Comic visions, female voices

Since the 1970s, a time when perceptions about women began to change radically, a growing number of women writers have expressed their most deeply felt ideas through humor. In Comic Visions, Female Voices, Barbara Bennett shows how humor tests boundaries and pushes limits, doubly so for women, and that writing combined with laughter is virtually a revolutionary act for women. This study examines the intricate role humor plays in contemporary southern novels by such writers as Anne Tyler, Lee Smith, Alice Walker, Doris Betts, Gail Godwin, Ellen Gilchrist, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Kaye Gibbons. Bennett theorizes that humor helps define voice, communicate theme, and, in essence, establish a new kind of southern literature with a tone that is often more optimistic and less guilt ridden than that of fiction written by men or by earlier women writers. Most southern female humor has a distinct voice and vision - iconoclastic yet ultimately unifying, challenging traditional relationships yet finally affirming both self and family.