s Own articulates many of the challenges faced by women writers a hundred years ago – many of which persist today. To the Lighthouse uses an innovative rhizomatic structure and stream of consciousness to explore the lasting impressions we make on each other.
- Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013. Her stories are known for revealing the extraordinary in the ordinary.
- Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009 and was adapted into an HBO mini-series in 2014. Strout’s book paints a mosaic portrait of Olive, a retired maths teacher, as she ages into her seventies.
- Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 and explores the lives of Indian and Indian-American characters in exile.
By the end of this course, students should be able to:
- Explain the literary influence of the selected writers after conducting formal analysis of the texts, particularly the use of stream of consciousness, fragmentation, and rhizomatic structure.
- Appreciate the broader cultural impact of the selected texts through analysis of each text’s themes, characterisation and the cultural contexts from which they emerged.
- Conduct comparative literary analysis by exploring the differences and similarities in the themes, narrative style, and cultural contexts.
