Revolutionary no more : the disempowering effect of marriage on classic literary heroines.

Aside from their status as canonical works of English Literature and bestselling blockbusters of their time, another element uniting Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740), Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813), and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), is their focus on courtship and marriage from a f...

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Main Author: Chia, Valerie Ying En.
Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Format: Final Year Project
Language:English
Published: 2013
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Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/52185
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-521852019-12-10T12:53:01Z Revolutionary no more : the disempowering effect of marriage on classic literary heroines. Chia, Valerie Ying En. School of Humanities and Social Sciences Samara Anne Cahill DRNTU::Humanities::Literature::English Aside from their status as canonical works of English Literature and bestselling blockbusters of their time, another element uniting Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740), Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813), and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), is their focus on courtship and marriage from a female perspective. In particular, these novels detail the struggles their protagonists face in their romance with men superior to them in class. Celebrated for their outspokenness and boldness in defying the patriarchal social script of their time which prescribed domesticity, passivity, and subservience as the standard for women, the three heroines (Pamela, Elizabeth, and Jane) notably reject the first proposal of some sort of formal arrangement (marriage/cohabitation) from their future husbands. Marriage is only consented to when their terms are met. Given the discrimination women were subjected to during the centuries in which these works were published, the heroines’ deviation from conventional social norms was both revolutionary and controversial to the readers of their day. This thesis contends, however, that contrary to popular interpretation and belief, not all three heroines are truly rewarded, as Pamela famously considers herself to be, by their radical class-crossing marriages. With the exception of Elizabeth, the other heroines suffer a loss of autonomy and agency soon after they become romantically involved with their prospective husbands. They are eventually reinscribed back into the patriarchal social script of their time and, with their revolutionary qualities subsumed, become neutralised as a threat to the status quo. Bachelor of Arts 2013-04-24T08:45:28Z 2013-04-24T08:45:28Z 2013 2013 Final Year Project (FYP) http://hdl.handle.net/10356/52185 en Nanyang Technological University 36 p. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
country Singapore
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic DRNTU::Humanities::Literature::English
spellingShingle DRNTU::Humanities::Literature::English
Chia, Valerie Ying En.
Revolutionary no more : the disempowering effect of marriage on classic literary heroines.
description Aside from their status as canonical works of English Literature and bestselling blockbusters of their time, another element uniting Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740), Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813), and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), is their focus on courtship and marriage from a female perspective. In particular, these novels detail the struggles their protagonists face in their romance with men superior to them in class. Celebrated for their outspokenness and boldness in defying the patriarchal social script of their time which prescribed domesticity, passivity, and subservience as the standard for women, the three heroines (Pamela, Elizabeth, and Jane) notably reject the first proposal of some sort of formal arrangement (marriage/cohabitation) from their future husbands. Marriage is only consented to when their terms are met. Given the discrimination women were subjected to during the centuries in which these works were published, the heroines’ deviation from conventional social norms was both revolutionary and controversial to the readers of their day. This thesis contends, however, that contrary to popular interpretation and belief, not all three heroines are truly rewarded, as Pamela famously considers herself to be, by their radical class-crossing marriages. With the exception of Elizabeth, the other heroines suffer a loss of autonomy and agency soon after they become romantically involved with their prospective husbands. They are eventually reinscribed back into the patriarchal social script of their time and, with their revolutionary qualities subsumed, become neutralised as a threat to the status quo.
author2 School of Humanities and Social Sciences
author_facet School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Chia, Valerie Ying En.
format Final Year Project
author Chia, Valerie Ying En.
author_sort Chia, Valerie Ying En.
title Revolutionary no more : the disempowering effect of marriage on classic literary heroines.
title_short Revolutionary no more : the disempowering effect of marriage on classic literary heroines.
title_full Revolutionary no more : the disempowering effect of marriage on classic literary heroines.
title_fullStr Revolutionary no more : the disempowering effect of marriage on classic literary heroines.
title_full_unstemmed Revolutionary no more : the disempowering effect of marriage on classic literary heroines.
title_sort revolutionary no more : the disempowering effect of marriage on classic literary heroines.
publishDate 2013
url http://hdl.handle.net/10356/52185
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