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    • Abbreviated Title: Int. J. Lang. Lit. Linguist.
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    • DOI: 10.18178/IJLLL
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HOME > Archives > 2025 > Volume 11 Number 2 (2025) >
IJLLL 2025 Vol.11(2): 95-99
DOI: 10.18178/IJLLL.2025.11.2.580

Empowered Gossipmonger, Disempowered Woman: Navigating the Duplicity of Discursive Power in Alice Gerstenberg’s He Said, She Said

Yuzhi Ruan
Beijing Normal - Hong Kong Baptist University, Hongkong, China
Email: ryzd1112@163.com (Y.Z.R.)

Manuscript received December 28, 2024; accepted March 14, 2025; published April 25, 2025.

Abstract—This paper investigates the dual functionality of gossip in shaping the action of the comic character, Mrs. Cyrus Packard, in the play, He Said, She Said by the Chicago playwright, Alice Gerstenberg. During the American Little Theater movement in the early 20th century, when small experimental centers of drama were established, Gerstenberg challenged gender inequality through the use of social satire in her play. Incorporating textual evidence from the play, this study demonstrates that Mrs. Packard is both empowered and disempowered by her gossiping habit in terms of her self-perception and her social relationships within the play. It argues for the dramatic and satirical representation of female identity through discourse analysis in combining linguistics and literature.

Keywords—discursive power, female identity, feminism, little theater movement, gossip


Cite: Yuzhi Ruan, "Empowered Gossipmonger, Disempowered Woman: Navigating the Duplicity of Discursive Power in Alice Gerstenberg’s He Said, She Said," International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 95-99, 2025.

Copyright © 2025 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).

 

 
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