Social Identity and Literary Form in the Victorian Novel : Race, Class, Gender and the Uses of Genre.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Franks, Jill.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Identity (Psychology) in literature.

Literary form--History--19th century.

Literary form.

English literature--19th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (281 pages)

Place of Publication:

Jefferson : McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers, 2022.

Summary:

"Enormous social changes during the Victorian era inspired some of the finest novels in the English language. In the final decades of the century, rigid application of gender rules and class hierarchies began to relax. Consciousness of the injustice of class- and gender-based discrimination was growing. Meanwhile, bias against nonwhite peoples was worsening. The British used scientific racism to justify their relentless expansion in Africa and Asia. Viewing Victorian literature through the lens of these social changes gives the modern reader a fresh way to interpret the novels and to appreciate their relevance to contemporary issues. Nineteenth-century novelists deployed realism, satire, and the bildungsroman to resist or support leading ideologies of their time, including the separate spheres doctrine and British supremacism. Each chapter is an elaboration of the author's university lectures about Victorian classics. The tone is scholarly yet conversational, directed to the undergraduate student as well as the general reader or Victoriaphile. The text presents concepts in interdisciplinary cultural studies, discusses the uses of genre for rhetorical and social purposes, and exposes paradoxes of the era. The coherent style, abundant examples, discussion questions, and literary glossary make this book a valuable supplement for readers of the Victorian novel"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cover

Preface

Introduction

The Victorian Age: Progress and Paradox

I. Wuthering Heights (1847)

1. Heathcliff's Social Climbing

2. Masculine Privilege, Absent Mothers, Merging Lovers: Gender Roles and Love Relationships

II. Jane Eyre (1847)

3. Judging People by Color, Physiognomy, and Phrenology

4. Wide Sargasso Sea (1966): Dark Secrets of the Caribbean: Hatred, Murder, Madness

III. Vanity Fair (1848)

5. Race and Empire

6. Aporia, Metafiction, and the Narrator

IV. North and South (1854)

7. Roman Daughter and Milquetoast Father

8. Regional and Class Prejudice

V. A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

9. London versus Paris: Is This a Competition?

10. Allegory and Personification

11. Law and Justice

VI. Great Expectations (1861)

12. Little Pip's Outsized Guilt

13. Jack Maggs-Magwitch Writes Back

14. Refining Fire and Doppelgänger Devils

­15. Anti-Semitism, Casual Racism, and Pedagogy

VII. Middlemarch (1871)

16. Angel of Destruction or Spacious Mind?

17. Mrs. Cadwallader, Busybody

18. What Is a Gentleman?

19. Dorothea and Lydgate's Unrealized Potential

VIII. Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)

20. Bathsheba's Feminism

21. The Role of the Rustics

22. Hardy's Life and Loves

IX. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)

23. Jekyll's Downfall-Sadism or Repression?

24. Dr. Jekyll and Mary Reilly: Abuse, Trauma, and Gender

X. Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891)

25. Hardy's Modernity and Cosmic Irony

26. Pagan versus Christian Values

XI. The Odd Women (1893)

27. The Challenge of Writing a Novel of Ideas

28. The Skewed Income Scale: Intersections of Gender and Class

Appendix A: Discussion Questions

Appendix B: Glossary of Literary and Historical Terms

Acknowledgments

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Other Format:

Print version: Franks, Jill Social Identity and Literary Form in the Victorian Novel

ISBN:

9781476646862