Reading about authors through their biographies or through comments made by them is often more revealing than their books. Carolyn Heilbrun in her book write the life of a woman (more like a dissertation in its early chapters) states that to really know an author well enough to write her biography, you must go beyond dissecting her works of fiction and get to know her through her correspondence with friends. and colleagues. This is especially true for female authors before 1970, as Heilbrun considers that year “the beginning of a new period in women’s biography” and 1973 as the turning point for “modern women’s autobiography”. by nancy milford Zelda is the biography and that of May Sarton diary of a loneliness it is the “turning point in women’s autobiography”.

The author makes a strong case that famous women writers, like Louisa May Alcott, the Bronte sisters, and Jane Austen, had to toe the line of acceptable society before that time. The success of many of these women (George Sand, George Eliot) was often made possible through the use of a pseudonym and by adapting their female characters to the prevailing conventions. Therefore, most female writers before 1973 were forced to portray their sex as wives and mothers and do so as something natural, because they had no other avenues open to them than to drive their characters to the brink of madness. By looking for the author outside of her writings, a biographer can trace the chronological details of the development of the author’s emancipation.

The book becomes more interesting in its last forty pages, when the author discusses the marital relationship and suggests that for the marriage to be successful, the two individuals must have a friendship beyond the initial passion that attracted them. They must be flexible and respectful of change and the discovery of each other’s self. This self-discovery happens much later for the woman, who tends to put off her own desires to continue in the role of wife, mother and, as seen in recent decades, part provider as well.

The end of write the life of a woman looks at how women pursue their “quest” in life. Heilbrun uses herself as an example. She stopped writing her own detective series to avoid censorship from the academic community. She was the first tenured professor at a top Ivy League school. If she had written the series under her own name instead of Amanda Cross, she would never have gotten ownership of it. And even with her pseudonym, she chose a rich, married, beautiful female detective. Through the series, she “went on a quest (the male plot), became a knight (the male role), rescued a (male) princess.” The secrecy of her mystery series allowed her some control of her destiny and allowed her to do things that she couldn’t do in her professional life. In essence, she allows her to recreate herself.

One of the most profound statements of write the life of a woman It comes towards the end of the book. “I think most of us women transform our need to be loved into a need to love, expecting, therefore, from men and boys, more than what they, trapped in their own lives, can give us.” When women have power (money) and space of their own, they will create a quest story to replace the old marriage plot.

And age is often the incentive that pushes a woman to stop fearing or hiding in order to try and do important things. For those who fear loss of appearance and whose hourglass figure has more and more sand accumulating at the bottom, the author states: “For a woman to gain weight in middle age is to dissociate her personality from her attractiveness. feminine of her”. An Isak Dinesen character states, “Women, when they are old enough to be done with the business of being women and can unleash their strength, must be the most powerful creatures in the world.” Aging can be liberating and makes you think of the possibilities.