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Review
Language, Gender, and Community in Late Twentieth-Century
Fiction: American Voices and American Identities
Mary Jane Hurst (2011)
New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 238
Reviewed by Olga Pahom
The lack of dialogue between the fields of linguistics and literature has been
detrimental to both areas for a long time. Mary Jane Hurst’s Language,
Gender, and Community in Late Twentieth-Century Fiction: American
Voices and American Identities uses both linguistic and literary methods
to study how 20th-century American writers use the themes of language,
gender and community to construct American identities. The book is valuable not only for students and scholars of literature and linguistics, but also
for anthropologists, sociologists and those interested in interdisciplinary
approaches to gender and language.
The book is organized into seven chapters, including an introduction,
a concluding chapter and five chapters discussing the themes of language,
gender and community in the works of 10 late 20th-century American
authors. Hurst focuses on the following writers: Ernest Gaines, Alice Walker,
Ann Beattie, John Updike, Chang-rae Lee, Amy Tan, Louise Erdrich, Michael
Dorris, Denise Chavéz and Rudolfo Anaya. Each of the five main chapters
analyses novels by one male and one female author associated with a similar
ethnic or cultural identity. Thus, the book is organized around African
American, European American, Asian American, Native American and
Mexican American identities with significant overlap and mixing between
them. Each chapter consists of four main parts: an introduction highlighting the backgrounds of the authors and the key themes in their works, an
Affiliation
Department of English, Texas Tech University, USA.
email: [email protected]
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©2013, equinox publishing
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analysis of each of the two novels separately, and a section titled ‘Comparative Observations’ which provides similarities and differences between the
two authors in their treatment of language, gender and community.
In Chapter One, Hurst introduces the writers included in the study and
the central ‘figure of the lone American’ found in the mainstream fiction of
the 1990s. The anxiety about the loneliness of the characters is expressed
through language and is connected with each character’s gendered identity as an individual and as part of a group. Language is also the primary
means of finding and expressing one’s identity and place in the community.
The author also presents the five ethnic and cultural identities to be analysed in the book and explains that each character struggles with the social
constructs of gender, language and community as they try to form their
American identity. In addition, the chapter provides a brief overview of
the key concepts and theories that shape the study of gender and language
in both literature and linguistics, so that even readers unfamiliar with the
topic can engage with the book.
Chapter Two compares Ernest J. Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying and
Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy. While on the surface the two
novels seem concerned with different issues (capital punishment in Gaines
and female genital mutilation in Walker), Hurst argues that they share a
concern for African American identities. For example, both Gaines’s male
main character and Walker’s female protagonist struggle with finding their
place in the community. Ultimately, both use language to find their voices
in a hostile environment, which leads them to connect their gendered identities to the community. Hurst effectively connects gender and language in
each novel through both a literary perspective (using symbolism and the
concept of ‘the other’) and a linguistic one (using the features of African
American Vernacular English and of storytelling).
Chapter Three looks at the role of language and gender in the academic
communities of Ann Beattie’s Another You and John Updike’s Memories of
the Ford Administration. While both novels focus on the identity of white
male characters, Hurst also shows the role language plays in the identityformation of minor female characters. White masculinity and femininity
are analysed in literary ways (using point of view and character descriptions) and linguistic ones (using the features of same-sex and cross-sex
conversations). The author successfully shows how men and women use
language differently, but she also convincingly argues that language and
communication are key to establishing one’s personal identity and place in
the community regardless of sex and gender.
In Chapter Four, Hurst focuses on the use of gender and language in
the construction of Asian American identities in Chang-rae Lee’s Native
language, gender, and community
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Speaker and Amy Tan’s The Hundred Secret Senses. The author shows how
Lee’s Korean and Tan’s Chinese heritage influenced the issues described in
the two novels. Lee’s male protagonist and Tan’s female central character
are both struggling with finding their places in the midst of ethnic and
marital circles. The characters oscillate between assimilation, hybridization, and separation from their communities. The gender issues are not
fully resolved in the two novels, but both the males and the females are
shown to use language as a way to deal with their identity struggles. Hurst
again artfully demonstrates the connection between language and gender
through literary approaches (the use of food and doubling motifs and the
power of the narrative) and linguistic means (the concept of face and the
use of speech and silence).
Chapter Five analyses Louise Erdrich’s Tales of Burning Love, Michael
Dorris’s Cloud Chamber, and their co-written story The Crown of Columbus. The author draws parallels between Erdrich and Dorris’s troubled
marriage and the themes of love, destruction and wounded hearts in their
works. The Native American heritage of both authors is shown to influence
their characters’ struggle with shifting identities. Linguistically, speech and
silence are shown to unite as well as separate males and females, while
storytelling is central to individual healing and redemption. Hurst also
presents an effective literary analysis (using the themes of creation and resurrection, the metaphors of earth, wind, fire and water, and various points
of view), which peels away the layers of gender complexity and ambiguity
across various generations of men and women.
In Chapter Six, the author explores the Mexican American identities in
Denise Chavéz’s Face of an Angel and Rudolfo Anaya’s Albuquerque. She
starts with a background section explaining the history of the Southwest
and the issues unique to the Hispanic Americans inhabiting it. This part
is especially helpful for readers who are unfamiliar with the language and
identity struggles of Hispanic Americans. Language is shown to be the
primary means of finding one’s voice, coming to terms with one’s gendered
identity, and fitting within the American culture. Gender is presented as
intimately connected with language and shaped by a community’s cultural
and religious heritage. Hurst effectively employs both a literary analysis (of
biblical allusions and of the religious and historic symbols of Malintzin, the
Virgin of Guadalupe and Aztlán) and a linguistic description (of bilingualism and code-switching) to achieve a complete picture of how language,
gender and community function in the two novels.
Chapter Seven offers a summary of the main ways in which language,
gender, and community are used by the 10 authors to create American
identities. The author highlights diversity as a key component to American
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identity and shows how the themes described in the book relate to current
events in American history and relevant issues in the 21st century.
The book successfully illustrates how language, gender and community
are used by late 20th-century American authors. The choice of writers
from five ethnic and cultural backgrounds shows Hurst’s sensitivity to the
diverse notion of American identity. Furthermore, the description of each
writer’s background sheds light on the main issues discussed in each book
and makes the material accessible even to readers unfamiliar with the featured authors. The organization of each chapter makes both the analysis of
each novel and their comparative discussion easy to follow. Hurst presents
a wealth of linguistic concepts and approaches to literature which both
literature and linguistics scholars will find interesting; she is also careful
to define and explain key concepts, making the material accessible even
to novices in the two fields. The comparisons made to other literary works
help to put the selected novels in context, and the connection to real-life
events and people make the book relevant for a wide audience. One limitation of the book acknowledged by Hurst herself is the absence of important 20th-century writers from other ethnic communities. However, given
the limitations of any book project, it is understandable that Hurst focuses
only on some cultural American identities. She is careful to emphasize the
overlap and mixing of ethnic categories throughout the book.
Hurst’s greatest contribution is the bridging of linguistic and literary
perspectives in the study of language, gender and community. She effectively uses both approaches and renders a unique analysis that benefits not
only readers interested in linguistics and literature but also those curious
about new ways of studying gender and language. This makes the book
interesting, useful and accessible to undergraduate, graduate and other
scholarly communities interested in gender, language and literature.