In many ways the themes of the novel cannot be easily separated from the social concerns; Frederica's struggles as a woman are struggles many of Byatt's female characters in other novels engage in. Her work is consistently concerned with examining women's roles in society, often within the academy, and showing how women are oppressed. And because Byatt's work usually includes characters who are teachers and characters who are writers, she consistently explores what teaching should be and different ways in which readers and writers interact. By putting one of her fictitious works on trial she extends the discussion of the ethics and effects of fiction into the larger culture, but the underlying questions are not that different from those she poses in her 1967 novel The Game, in which a wri ter's book about her sister.....
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