In this article  Frank Kovarik wrote for Jezebel, he began applying the Bechdel test to the classic literature he teaches in high school. For those of you unfamiliar, the Bechdel Test, created by Alison Bechdel in a 1985 Dykes to Watch Out For comic strip puts movies to three simple questions:

  • Does a movie contain two or more female characters who have names?
  • Do those characters talk to each other?
  • And, if so, do they discuss something other than a man?

A surprising number of films do not pass even the first of these questions, and very few can answer “yes” to all three.

You may think that it’s unfair to apply this test to classic literature. After all, we know that the majority of literature was written by old, white men, (in some cases young white men) but it is also true that these works are and have been extremely influential in American culture. After all, we all must read some amount of classic literature before we graduate any level of education, be it middle school, high school, or upper level education. Applying the Bechdel test to sexism, racism, homosexism, and classism and seeing how literature’s perception compares to the real world could give some insight into the collective consciousness of America.

So that is exactly what I intend to do. I’ve compiled a list of 78 books taken from 3 100 best novel lists: Modern Library, Time Magazine, and the New York Times. If a novel made more than one of these lists, it made my final list. I now intend to read every one of these books and analyze them in terms of sexism, racism, homosexism, and classism. Wish me luck.

  1. *ULYSSES by James Joyce
  2. *THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  3. *A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
  4. *LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
  5. *BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
  6. *THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
  7. *CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
  8. *THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
  9. *UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
  10. *1984 by George Orwell
  11. *I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
  12. *TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
  13. *AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
  14. *THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
  15. *INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
  16. *NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
  17. *APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O’Hara
  18. *A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
  19. *ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
  20. *A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
  21. *AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
  22. *THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
  23. *GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin
  24. *THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
  25. *LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
  26. *DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
  27. *A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell
  28. *THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
  29. *TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
  30. *PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
  31. *LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
  32. *ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
  33. *THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
  34. *DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
  35. *THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
  36. *A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
  37. *OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
  38. *HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
  39. *THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
  40. *A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
  41. *THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
  42. *BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
  43. *THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
  44. *THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen
  45. *RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow
  46. *THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
  47. *LOVING by Henry Green
  48. *MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
  49. *THE MAGUS by John Fowles
  50. *WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
  51. *UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch
  52. *THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
  53. *ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand (cheat)
  54. *THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
  55. *TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
  56. *DUNE by Frank Herbert
  57. *GRAVITY’S RAINBOW by Thomas Pynchon
  58. *SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
  59. *GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell
  60. *A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY by John Irving
  61. *THE STAND by Stephen King
  62. *THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN by John Fowles
  63. *BELOVED by Toni Morrison
  64. *THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams
  65. *BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy
  66. *ON THE BEACH by Nevil Shute
  67. *GREENMANTLE by Charles de Lint
  68. *THE RECOGNITIONS by William Gaddis
  69. *AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS by Flann O’Brien
  70. *WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams
  71. *NAKED LUNCH by William S. Burroughs
  72. *ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST by Ken Kesey

73. *The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
74. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
75. The Golden Notebook (1962), by Doris Lessing

76. Herzog (1964), by Saul Bellow-?

77. Possession (1990), by A.S. Byatt-?

78. *Watchmen (1986), by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons