Rhetorical drag

"In this examination of seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century American captivity narratives, author Lorrayne Carroll argues that male editors and composers impersonated the women presumed to be authors of these documents. This "gender impersonation" significantly shaped the authorial voice and complicated the use of these texts as examples of historical writing and as women's literature. Carroll contends that gender impersonation was pervasive and that not enough critical attention has been paid to male intervention in female accounts." "Rhetorical Drag examines the familiar territory of captivity narratives, including versions of Hannah Duston's captivity, and widens it by analyzing numerous examples, placing each in a deeply historicized context. Carroll does original archival work on the provenance of Susannah Johnson's narrative and makes some discoveries about the practices of gender impersonation and collaborative composition that produced Johnson's text. Using this narrative, which appeared in the late eighteenth century, Carroll discusses the shift and evolution of gender norms in the representation of women's voices and embodied experience."--Jacket.