Dead Women Talking: Figures of Injustice in American Literature Book

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: Recognizing the Dead 1

1 Dead Woman Wailing

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" 22

2 Dead Woman Dictating

Henry James's The Turn of the Screw 36

3 Dead Woman Rotting

William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying 51

4 Dead Woman Cursing

Alice Walker's In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens 67

5 Dead Woman Wanting

Toni Morrison's Beloved 77

6 Dead Woman Heckling

Tony Kushner's Angels in America 92

7 Dead Women Gossiping

Randall Kenan's Let the Dead Bury Their Dead 110

8 Dead Women Healing

Ana Castillo's So Far from God 126

9 Dead Woman Coming of Age

Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones 143

10 Dead Woman Singing

Suzan-Lori Parks's Getting Mother's Body 161

11 When Dead Women Don't Talk

Marine Hong Kingston's "No Name Woman" 176

Notes 185

Bibliography 199

Index 217