Were Women Writers Compelled To Use Pen Names?

Pulse

oi-Anwesha

By Anwesha Barari

Friday, February 24, 2012, 13:36

Do you know J K Rowling's first name? Think hard you won't be able to recall because inspite of the media uproar over the popularity of the Harry Potter books you have never really seen the author's first name appear anywhere. Pen names have been used by writers from time immemorial to hide their original identity if they are writing something controversial. However when it come to women writers the need becomes a compulsion to be heard.

Female authors resorted to pseudonyms to get published and not shunned away by the readers and only after they did that were their works taken as serious literature. There are more than a few examples to illustrate.

Pen Names Used By Women Writers:

1. Jane Austen: But we see 'Jane Austen' printed in gold under 'Pride And Prejudice', 'Sense And Sensibility' and other celebrated classics? That is today, in 2012. during her lifetime Jane Austen remained pretty much anonymous because all her novels were published anonymously under the title 'A Lady'. It is only after she gained posthumous fame that her real identity was divulged.

2. The Bronte Sisters: The system of pen names became a rage in the Romantic period of literature. While Byron, Shelley and Keats were propounding radical ideas through their poetry openly, there were 3 young sisters Emily, Charolette and Anne who had even more macabre ideas to express. The difference is that they were women writers and had to cloak their identity to do so. Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell became famous as hedonists and supporters of destructive romanticism. If not for the male pseudonyms who would have accepted the monster Heathcliff as a romantic hero or the brutal attraction between Jane Eyre and Rochester as a love story.

3. George Elliot: Look at the irony, till this day she remains more famous by her pen name rather than her real name. Coming from Mary Ann Evans, 'The Mill And The Floss' would have been womanly sentimental crap but from George Eliot's pen it was a bestseller. Evans dared to lead an unconventional lifestyle (she had a roaring lifelong affair with a married man) in her times but could nor garner enough courage to use her real name.

4. Louisa May Alcott: Did you actually think that 'Little Women' was written by a man? A.M. Barnard to be precise. It is one of the most empathetic portrayal of a house full of women and their hardships in the war time. But Alcott had her small private joke when she made the protagonist of the book 'Jo' write the very story of the novel in it; it is a challenge 'Women can write and you will have to read'.

5. J K Rowling: Her first name is Joanne and she does not have a middle name so we don't know what 'K' stands for. Harry Potter is a boy and the publishers didn't want little boys to be put off by a female writer. Today everybody know she is a woman and the Harry Potter sales have not gone down.

These pen names are a cultural indicator that we still think women create serious literature.