Rural women and cultural conflict in contemporary American literature

This dissertation takes a transregional approach to reading contemporary literature about women in rural America, studying female authors--including Barbara Kingsolver, Jane Smiley, Toni Morrison, Manette Ansay, Dorothy Allison, Rita Mae Brown, and Bobbie Ann Mason--who are most often categorized according to region, race, or sexuality. Breaking from these existing genre categorizations, this dissertation argues for the recognition of a genre of rural women's literature. Drawing from definitional theories of rural studies scholars, it identifies commonalities of setting and theme that transcend the usual categorization of these novels in literary scholarship according to region, race, or sexuality. These novels offer narratives of rural women caught between competing cultural narratives and developing, in response, new ideas of rural womanhood. These themes offer not only new ways of reading these texts, but also new ways of thinking about rural women in America, who rural feminists argue have been neglected by both feminist theory and rural social theory. Each chapter focuses on a specific area of cultural conflict. Chapter Two discusses gendered power structures related to female characters' stewardship of their natural environment. Chapter Three discusses women as outsiders in rural community and the role of narrative and local relationships in developing rural community identity. Chapter Four focuses on young rural women and their perceived family roles. Chapter Five explores rural domestic violence and the paradox of rural spaces as sites both of freedom and of danger and isolation. Chapter Six analyzes rural lesbian narratives that describe the rural space as a site of hostility, negotiation, and acceptance, with attention to the roles of race and economic privilege. The conclusion suggests possibilities for new research in rural literature, looking especially to how the texts themselves might serve the narrative role of establishing rural community identity.