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 6
... social action , or ' social service ' ( Helsinger et al . , 1983a , p.86 ) , as agents of moral influence outside the home : ' not in their households merely , but over all within their sphere ' ( p.80 ) . Though his motives differed ...
... social action , or ' social service ' ( Helsinger et al . , 1983a , p.86 ) , as agents of moral influence outside the home : ' not in their households merely , but over all within their sphere ' ( p.80 ) . Though his motives differed ...
Page 9
... social change , for upon marriage ' the absorption of all rights , all property , as well as all freedom of action , is complete ' ( 1986 , p.37 ) . Yet femes sole , the most obvious examples of financially independent women , and the ...
... social change , for upon marriage ' the absorption of all rights , all property , as well as all freedom of action , is complete ' ( 1986 , p.37 ) . Yet femes sole , the most obvious examples of financially independent women , and the ...
Page 98
... social upheaval that ensued — in short , disposses- sion was paralleled in the landscape not by spatial disorder but by the recon- stitution of the landscape as a coherent , unified space . This reaction to social dissolution by landed ...
... social upheaval that ensued — in short , disposses- sion was paralleled in the landscape not by spatial disorder but by the recon- stitution of the landscape as a coherent , unified space . This reaction to social dissolution by landed ...
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Common terms and phrases
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