“Man’s Country. Out Where the West Begins”: Women, the American Dream, and the West in Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem
type: CreativeWork
description: This paper examines the feminist perspective in Didion’s collection of essays Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Throughout the text, Didion looks closely at the West and the changing social climate which surrounds her. Her essays chronicle women struggling to find a balance between the domestic and independence promised by myth the West. I analyze how women are granted only limited participation within the American Dream because of the masculine power structures which dominate our society. As the values of the American Dream shift, the women that Didion depicts attempt to find identity and independence despite the restrictive forces around them.
abstract: This paper examines the feminist perspective in Didion’s collection of essays Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Throughout the text, Didion looks closely at the West and the changing social climate which surrounds her. Her essays chronicle women struggling to find a balance between the domestic and independence promised by myth the West. I analyze how women are granted only limited participation within the American Dream because of the masculine power structures which dominate our society. As the values of the American Dream shift, the women that Didion depicts attempt to find identity and independence despite the restrictive forces around them.
author: Maidlow, Coleen
keywords: Joan Didion, Feminism, American Dream, Myth of the West, Women, Literature in English, North America
date published: 2012-12-15T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:29:47Z
provider: University of New Orleans
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of New Orleans