SOURCE: Walker, Nancy A. “Language, Irony, and Fantasy.” In Feminist Alternatives: Irony and Fantasy in the Contemporary Novel by Women, pp. 38-74. Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Mississippi, 1990.

In the following essay, Walker identifies language and the means to expression as a central component of women's writing, further explaining that language has a special and interdependent relationship with such literary devices as fantasy and irony. According to Walker, fantasy and language are tied together in unique ways, and she illustrates this connection through an analysis of several works of fantasy by women writers.

In Marge Piercy's Small Changes, Beth, one of the two central characters, dissolves in angry tears after an argument with Phil: “Oh, I wish I was better with words!” Beth views words as weapons in the battle for selfhood—a battle in which she, as a woman, is disadvantaged. She has difficulty arguing because “it's...