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Articles

Volume 12, Number 2 (1987)

"The Eternal Feminine" and the Clothing Motif in Grove's Fiction

  • Elizabeth Potvin
Submitted
May 22, 2008
Published
1987-06-06

Abstract

Aside from some token gestures, F.P. Grove's female characters are stereotypes, and these stereotypes are evoked and underlined by their clothes: with little variation, they are either earth mothers, dressed in Gingham, or femmes fatales…in silk. The three archetypes/stereotypes -- mother, siren, and hag -- are invoked repeatedly. Grove's fiction presents a conflict between a professed admiration of women and an evident fear or dislike of them. He is preoccupied not only with clothes, but with how people (women and men) are perceived in them. There is a fair amount of androgyny in the way many of his female characters dress; Grove's own feelings about this seem to be generally ambiguous.