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 3
... fact that we rarely see the progress of one ' ( 1997 , p.199 ) . The age - old matrimonial ending becomes in these novels a double sign of the heroine's triumphant accession to a newly apotheosized middle - class domestic realm , and ...
... fact that we rarely see the progress of one ' ( 1997 , p.199 ) . The age - old matrimonial ending becomes in these novels a double sign of the heroine's triumphant accession to a newly apotheosized middle - class domestic realm , and ...
Page 113
... fact — indicates how problematic it is to see Diana as the novel's exemplar of figural language . To argue that she person- ifies that power most emphatically as the novel's principal agent — or more , its embodiment of metaphor , is to ...
... fact — indicates how problematic it is to see Diana as the novel's exemplar of figural language . To argue that she person- ifies that power most emphatically as the novel's principal agent — or more , its embodiment of metaphor , is to ...
Page 132
... fact a wife was not regarded in Hungary as a minor , her husband was not her guardian , nor were there trustees appointed for her property . ' None of my countrywomen would ever have submitted to such a marriage settlement as is usual ...
... fact a wife was not regarded in Hungary as a minor , her husband was not her guardian , nor were there trustees appointed for her property . ' None of my countrywomen would ever have submitted to such a marriage settlement as is usual ...
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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