Herself Beheld: The Literature of the Looking Glass

Herself Beheld: The Literature of the Looking Glass by LA Belle, Jenijoy. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780801497049.

What happenes when a woman looks into a mirror? Does she see her face or does she see herself? Jenijoy La Belle finds that women--both in literature and in life--interact with their reflected images for reasons that far transcend the gratification of vanity. In this thought-provoking account of the role played by the mirror in womens self-conceptions, La Belle focuses attention on literature of the last two hundred years in which a woman confronts her looking glass, and through her perception of how she looks, begins to consider who she is.