Grace Paley | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 15 pages of analysis & critique of Grace Paley.
This section contains 4,240 words
(approx. 15 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Review by Alan Wolfe

SOURCE: “The Saint,” in The New Republic, June 29, 1998, pp. 35-9.

In the following negative review of Just As I Thought, Wolfe condemns Paley's “stubborn” activism as hypocritical, dishonest, and, at worst, immoral. As Wolfe concludes, “Paley’s sentimental and sanctimonious book inadvertently exposes what went wrong with the American left.”

In an interview in 1984, Grace Paley was asked about her youthful experiences with civil disobedience. Recalling how she and her neighbors refused to allow buses through or real estate development around Washington Square Park in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, Paley responded: “One of the things I learned was stubbornness. And I’ve thought more and more that that’s the real meaning of nonviolent civil disobedience—to be utterly and absolutely stubborn.” The title that she has given this collection of essays, stories, speeches, introductions, poems, and remembrances confirms that this is a writer who is proud of...

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This section contains 4,240 words
(approx. 15 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Review by Alan Wolfe
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Critical Review by Alan Wolfe from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.