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. |
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... political rights in England ' ( Lacey , 1987 , p.380 ) , Cobbe launched a stinging attack on ' the most striking instance wherein the existing principle presses upon women , and where its injustice appears most distinctly — namely , in ...
... political rights in England ' ( Lacey , 1987 , p.380 ) , Cobbe launched a stinging attack on ' the most striking instance wherein the existing principle presses upon women , and where its injustice appears most distinctly — namely , in ...
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... political power and personal influence, already entrenched in writing about women in the late 1830s and 1840s, was a crucial one in the developing rhetoric of feminist reform, in contesting discourses about Victorian women (see ...
... political power and personal influence, already entrenched in writing about women in the late 1830s and 1840s, was a crucial one in the developing rhetoric of feminist reform, in contesting discourses about Victorian women (see ...
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... political influence , the true object of her political enlightenment ' , Lewis argued , was as a socially transcendent ' moral agent ' , removed from ' the actual collision of political contests , and screened from the passions which ...
... political influence , the true object of her political enlightenment ' , Lewis argued , was as a socially transcendent ' moral agent ' , removed from ' the actual collision of political contests , and screened from the passions which ...
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... political powers did ownership give her; what possibilities for economic activity were opened for her by her symbolic occupancy of the space of property; and what plots could express those rights, powers and possibilities? The answers ...
... political powers did ownership give her; what possibilities for economic activity were opened for her by her symbolic occupancy of the space of property; and what plots could express those rights, powers and possibilities? The answers ...
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... political involvement and social change, for upon marriage 'the absorption of all rights, all property, as well as ... politics of story in Victorian social fiction, Rosemarie Bodenheimer.
... political involvement and social change, for upon marriage 'the absorption of all rights, all property, as well as ... politics of story in Victorian social fiction, Rosemarie Bodenheimer.
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