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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Page 33
... crowd is John Lucas , who , explaining why Engels's description of a London crowd is inferior to Dickens's , quotes Ste- ven Marcus thus : ' objects [ in Nicholas Nickleby ] are contiguously related , but the contiguity is precisely the ...
... crowd is John Lucas , who , explaining why Engels's description of a London crowd is inferior to Dickens's , quotes Ste- ven Marcus thus : ' objects [ in Nicholas Nickleby ] are contiguously related , but the contiguity is precisely the ...
Page 65
... crowd after the performance by Vashti ; her utter invisibility at the fête ; the periodic invasions of the nun ; ' the interval between the two acts ' ( p.240 ) ; the long vacation - are all les allées défendues , the forbidden ...
... crowd after the performance by Vashti ; her utter invisibility at the fête ; the periodic invasions of the nun ; ' the interval between the two acts ' ( p.240 ) ; the long vacation - are all les allées défendues , the forbidden ...
Page 88
... Crowd ( 1874 ) begins . Bathsheba Everdene , a ' handsome girl ' seated on the ' summit ' of a load- ed wagon and ' surrounded by tables and chairs with their legs upwards , backed by an oak settle , and ornamented in front by pots of ...
... Crowd ( 1874 ) begins . Bathsheba Everdene , a ' handsome girl ' seated on the ' summit ' of a load- ed wagon and ' surrounded by tables and chairs with their legs upwards , backed by an oak settle , and ornamented in front by pots of ...
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argues Barbara Bodichon becomes Betteredge Bretton Brontë Caroline Celt chapter character Chartism Collins Collins's comedy comic conflict conventional coverture Cranford Cranfordians critical Crossways culture Diana divorce domestic earnings Elizabeth Gaskell England English female feminine feminist figure Gaskell Gaskell's gender George Meredith Gillian Beer Hardy Hardy's Helstone heroine heroine's Hintock household husband ideology imagination imperial independent Irish Jane Eyre Jude Jude the Obscure Jude's ladies land 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 reform provincial question Rachel readers realism Redworth relations relationship representation represents resistance rhetoric romance scene sensation novel sexual Shirley Shirley's social social realism society space sphere story struggle suggests things tion Verinder Victorian novel Villette voice Wessex widow wife wives woman of property women Woodlanders writing