Amanda Cross, writing as Carolyn Heilbrun in Reinventing Womanhood (1979), has noted that "an outsider is identified by exclusion from the cultural patterns of bonding at the heart of society, at its centers of power. Outsiders, however, may gain strength in their reaction to exclusion if they bond among themselves, offering each other comradeship, encouragement, protection, support." Heilbrun/Cross often sees women as outsiders. In An Imperfect Spy there are many examples of both outsiders and insiders. There are women whose position in society puts them under certain kinds of pressure.

These female roles and pressures should be examined.

1. What is a hero(ine) and are there any in An Imperfect Spy?

2. When Persephone is captured by Pluto and taken to Hades, her mother, Demeter, causes the world to go in to a state of suspended animation. No crops grow and the world freezes. Eventually Pluto and...