Wendy Perkins, an Associate Professor of English at Prince George's Community College in Maryland, has published articles on several twentieth-century authors In this essay she focuses on Dinesen's portrait of herself as an independent, nontraditional woman in Out of Africa.

The firm version of Out of Africa presents Karen Blixen as a courageous woman who can shoot lions alongside her lover Denys Finch-Hat-ton and withstand the long separations from her husband Baron Bror Blixen The film portrays Blixen/Dmesen to be an independent woman, but one who has had that independence thrust on her after first her husband's then her lover's desertion, leaving her to fend for herself on her African coffee plantation. Several scenes show her pleading with one or the other to stay and help her adapt to her new home.

In her autobiographical novel, however, Dinesen refuses to define herself through her relationships with...