Mistress of the House: Women of Property in the Victorian NovelThis exploration of gender and property ownership in eight important novels argues that property is a decisive undercurrent in narrative structures and modes, as well as an important gender signature in society and culture. Tim Dolin suggests that the formal development of nineteenth-century domestic fiction can only be understood in the context of changes in the theory and laws of property: indeed femininity and its representation cannot be considered separately from property relations and their reform. He presents original readings of novels in which a woman owns, acquires or loses property, focusing on exchanges between patriarchal cultural authority, the 'woman question' and narrative form, and on the place of domestic fiction in a culture in which property relations and gender relations are subject to radical review. Each chapter revolves around a representative text, but refers substantially to other material, both other novels and contemporary social, legal, political and feminist commentary. |
From inside the book
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... the following chapters direct the conflict between these two opposing formulations of femininity, property and action into problems of narrative. In her study of the politics of story in Victorian social fiction, Rosemarie Bodenheimer.
... the following chapters direct the conflict between these two opposing formulations of femininity, property and action into problems of narrative. In her study of the politics of story in Victorian social fiction, Rosemarie Bodenheimer.
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... conflict and regional division. Brontë had written in Jane Eyre of her heroine's longing for 'a power of vision which might overpass [the] limit' set upon it by her position as the lowly governess of Thornfield. From the battlements of ...
... conflict and regional division. Brontë had written in Jane Eyre of her heroine's longing for 'a power of vision which might overpass [the] limit' set upon it by her position as the lowly governess of Thornfield. From the battlements of ...
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... conflicts: the class war that is being fought out in the local mill; the endemic hostility between the industrial north ... conflict between this notion of a 'separate class' and the countervailing ideologies of a woman's separate nature ...
... conflicts: the class war that is being fought out in the local mill; the endemic hostility between the industrial north ... conflict between this notion of a 'separate class' and the countervailing ideologies of a woman's separate nature ...
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... conflict between the abnegation of individuality enshrined in her domestic vocation and its expression as the ' Individual Life ' in her parallel vocation as a writer is clear from an earlier letter to Fox in which she admits : ' the ...
... conflict between the abnegation of individuality enshrined in her domestic vocation and its expression as the ' Individual Life ' in her parallel vocation as a writer is clear from an earlier letter to Fox in which she admits : ' the ...
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... conflicts created by property and inheritance laws. (1992, p.46) Diana represents everything that Victorian critics of the 1860s had deplored in the sensation heroine: There is nothing more violently opposed to our moral sense.
... conflicts created by property and inheritance laws. (1992, p.46) Diana represents everything that Victorian critics of the 1860s had deplored in the sensation heroine: There is nothing more violently opposed to our moral sense.
Contents
Shirley | |
Cranford and its belongings | |
Villette | |
The Moonstone | |
Hardys uncovered women | |
Diana of the Crossways | |
A brief summary of the laws | |
The Caroline Norton affair | |
Index | |
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Common terms and phrases
argues Barbara Bodichon becomes Betteredge Bretton Brontë Caroline Celt chapter character Charlotte Brontë Collins comedy comic conflict conventional coverture Cranford Cranfordians critical Crossways culture debates Diana divorce domestic earnings England English female feminine feminist figure Gaskell Gaskell's gender Gillian Beer Hardy Hardy's Helsinger Helstone heroine heroine's Hintock household husband ideology imagination independent Irish Jane Eyre Jude Jude the Obscure Jude's ladies landed landscape language live London Lucy Lucy's marriage married women's property Mary Meredith middle-class mistress Moonstone moral narrative narrator nature passion plot political possession property laws property reform provincial question Rachel readers realism Redworth relations relationship representation represents resistance rhetoric romance scene sensation novel sensationalism sexual Shirley Shirley's social social realism society space sphere story struggle suggests things Verinder Victorian fiction Victorian novel Villette voice Wessex widow wife wives woman of property women Woodlanders writing