of doing so, the question of how a ‘female’ mode of reading can potentially be achieved by almost anyone becomes particularly salient. This question has no doubt been explored in different ways throughout the history of feminist criticism. In his essay, ‘Reading as a Woman’ (1982), Jonathan Culler notes the various ways of reading that feminist critics have undertaken in order to ‘read as a woman’, particularly in what he calls the “hypothesis of the female reader”. The postulate of a female reader