View source for The Two of Them

A 1978 novel by [[Joanna Russ]].  Shortlisted for the Retrospective Tiptree Award.

==Plot (spoilers)==
''The Two of Them'' features another strong female protagonist, Irene, who rescues an adolescent girl from a male-dominated quasi-Islamic society. Like many of Russ's short stories ("The Little Dirty Girl"; "Bluestocking"; "The Autobiography of My Mother" in ''[[The Adventures of Alyx]]'') ''The Two of Them'' concentrates on a mother-daughter-type relationship.

==Influences, Impacts, Intertextualism, Connections==

* [[Joanna Russ]] dedicated ''The Two of Them'' to [[Suzette Haden Elgin]], who allowed her to use characters and setting of her short story, "[[For the Sake of Grace]]", "as a springboard to a very different story of [Russ's] own".

* ''[[The Clewiston Test]]'' is the title of a novel by [[Kate Wilhelm]], and the name of a test that the protagonist of ''The Two of Them'', Irene, asks for (on p.142 of [[The Women's Press]] edition). Russ's use of this allusion highlights the way that her novel echoes and answers situations and themes from Wilhelm's novel.

* There are echoes of "[[The Yellow Wallpaper]]" (1892) by [[Charlotte Perkins Gilman]] in Aunt Dunya's fate.

* The novel opens with a direct reference to ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'' by [[Lewis Caroll]] (as a comparison point for characters' clothing) .

==Editions==
* 1978, Berkeley-Putnam
* Berkeley, 1979
* [[The Women's Press]], London, 1986
* Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Connecticut, 2005

== External Links ==
* [http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gwynethann/The%20Two%20Of%20Them.htm 2005 review of ''The Two of Them''] by [[Gwyneth Jones]]

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[[Category:Novels]]
[[Category:1978 publications]]
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