Narrative "Confidence Games."

Gentlement Prefer Blondes (Book); Nights at the Circus (Book); Loos, Anita, 1893-1981; Carter, Angela, 1940-1992; Feminism; Women in literature; Britzolakis, Christina

What makes Lorelei Lee from Anita Loos's novel "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (1925) so appealing is her ability to manipulate her own image and effectively become mistress of her own grand confidence game. Christina Britzolakis questioned the viability of reading the "feminine spectacle" as a particularly feminist undertaking. Although Britzolakis is right to point to the patriarchal underpinnings that inform the male gaze, the author argues that the rhetorical construction of the wise-cracking, self-reflexive blonde often enacts a critique on the system of commodification and objectification that she appears to uphold, thus meriting more critical and scholarly attention. More specifically she investigates the parallel rhetorical strategies in Anita Loos's novel and Angela Carter's "Nights at the Circus."