"Feminine Heroism in Harriette Arnow's "The Dollmaker

Simone de Beauvoir complained in The Second Sex (1949) that women writers seldom achieve the level of tragedy, that they do not challenge God and the human condition, and that their works lack what she termed metaphysical resonance. But, The Dollmaker by Harriette Arnow, published only five years later, refutes de Beauvoir's statement. This novel does contest the human condition and allows its heroic female protagonist to question both society and God, and to find them wanting. The Dollmaker is now gaining recognition by feminist critics, although, like Arnow's earlier novel, Hunter's Horn, it was a best seller after its publication in 1954. It was second to Faulkner's The Fable for the National Book Award. But adulation for Arnow's

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• Free Will and Determinism in Harriette Arnow's "The Dollmaker"

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