SOURCE: "Solipsism in Israeli Feminist Poetry: The Great Male Writer, Toni Morrison," in World Literature Today, Vol. 68, No. 3, Summer, 1994, pp. 505-08.

In the following essay, Abend assesses the influence of American literature and culture on Israeli feminist poetry.

Individualism, a distinctly Western ideal, is a concept one often associates with personal freedom, privacy, and control over one's life choices. But within the consumeroriented structures of the West, individualism is also a solipsism, as one is often more interested in one's own wishes and sentiments than in the greater issues of society. In the exportation of this ideal to the cultural provinces of the United States, one wonders which of its two facets will prevail: that of individual freedom—supposedly freedom for all—or that of social solipsism. In the case of feminist writings and practices, the interpretation of individualism is significant. An earlier call for women's rights by...