No Man's Land
"No Man's Land" is a comprehensive three-volume series by feminist literary critics Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, examining the evolving identities of male and female writers in the twentieth century. The series explores the literary landscape as a reflection of societal changes, particularly focusing on the interplay between the sexes and the resulting impacts on literature. In the first volume, "The War of the Words," the authors assess how modernism—a dominant literary style of the 1920s and 1930s—was influenced by gender dynamics, arguing that women writers played a significant role in its development, often overshadowed in traditional narratives.
The second volume, "Sexchanges," delves into how changing gender roles and perceptions of eroticism have transformed over time, challenging Victorian ideals and acknowledging gender as a constructed rather than an innate condition. In the final volume, "Letters from the Front," the authors focus on women's literature that reflects the psychological impacts of evolving social structures, particularly regarding family dynamics and narrative forms. The series provides in-depth analyses of both prominent and lesser-known women writers, highlighting the ongoing traditions in black and lesbian women's writing. Through their work, Gilbert and Gubar illuminate the profound social and historical forces that shape individual identity and self-perception.
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Subject Terms
No Man's Land
First published: 1988-1994 (3 volumes; The War of the Words, 1988; Sexchanges, 1989; Letters from the Front, 1994)
The Work
No Man’s Land: The Place of the Woman Writer in the Twentieth Century, an ambitious three-volume series by the most influential feminist literary critics of their generation, addresses the changing identities of female and male writers of the twentieth century. In particular, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar analyze the literature and literary movements of the century as products of a war between the sexes. As the series title suggests, as women gained power, beginning in the late nineteenth century, through the women’s movement, and as women discovered new identities for themselves, men experienced a corresponding sense of emasculation, perceiving themselves as “no-men.”
In volume 1, The War of the Words, Gilbert and Gubar describe the ways that literary modernism, the prevailing style of the 1920’s and 1930’s, differs in the works of male and female writers, grounding their arguments in analysis of social and cultural events. They conclude that modernism and avant-garde writing are the result of a sexual battle between men and women. Modernism has traditionally been considered largely a male movement; Gilbert and Gubar credit women writers with a greater role in its development than most previous critics do.
Volume 2, Sexchanges, argues that, as sex roles change, the sexes battle, resulting in changes in what is perceived as erotic. Definitions of sex and sex roles evolved through three phases: rejection and revision of Victorian feminine ideals; antiutopian skepticism about the feminization of women; and “the virtually apocalyptic engendering of the new,” perhaps most strongly influenced by the realization that while sex is biological, gender is an artifice, not a natural condition.
Volume 3, Letters from the Front analyzes works by women that seem particularly to express the psychological effect of social change. The discussions focus on the notion of the “family plot,” referring to the changing structure of the family, the changing notion of narrative, and burial of the idea that the family has a single or static structure.
The three monumental volumes discuss works by numerous major and minor women writers. Americans receiving especially in-depth treatment include Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, Marianne Moore, and Sylvia Plath. Gilbert and Gubar also trace ongoing traditions of black and lesbian women’s writing. The analyses consistently focus on the social and historical forces that shape identity and self-perception.
Bibliography
Ammons, Elizabeth. Conflicting Stories: American Women Writers at the Turn into the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Deals with seventeen women writers from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds. Ammons finds underlying themes of unity as these writers, in a wide range of narrative forms, strove to give voice to women’s concerns.
Armstrong, Nancy. Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Armstrong explores the role of women in shaping modern literary and social institutions. Her detailed historical discussion leads to implicit criticism of Gilbert and Gubar’s stress on victimization.
Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic:The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979. An excellent study of major women writers in nineteenth century England, this precursor to No Man’s Land received wide critical acclaim.
Moi, Toril. Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory. London: Routledge, 1985. A useful guide to key issues in feminist literary analysis, this small volume contains a detailed critique of Gilbert and Gubar’s approach.
Showalter, Elaine, ed. Speaking of Gender. New York: Routledge, 1989. These essays by leading scholars and critics offer detailed insights on a wide range of texts. They provide discussion of many of the issues raised in more general fashion by the work of Gilbert and Gubar.