Overview

Cultural Representation of the Second Wife: Literature, Stage, and Screen, is a multifaceted, interdisciplinary, cross-cultural work that provides insights into the realities of second wives the world over. This book allows the reader a three-dimensional view of the second wife experience. It asks: What does it mean, and what does it feel like, to be a second wife in a polygamous union or in a monogamous partnership? Is there a difference? Together, the writers in this book cleverly create an in-depth study of the subject through the productions referred to in the title, to offer a different approach to the popularly held views of the second wife. The book addresses the intricacies, customs, practices and lifestyles of the various Eastern and Western cultures and demonstrates the abilities of the Humanities to connect and interrelate with other disciplines as well as with the reader’s own world.

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9781666932843

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Reviews

Following Dr. Jo Parnell's groundbreaking and genuinely international collections on the cultural representations of the mother-in-law and the bride, comes this third volume on yet another underexplored universal female familial role, namely the second wife. Dr. Parnell, who envisaged, actualized, and edited this essential series, her expert contributors, and her publisher, are to be congratulated on creating this stunning collection of scholarly articles from around the globe. Ranging freely across times, places, histories, cultures, and social structures, as well as genres and cultural texts, Cultural Representations of the Second Wife: Literature, Stage, and Screen is essential reading for anyone interested in the second wife's experiences across multiple contexts. Jo Parnell's carefully curated collection brings attention to a figure often maligned and misunderstood in popular culture. Parnell's introduction and the chapters that follow offer readers a multidisciplinary journey across the globe and across time, from the Roman Empire to British colonial Nigeria to Hitchcock's Manderley. Whether she is the product of concubinage, polygamy, or remarriage after the death or divorce of her predecessor, the second wife looms large in film and literature as both a victim of and threat to patriarchy. This collection is full of surprises. Whatever you think you know about the second wife will be contradicted as the focus shifts across countries and continents and across decades and millennia. The stories intersect with religion, law, culture, divorce, polygamy, sexuality, and of course patriarchy. No wonder the second wife has proved irresistible for writers and directors. The essays show vividly the variety of these fictional versions and their impact on their audiences. Now any lucky reader of this rich collection can sample vicariously some of this ferment of attitudes and experiences . . .

Jo Parnell's carefully curated collection brings attention to a figure often maligned and misunderstood in popular culture. Parnell's introduction and the chapters that follow offer readers a multidisciplinary journey across the globe and across time, from the Roman Empire to British colonial Nigeria to Hitchcock's Manderley. Whether she is the product of concubinage, polygamy, or remarriage after the death or divorce of her predecessor, the second wife looms large in film and literature as both a victim of and threat to patriarchy. --Julie Anne Taddeo, University of Maryland This collection is full of surprises. Whatever you think you know about the second wife will be contradicted as the focus shifts across countries and continents and across decades and millennia. The stories intersect with religion, law, culture, divorce, polygamy, sexuality, and of course patriarchy. No wonder the second wife has proved irresistible for writers and directors. The essays show vividly the variety of these fictional versions and their impact on their audiences. Now any lucky reader of this rich collection can sample vicariously some of this ferment of attitudes and experiences . . . --Hugh Craig, Emeritus Professor, FAHA, University of Newcastle

Following Dr. Jo Parnell's groundbreaking and genuinely international collections on the cultural representations of the mother-in-law and the bride, comes this third volume on yet another underexplored universal female familial role, namely the second wife. Dr. Parnell, who envisaged, actualized, and edited this essential series, her expert contributors, and her publisher, are to be congratulated on creating this stunning collection of scholarly articles from around the globe. Ranging freely across times, places, histories, cultures, and social structures, as well as genres and cultural texts, Cultural Representations of the Second Wife: Literature, Stage, and Screen is essential reading for anyone interested in the second wife's experiences across multiple contexts. --Dr. Josephine May, University of Newcastle Jo Parnell's carefully curated collection brings attention to a figure often maligned and misunderstood in popular culture. Parnell's introduction and the chapters that follow offer readers a multidisciplinary journey across the globe and across time, from the Roman Empire to British colonial Nigeria to Hitchcock's Manderley. Whether she is the product of concubinage, polygamy, or remarriage after the death or divorce of her predecessor, the second wife looms large in film and literature as both a victim of and threat to patriarchy. --Julie Anne Taddeo, University of Maryland This collection is full of surprises. Whatever you think you know about the second wife will be contradicted as the focus shifts across countries and continents and across decades and millennia. The stories intersect with religion, law, culture, divorce, polygamy, sexuality, and of course patriarchy. No wonder the second wife has proved irresistible for writers and directors. The essays show vividly the variety of these fictional versions and their impact on their audiences. Now any lucky reader of this rich collection can sample vicariously some of this ferment of attitudes and experiences . . . --Hugh Craig, Emeritus Professor, FAHA, University of Newcastle

Author Information

Jo Parnell is Honorary Lecturer in the School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Science (HCISS), College of Human and Social Futures, at the University of Newcastle, Australia.

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