Germanà, M. 2022. ‘Between Desire and Control: The Fashioned Image in Muriel Spark’s Life and Fiction’. in: Carruthers, G. and Stoddart, H. (ed.) The Crooked Dividend: Essays on Muriel Spark Glasgow Association for Scottish Literary Studies. pp. 63-87
| Chapter title | ‘Between Desire and Control: The Fashioned Image in Muriel Spark’s Life and Fiction’ |
|---|---|
| Authors | Germanà, M. |
| Editors | Carruthers, G. and Stoddart, H. |
| Abstract | Sartorial references and bodily preoccupations abound in Muriel Spark’s fiction, biographical and archival evidence; Muriel Spark’s interest in fashion has deep roots in the author’s life as much as it belongs in her writing. While, as Joanne Finkelstein proposes, ‘fashion succeeds by promising to annul the fragmented condition of modernity with the imposition of a coherent subjectivity’ (Fashion: An Introduction, 1998), it also, as Hope Hodgkins claims, ‘directly confounds our longings for unchanging categories’ (Howell Hodgkins, ‘Stylish Spinsters, 2010). In considering The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), Girls of Slender Means (1963), The Public Image (1968),The Driver's Seat (1970), and A Far Cry from Kensington (1988), this chapter focuses on the function played by the representation of the female body and clothing within Spark’s fiction. A reading of such references against fashion, gender and cultural theory provides new ways of reading these narratives as manifestations of Spark’s complex treatment of free will, agency, and significant overlaps between the body of narrative and the narrative of body. |
| Keywords | Muriel Spark |
| Girls of Slender Means | |
| The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie | |
| A Far Cry from Kensington | |
| The Public Image | |
| The Driver's Seat | |
| Literature and Fashion | |
| Book title | The Crooked Dividend: Essays on Muriel Spark |
| Page range | 63-87 |
| Year | 2022 |
| Publisher | Association for Scottish Literary Studies |
| Publication dates | |
| Published | 2022 |
| Place of publication | Glasgow |
| Edition | First |
| Series | Occasional Papers series |
| ISBN | 9781908980335 |
| Web address (URL) | https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/occasional_papers/the-crooked-dividend/ |