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 21
... hand by which to try them . Or rather , for want of such a standard , it gives one idea too much prominence ... ; it orders its ideas amiss ; it is hurried away by fancies ; it likes and dislikes too passionately , too ex- clusively ...
... hand by which to try them . Or rather , for want of such a standard , it gives one idea too much prominence ... ; it orders its ideas amiss ; it is hurried away by fancies ; it likes and dislikes too passionately , too ex- clusively ...
Page 53
... hand , the ending is entirely consistent with the novel's critique of dual- ism and its tyrannies for women . Lucy's suspended marriage is in many ways the appropriate condition for a heroine desperately seeking both security and ...
... hand , the ending is entirely consistent with the novel's critique of dual- ism and its tyrannies for women . Lucy's suspended marriage is in many ways the appropriate condition for a heroine desperately seeking both security and ...
Page 114
... hand which perform that resolu- tion or union of interests in language . It is only in the aftermath of her sale of the secret to Tonans that Diana realizes that language , the independent proper- ty she has accumulated — “ Touchstone's ...
... hand which perform that resolu- tion or union of interests in language . It is only in the aftermath of her sale of the secret to Tonans that Diana realizes that language , the independent proper- ty she has accumulated — “ Touchstone's ...
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action argues authority becomes belongs Brontė called Caroline chapter character claim collection common concern conventional Cranford critical Crossways culture desire Diana difference domestic effect England English equality expressed fact female feminine fiction figure finally Gaskell gender give hand Hardy Hardy's heroine household husband imagination important independent individual influence Jane kind ladies land landscape language live London Lucy marriage married Mary material means Meredith Miss Moonstone moral narrative narrator nature never notes novel passion plot political possession present protected provincial question readers reform relations relationship representation represents resistance rhetoric romance seems sensation sense separate sexual Shirley single social society space story suggests things tion turns University Victorian Villette voice wife woman women writing York