Abstract
It is accepted truth that proletarian literature is marked by a tension, or even contradiction, emanating from the social conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. This article explores these contradictions within the proletarian autobiographical novel form, focusing on Agnes Smedley’s Daughter of Earth. Smedley challenges predominately masculine discourse in working-class literature, boldly placing female desire at the center of her political project. Smedley intimately ties her understanding of class with her gender identity, something that was at loggerheads with contemporary leftist male critics who championed her working-class sensibility but resisted the gendered implications of her work. Our article pushes against a solely nationalistic viewpoint that many critics have embraced. To better understand the genre, we place Smedley’s novel in conversation with Swedish working-class writer Moa Martinson’s 1936 autobiographical novel Mor gifter sig [My Mother Gets Married]. By doing so, we analyze the nationalistic context of Smedley’s book, underlining how being ‘poised between bourgeois and revolutionary discursive traditions’ is something historical and place-based, and arguing that this is key to understanding the category of proletarian fictional autobiography.
Highlights
It is accepted truth that proletarian literature is marked by a tension, or even contradiction, emanating from the social conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie
These contradictions, we argue, can be best understood if we examine them in the overall way Smedley challenges predominately masculine discourse in working-class literature, boldly placing female desire at the center of her political project
Smedley’s novel often tipped in one direction or the other: she wanted to speak for a global working class while being apart from it; she desired a (‘bourgeois’) education but privileged (‘proletarian’) emotion over reason; and she argued for a collective universal truth but played fast and loose with the facts of her own autobiography
Summary
It is accepted truth that proletarian literature is marked by a tension, or even contradiction, emanating from the social conflict between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Smedley’s novel is filled with contradictions as she negotiates the terrain between bourgeois and revolutionary traditions, including her desire to speak for the working class while being distant from it, her yearning for education while embracing emotions (and perhaps even proletarian primitivity) over reason, as well as her longing for a collective universal truth while falsifying the facts of her own life experiences These contradictions, we argue, can be best understood if we examine them in the overall way Smedley challenges predominately masculine discourse in working-class literature, boldly placing female desire at the center of her political project.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
