Morality and womanhood are the topics addressed by Mary Gordon in her two novels, "Final Payments" [and "The Company of Women"] …: morality posed as a question—is self-sacrifice a form of self-indulgence?—and womanhood as a physical and mental plight….

A perfectionist, Gordon views men as gods or oafs; she doesn't come to terms in either of her books with the idea of them as human beings. Her reflections on men and women are unresolved…. Gordon's female characters back away from confrontation with the adversaries they admire—the father in "Final Payments," the priest in "The Company of Women"—and retreat in sanctimonious disgust from the oafs. Since they could certainly say, as Jane Eyre does, "I felt his influence in my marrow—his hold on my limbs," the absence of intersexual argument is a disappointment. It could be a result of the feminist piety that seems to...