The Rhetoric of Rage explores the treatment of women from a contemporary feminist perspective and reveals the ways in which Parker's brittle humor reflects muted anger toward a patriarchal society. Through close examination of the texts, the work investigates the hidden discontents, the buried conflicts of women's lives and exposes the forces at work both implicitly and explicitly that shape their existence.

The book locates links between the author's life and the fiction and elucidates the ways in which Parker lived her life in fiction and her fiction in life.