The TESTED WOMAN PLOT

Erudite detailed and illuminating. -Peter J. Rabinowitz Hamilton CollegeIn 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 <i>Much Ado About Nothing</i> and <i>The Changeling</i>) and continued into the novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (as in <i>Clarissa Adam Bede</i> and <i>The Scarlet Letter</i>).This 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).Encyclopedic in scope <i>The Tested Woman Plot</i> is a provocative look at a key narrative tradition that spans many genres and should appeal to all serious students of literature.<b>Lois E. Bueler</b> is a professor of English at California State University Chico.