The Regime of the Brother
is one of the first attempts to challenge modernity on its own terms. Using the work of Lacan, Kristeva and Freud, Juliet MacCannell confronts the failure of modernity to bring about the social equality promised by the Enlightenment. On the verge of its destruction, the Patriarchy has reshaped itself into a new, and often more oppressive regime: that of the Brother.
Examining a range of literary and social texts - from Rousseau's
Confessions
to Richardson's
Clarissa
and from Stendhal's
De L'Amour
to James's
What Maisie Knew
and Jean Rhys's
Wide Sargasso Sea
- MacCannell illustrates a history of the suppression of women, revealing the potential for a specifically feminine alternative.