Abstract
Sabrina Fuchs Abrams examines the conflicted identity of the sexual intellectual in McCarthy’s writing, and how McCarthy uses satire as a way of masking her social critique through the socially acceptable form of laughter. McCarthy has been termed a “bitch intellectual” and a “modern American bitch” for her at times aggressive, sexual, and cerebral stance, a label that she has countered in part through her outward feminine appearance and her interest in the “domestic arts” of cooking, fashion, and gardening as well as through the double-edged power of humor. Fuchs Abrams looks at McCarthy’s satiric treatment of the sexual intellectual in The Company She Keeps and her autobiographical writing and the ways in which the woman of wit challenges traditional gender roles through the indirection of humor.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms, 7th ed. United States: Heinle & Heinle, 1999.
Barrett, William. The Truants: Adventures Among the Intellectuals. Garden City, New York:Anchor Press, Doubleday, 1982.
Brightman, Carol. “Mary, Still Contrary.” The Nation 19, May 1984: 611–618, rpt. in Gelderman, Conversations 245.
Brower, Brock. “Mary McCarthyism.” Esquire 58, July 1962: 60–65.
Cohen, Sarah Blacher, ed. Comic Relief: Humor in Contemporary American Literature. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978.
Dickstein, Morris. “A Glint of Malice.” Twenty-Four Ways of Looking at Mary McCarthy. Ed. Eve Stewrtka and Margo Viscusi. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996.
Gelderman, Carol. Conversations with Mary McCarthy. Jackson: University of Mississippi, 1991.
Gelderman, Carol. Mary McCarthy: A Life. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1988.
Gross, Beverly. “Our Leading Bitch Intellectual.” Twenty-Four Ways of Looking at Mary McCarthy‚ 27.
Gross, Miriam. “A World Out of Joint.” The Observer 14 Oct. 1979: 35. Rpt. in Gelderman, Conversations, 176.
Grumbach, Doris. The Company She Kept: A Revealing Portrait of Mary McCarthy. New York: Coward-McCann, 1967.
Hardwick, Elizabeth. A View of My Own. New York: Farrar, 1962.
Highet, Gilbert. The Anatomy of Satire. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962.
Kernan, Alvin. Introduction. Modern Satire. Ed. Alvin Kernan. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962.
Kiernan, Francis. Seeing Mary Plain. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2000.
Kramer, Hilton. “Mary McCarthy’s Valentine to Fanny Farmer.” Rev. of Birds of America. Book World, Washington Post 23, May 1971: 1.
Lurie, Alison. “True Confessions.” New York Review of Books 11 June 1987: 19–20.
Mailer, Norman. “The Mary McCarthy Case.” Rev. of The Group. New York Review of Books 17 Oct. 1963: 1–3.
Martin, Wendy. “The Satire and Moral Vision of Mary McCarthy.” Comic Relief: Humor in Contemporary American Literature. Ed. Sarah Blacher Cohen. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978.
McCarthy, Mary. The Company She Keeps. New York: Dell, 1942.
———. The Group. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963.
——–. Intellectual Memoirs: New York 1936–1938. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992.
———. Mary McCarthy’s Theatre Chronicles: 1937–1962. New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1963.
Niebuhr, Elizabeth. “The Art of Fiction XXVII: Mary McCarthy- An Interview.” Paris Review 27. Winter-Spring 1962: 59–94. Rpt. in Gelderman, Conversations, 14.
Podhoretz, Norman. Making It. New York: Random House, 1967: 154.
Showalter, Elaine. “Killing the Angel in the House: Autonomy of Women Writers.” Antioch Review 32.3. June 1973: 339–353.
Showalter, Elaine. “Toward a Feminist Poetics.” The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature, and Theory. Ed. Elaine Showalter. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985.
Smith, Peter Duval. “Mary McCarthy Said: ‘Men Have More Feeling, Women Have More Intelligence.’” Vogue Oct. 1963. Rpt. in Gelderman, Conversations, 60.
Stewrtka, Eve and Margo Viscusi, ed. Twenty-Four Ways of Looking at Mary McCarthy. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fuchs Abrams, S. (2017). Embattled Embodiment: The Sexual/Intellectual Politics of Humor in Mary McCarthy’s Writing. In: Fuchs Abrams, S. (eds) Transgressive Humor of American Women Writers. Palgrave Studies in Comedy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56729-7_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56729-7_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-56728-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-56729-7
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)