The Two of Them
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The Two of Them is a 1978 science fiction 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
- May 1978, New York: Berkeley-Putnam, ISBN 0-399-12149-8. (hardcover) cover by Norm Walker
- Jun 1979, New York: Berkeley, ISBN 0-425-04106-9. (paperback)
- Sep 1986, London, UK: The Women's Press, ISBN 0-7043-4035-6. (paperback) cover by Judith Clute
- Mar 2005, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, ISBN 0-8195-6760-4. (trade paperback, with a foreword by Sarah LeFanu.) cover by Martina Pilcerova
Further reading
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