Making use of recent feminist critical theory, Doane considers Gertrude Stein's modernist preoccupation with narrative silence in her early novels. She demonstrates the effects of this preoccupation on Stein's literary development, from the conventionality of her first novel, Q.E.D., through Fernhurst and Three Lives, to the radical transgressions against narrative intelligibility in The Making Of Americans. Doane, contending that Stein's ultimate revolt against traditional modes of discourse is directly attributable to her position as a woman writer, effectively elaborates the possibilities of creating an alternative feminist discourse and explores the ways in which gender may contribute to meaning.