Cultural Representations of the Second Wife

Jo Parnell is Honorary Lecturer in the School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Science (HCISS), College of Human and Social Futures, at the University of Newcastle, Australia.

• ForewordMark Hoffman Acknowledgements IntroductionJo ParnellChapter 1. Toxic Patriarchy: Raise the Red Lantern and Chinese Concubinage Andrew Howe Chapter 2.The Second Wife According to Assia Djebar, Fawzia Zouari and Their Novels A Sister to Scheherazade, and The Second WifeChrista JonesChapter 3. Polygamy and Socio-political Configurations in the Egyptian Cultural ImaginationsAzza HarrasChapter 4 Secondary Spouse: Ekwefi as Second Wife inChinua Achebe’s Things Fall ApartHarry OlufunwaChapter 5. Unmasking the Realities of Polygamy: the Figure of the Second Wife in Changes: A Love Story (1993), Ada: A Victim of Fate and Cultural Circumstances (2014), and Mariah (2002).Shalini NadaswaranChapter 6. Poppaea Sabina, second wife to the Roman Emperor NeroJane Bellemore Chapter 7. “I am Mrs de Winter now”: Gaslighting, a deadly paradox, and Hitchcock’s second wife.Kathryn KeebleAbout the Contributors

Jo Parnell's carefully curated collection brings attention to a figure often maligned and misunderstood in popular culture. Parnell's introduction and the chapters that follow offer readers a multidisciplinary journey across the globe and across time, from the Roman Empire to British colonial Nigeria to Hitchcock's Manderley. Whether she is the product of concubinage, polygamy, or remarriage after the death or divorce of her predecessor, the second wife looms large in film and literature as both a victim of and threat to patriarchy.