Playing House in the American West: Western Women's Life Narratives, 1839-1987

More about the book

Examining an eclectic group of western women’s autobiographical texts, this study argues for a distinct regional literary tradition marked by strategic representations of unconventional domestic life. The controlling metaphor is “playing house.” From Caroline Kirkland and Laura Ingalls Wilder to Willa Cather and Marilynne Robinson, western authors from the mid-nineteenth to the late-twentieth centuries have embraced eccentric housekeeping to highlight a woman’s difference from both western neighbors and eastern readers. The readings investigate how westerners repurpose the familiar terrain of home to evaluate community, challenge conceptions of race and class, and resist traditional gender roles. The authors render the home as a stage for autonomy, resistance, and imagination rather than a site of sacrifice and obligation. The women examined are seen as representatives of their region, offering unique perspectives on distant ways of life while viewing themselves as outsiders. By subverting domestic conventions, they recast the West as a space that nurtures female agency, individuality, and subjectivity.