Kay Boyle Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Donna Hollenberg

SOURCE: "Abortion, Identity Formation, and the Expatriate Woman Writer: H. D. and Kay Boyle in the Twenties," in Twentieth-Century Literature, Vol. 40, No. 4, Winter, 1994, pp. 499-517.

In the following essay Hollenberg compares the conflicted views on maternity of American writers H. D. and Boyle.

In memoirs written later in life, when they were self-assured, H. D. and Kay Boyle speak of their respective decisions to leave America for the "freedom" of England and France as if their youthful expatriation were simply liberation from outmoded literary conventions and inhibiting roles as women. H. D. wrote, referring to the anomaly of being a woman writer in the male literary world of America in 1911, "We had no signposts, at that time." In fact, in both cases their anxiety over the conflict between conventional femininity and literary ambition increased soon after arrival abroad. For although expatriation was ultimately crucial to each...
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