Feminist Alternatives: Irony and Fantasy in the Contemporary Novel by Women by Nancy A. Walker This analytical survey of contemporary fiction is a study of more than twenty-five novels written by women during a twenty-year period of rapid socio-cultural change resulting from the philosophy and goals of the contemporary women"s movement. The author contends that the novels of the period 1969-1988 served as a dialogue among women authors and their readers as they attempted to deal with dramatic alterations in attitudes toward career, sexuality, and continued tension between personal autonomy and cultural sexism. In readings of novels by American, British, and Canadian authors, including Gail Godwin, Toni Morrison, Margaret Drabble, Doris Lessing, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Margaret Atwood, the author proposes that the narrative devices of irony and fantasy are used commonly in these novels to reflect women"s increased detachment from cultural attempts to define women"s nature and role,...