This dissertation will focus on four popular novels by Jewish-American women writers and the relatively neglected area of the imaginative representation of women’s experiences within post-holocaust Ultra-Orthodoxy. It will explore the notion of what an Ultra-Orthodox heroine is and examine whether a coherent picture of Ultra-Orthodox heroines emerges through a consideration of the similarities and differences between the four texts’ depictions of the
Ultra-Orthodox societies in which their characters function. This will include the writers’ use of some recurring tropes: the social conditioning of women, the centrality of the domestic sphere and its relationship to religious obligation and practice, and the duality experienced by the heroines as a result of the conflict between what is considered normative and subversive in their society.
I will consider also the significance of the writers’ use of two complementary elements as a means of configuring their characters as both conventionally literary and specifically Jewish heroines. Firstly, the use of features drawn from literary genre: Bildungsroman, domestic novel, melodrama and comedy of manners and secondly the use of what can be read as specifically Jewish feminine models – Binah – intuitive self-knowledge, Aishes Chayil – the woman of valour, Sotah – the fallen woman and Baalat Teshuva – the repentant woman.
Some academic work does exist on the four named writers but it is limited in both quantity and scope and there is no work extant on the four novels and the relationship between conventional literary genre and the notion of Jewish heroines within them. It is this that creates the distinctiveness of my dissertation’s approach and contributes to existing knowledge of the subject
