Brian Moores Eponymous Heroines

This feminist study is an innovative reassessment of Brian Moores five novels featuring eponymous heroines. The author reviews previous interpretations, exposing their sexist bias. Highlighting Moores empathetic insights, she also discusses the novelists limitations. She compares Moores heroines to Flauberts Emma Bovary, reinterpreted by Mieke Bal, Tolstoys Anna Karenina revisioned by Aritha van Herk, and to female characters created by Canadian women writers. Rejecting biocriticism, the study focuses on Moores biblical, Victorian and modernist inspirations, and his indebtedness to film. Ideas of female thinkers illuminate the condition of Moores female protagonists.