Stacy's Race and the American Novel Project Part 1

Critical Commentary

            On page 539 of UTC Jane P. Tompkins opens her article by telling us a story about a particular time in her life. Then she goes into describing women writers and how important they were to literature. It is now respectful to read the works of these writers because of how they are in history. Some of the women are Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Kate Chopin. Her main purpose for writing this article is the male-dominated scholarly tradition that controls both the canon of American Literature and the critical perspective that interprets the canon for society. During this time sentimental novels written by women were responsible for cultural evils. People could even argue saying that UTC is a conservative book. They may say this because it goes back to an older way of life. So she is basically saying that women writers were blamed for the many wrong things in society.

            I agree with all of the things she is saying because maybe that’s how people saw women in the 19^th century, but I feel women need to be given more credit for their works. I really like how the opening statements of this article is a story about a time in her life, so it gives me more background about her and what she is going to write about. I do believe it is respectful to read the works of women writers because they took the time to write it. I also think that the book UTC could be considered conservative because it was from an older time and slavery was around, so that makes sense to me.

            I agree with Tompkins interpretation because her article does sort of help me understand UTC a little better. Although women don’t play a big part in UTC, they are in it. Mostly the men take care of anything slavery related and the women very rarely give their husbands their opinion.