The Representation Of The Girl In Ann Beattie’s The New Yorker Stories

As one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary American fiction, Ann Beattie has proved her intelligence and richness by the publication of nine collections of short stories. seven novels. and one novella since1976. John Updike once praised her that she had figured out how to write an entirely different kind of story. Unfortunately. to date, there is no sufficient study at home in comparison with the Ann Beattie scholarship abroad.The New Yorker Stories is Beattie’s latest collection of short stories, which includes much of Beattie’s best works. The present paper endeavors to make a thematic study of the image of girls in The New Yorker Stories from the perspective of cultural feminism.From the1970s, the second-wave of feminist movement flourishes. including a new upsurge of interest in cultural feminism. Cultural feminism focuses on the values of women per se, and femininity is praised. The girls in Beattie’s stories are depicted as the spiritual leader, the soul mate and the coordinator.Compared with the prosperity of the material life, the spiritual life of mankind is relatively meager. The aimless, woeful and nearly desperate characters are often portrayed in Beattie’s stories. However, there are certain girls who behave sensitively and wisely facing the fragmented world, through which the adults experience an epiphany even under distorted conditions. Girls, hence, are perceived as the spiritual leader of their parents.A different kind of girl image is the soul mate. The girl and the adult are compatible with each other in disposition, point of view, or sensibility. As a soul mate, the girl can offer support and trust to help the adult so much so that the other party can make a crucial progress on the way of the identity quest. What is more, there is empathy between the two people, which is a motive of the self development for she can benefit from the other. It is particularly true between the female characters in Beattie’s stories.Family, as the fundamental unit of society, has been experiencing a huge change with the dissolving of the "nuclear family". Being an observer of the family, the girl in Beattie’s world serves as a coordinator. She respects adults’choice and understands the change in the family, and she even becomes the one who takes care of the adults. By her gentle power, she makes the family peaceful and helps the adult find a happier way of life.Cultural feminists believe that femininity can play a positive role in the social development. In Beattie’s stories, it is the girl’s virtues that are the hallmarks of the female and that are needed in a fragmented and uncertain society in the late twentieth century.