SOURCE: “The Return of the Repressed,” in Washington Post Book World, Vol. 9, No. 16, November 25, 1979, pp. 4, 6.

In the following essay, Heilbrun praises The Madwoman in the Attic as a major work of feminist critical theory.

The pens of authorship have not only been, until the 19th century, entirely in the hands of men: the pen has also been male, a part of the male anatomy. Women could possess it only as a monstrosity. With the beginning of the 19th century, this attitude, taken less obviously for granted, began to be stated: Gerard Manly Hopkins called the artist's creative gift a male gift, a male quality. Jane Austen, Anthony Burgess latterly remarked, “lacks a strong male thrust.” Women who wrote, therefore, became by that act anomalous creatures.

Nor was this all. Woman had no story of her own; men have always told her this, and woman has believed it. She...