{"product_id":"9780814208724","title":"The Tested Woman Plot: Women's Choices, Men's Judgments, and the Shaping of Stories","description":"\"Erudite, detailed, and illuminating.\"\u003cbr\u003e -Peter J. Rabinowitz, Hamilton College\u003cp\u003eIn this provocative study, Lois E. Bueler examines in broad literary historical terms what she calls the Tested Woman Plot, a \"story-machine\" that originated in the ancient Mediterranean world (as in the stories of Eve and Lucretia), flourished in English Renaissance drama (as in \u003ci\u003eMuch Ado About Nothing\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Changeling\u003c\/i\u003e), and continued into the novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (as in \u003ci\u003eClarissa, Adam Bede,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Scarlet Letter\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis plot structure is not simply any story of women undergoing tests, Bueler argues, but rather a codified narrative type that at base is concerned with the assertion of patriarchal order and is therefore as much about men as about its tested women. Key structural elements of this narrative are the test itself (the woman's moment of choice) and the trial (a retrospective scrutiny from the perspective of male authorities).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEncyclopedic in scope, \u003ci\u003eThe Tested Woman Plot\u003c\/i\u003e is a provocative look at a key narrative tradition that spans many genres and should appeal to all serious students of literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eLois E. Bueler\u003c\/b\u003e is a professor of English at California State University, Chico.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ohio State University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47031369531632,"sku":"9780814208724","price":52.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780814208724","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}