Abstract
Nadine Gordimer’s political trajectory is well-known. Over a period of four decades she has moved from a position of ‘uneasy liberalism to a recognition of the marginality of liberalism and of its inherent hypocrisies, and finally into a “revolutionary” attitude’ (Driver, 1983: p. 30). Her views on feminism, by contrast, appear to be out of synchrony with her increasingly radicalized understanding of race and class oppression. Her statements on feminism strike one as more reticent and conventional than her other political opinions. And yet, on closer reading, her views on feminism are complex and far from monolithic. I will look at some of Gordimer’s short stories in the light of her multi-faceted, uneven and changing attitudes to women’s oppression and feminism.
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© 1993 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Lazar, K. (1993). Feminism as ‘Piffling’? Ambiguities in Nadine Gordimer’s Short Stories. In: King, B. (eds) The Later Fiction of Nadine Gordimer. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22682-5_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22682-5_14
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