Author: Laura Spence-Ash

Fiction Responding to Fiction: Jamaica Kincaid and Bret Anthony Johnston
|

Fiction Responding to Fiction: Jamaica Kincaid and Bret Anthony Johnston

Bret Anthony Johnston’s “Boy” is very much an homage as well as a companion piece to Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl.” The ways in which Johnston chose to mirror Kincaid’s piece show us the gender, class, and race equivalencies. Both Kincaid and Johnston are most interested in gender and the lessons passed from parent to child.

Fiction Responding to Fiction: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Doris Lessing

Fiction Responding to Fiction: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Doris Lessing

“The Yellow Wallpaper” was published in 1892 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and remains a staple of early feminist fiction. In 1983, Doris Lessing responded to Perkins Gilman’s classic story with “To Room Nineteen,” in part to point out how little had changed in the lives of women.