Writing is freedom. The freedom to express ideas; the freedom to influence others; the freedom to explore all facets of humanity. Many authors have used this power to delve into one of our greatest unknowns: what life would be like as a member of the opposite gender. Through fiction, male and female writers get to convey what they perceive to be the feelings, emotions, and struggles of, respectively, the fairer and fouler sexes. With that in mind, let’s consider some prime examples of both genders’ attempts to inhabit the minds of the other.
The Hours by Michael Cunningham, 1998
Cunningham creates not one but three substantial female characters, each of them deeply effected by Virginia Woolf’s 1925 book Mrs. Dalloway. The Hours follows Ms. Woolf (a fictional portrayal of the author), Laura Brown, and Clarissa Vaughn as they grapple with mental illness, suicide, and sexual identity. Cunningham borrows not only Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness writing style, but also many themes from her life and the plot of Mrs. Dalloway. His Pulitzer Prize–winning novel (which was transformed into an Oscar-winning film) is celebrated for its realistic portrayal of how women confront major problems of human existence.
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, 1911
This novella has Wharton examining the social pressures at work on a Victorian husband who is vexed by a difficult choice: stay with his ailing shrew of a wife, or run off with their young, comely housemaid. Ethan longs to make a new life for himself with Mattie, but society imposes his obligation to honour his vows to Zeena. The male protagonist has often been called an analog for Wharton, who was experiencing a similar pressure — juggling a spouse and a lover — at the time of writing. The story ultimately ends in tragedy, as Ethan and Mattie are brutally injured in a sledding accident. Wharton’s marriage fared no better; she divorced in 1913 after suffering a nervous breakdown.
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides, 1993
Eugenides’ debut novel, told in flashback by a chorus of middle-aged, male narrators, is about five teenaged sisters who all kill themselves. There’s a line near the beginning, when a doctor bandages the youngest sister’s wrists after a failed suicide attempt, that speaks volumes about the pitfalls of writing the opposing gender:
“Chucking her under the chin, he said, ‘What are you doing here, honey? You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.’ And it was then Cecelia gave orally what was to be her only form of suicide note, and a useless one at that, because she was going to live: ‘Obviously, doctor,’ she said, ‘you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl.’”
Obviously, neither was Eugenides. It’s Sofia Coppola, though, who arguably worked harder to identify with the opposite gender when she wrote and directed a film adaptation of the novel. Her script embraces the distinct, first-person plural (male) narration that had allowed Eugenides to stay out of the sisters’ heads.
The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle, 1996
The Booker Prize–winning master of modern Irish fiction takes a complex and multifaceted look at abusive relationships from the perspective of an alcoholic mother of four. The Woman Who Walked Into Doors examines how such partnerships don’t always fit the victim-victimizer paradigm. Paula Spencer is physically and emotionally abused by her husband Charlo, yet finds herself adoring and despising him at various points throughout the narrative. Doyle goes to great lengths to make Paula more than a simple victim. He takes a more ambiguous stance, vacillating between love and hate, action and inaction. (A 2006 sequel, Paula Spencer, picks up her story ten years after Charlo’s death.)
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969
Winner of the 1969 Nebula and 1970 Hugo awards, Le Guin’s science fiction classic is told not only from the perspective of the opposite gender, but enters the world of the virtually sexless natives of the planet Winter (a.k.a. “Gethen”). Genly Ai, a human male, is sent to Winter by the Ekumen (an intergalactic UN) to convince its inhabitants to join their interplanetary alliance. He is often confused by what he finds on Winter: the absence of gender; the lack of technological development; the nonexistence of war. On Winter, female characteristics are perceived as negative qualities, and Gethens are always referred to by masculine pronouns. Like the best sci-fi, The Left Hand of Darkness uses its fantastical settings, characters, and environment to delve into real-world issues (sexual politics, gender imbalances, etc.) In that light, Le Guin’s novel can be seen as a pioneering work in the field of feminist science fiction.
She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb, 1992
Lamb missed the major literary awards with his tale of a troubled young woman. But five years after it was first published, the novel won a far more lucrative prize, when it became an early selection to Oprah’s Book Club. She’s Come Undone tracks the life of Dolores Price from age four. Lamb details her sexually violent adolescence (she is raped at thirteen), joyless years as an obese student (she overeats for comfort), and equally tumultuous early adulthood (she endures an abortion, questions of sexual identity, and emotionally abusive relationships). Some readers have complained that the character’s problems are too exaggerated to generate any real sympathy for her (I’ve personally heard Dolores described as “fulfilling every negative female stereotype”); others, however, have identified with and embraced her sorrows.
Sarah by J.T. LeRoy, 2000
Jeremiah “Terminator” LeRoy is the pen name of Laura Albert, the Brooklyn-born writer who perpetrated the greatest literary hoax of the young twenty-first century. For years, Albert presented LeRoy as a transgendered, abused, former child prostitute and drug addict who took to writing as a therapeutic process. Many readers took J.T.’s fictions as semi-autobiographical. His/her first novel, Sarah, details the travails of twelve-year-old Cherry “Sarah” Vanilla, an aspiring lot lizard who is compelled into cross-dressing, prostitution, and shoplifting by his mother. LeRoy followed Sarah with three more novels, feature articles in major magazines, and an associate producer credit on Gus Van Sant’s 2003 film Elephant. Albert concealed LeRoy’s true identity by conducting interviews via phone and email; with the author’s consent, Savannah Knoop, the half sister of Albert’s partner, Geoffrey Knoop, appeared in public as him/her. In 2006, The New York Times and New York magazine revealed the lie, and Albert confessed all to the The Paris Review. The next year, she was convicted of fraud for signing legal documents (film contracts for Sarah) as a fictional character. It’s an open question whether the value of LeRoy’s observations has been voided by the truth of Albert’s identity.
The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler, 1985
Tyler’s tenth tome tells the story of travel writer Macon Leary. He is dispassionate and depressed, the author of a series of books for reluctant travelers. He knows where to eat Chef Boyardee pasta in Rome and whether there are Taco Bells in Mexico, should his readers ever suffer the misfortunate to visit such places. Macon’s life crumbles after his son is murdered outside of a fast food restaurant; his wife leaves him, and he devolves to become the imperfect bachelor, eating popcorn for breakfast and stomping his laundry clean in the shower. After an injury forces him to move back to his family home, which he shares with his two brothers (also divorced) and their spinster sister, what follows is a quirky comedy set against the backdrop of tragedy. With the help of his dog trainer cum girlfriend Muriel, Macon eventually learns to take charge of himself.
The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, 2007
Hill’s sprawling novel (published as Someone Knows My Name in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand) takes its title from a list of 3,000 African-American slaves who fought for the British during the American Revolutionary War, and were then offered free passage to Nova Scotia in return. It is told through the life of Aminata Diallo — a character drawn in three dimensions, as fully realized a protagonist as there has been in Canadian fiction. In a 2009 interview with the CBC’s George Stromboulopoulos, Hill called his novel primarily “a woman’s story.” The author confessed that he found the process of writing from a female point of view “scary,” and joked that he was able to get into the voice “through a whole bunch of cross dressing.” In fact, he imagined Aminata as his child, and gave her the ability to love “even when she’s drawn through hell.” The Book of Negroes was met with near-universal acclaim, and Hill concluded that the process of writing it gave him a better understanding not only of the world, but also of his own daughter.
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