Methodology in "When Women Love Men"

Ferre claims that anger has caused many women to write well, a belief that is based on looking at female writers such as Virginia Woolf and Anne Radcliffe, believing that their work is valuable only so far as it is angry. She goes on to cite the fact that Virginia Woolf writes against the idea of anger in A Room of One's Own, but Ferre suggests that Woolf's fictional texts are filled with anger, despite the fact that Woolf herself may not be aware of its presence. In what ways does anger propel not only this text, but the work of female writers at large?

Ferre examines a third type of irony, which claims to dissemble the structure of anger in such a manner so that it is more emotionally piercing to the audience (147). She discusses the two literary voices from "When Women Love Men," Isabel la Negra and Isabel Luberza, both of whom she identifies with, but she similarly states that she is detached from both of these women, operating also as a separate narrative voice. On page 148, Ferre discusses the fact that she did not set out to write about doubles specifically when she began her text, but that it provides both a narrative closeness and distance that allows her to see both the text and her characters more accurately. What do you think is the advantage to such a narrative technique is this, particularly when it developed after Ferre began writing?

How does Ferre's reflections upon her own writing help us understand the piece? To what extent does this change our view of the writing? Particularly, I'm struck by Ferre's claim that Isabel's name was whispered among the boys and that her views toward Isabel lean toward curiosity as she is just discovering elements of the erotic.