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Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

Chasing Demons: Female Villains And Narrative Strategy In Victorian Sensation Fiction, Heather Sowards Jan 2003

Chasing Demons: Female Villains And Narrative Strategy In Victorian Sensation Fiction, Heather Sowards

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This thesis explores Victorian sensation fiction and key authors who rely on essentialism, employing the classifications of either angel or demon to their literary female figures. Using Nina Auerbach's theories on these above categorizations and Helene Cixous's linguistic binaries, I examine the ways in which the narrators of Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret, Sheridan Le Fanu's Uncle Silas, and Wilkie Collins's Heart and Science force this taxonomy onto the female villains who dominate the novels' themes. By looking closely at the narrative strategies, I conclude that these female characters themselves are proposing a very different sense of self or …


Jane Austen's Powers Of Consciousness, Diane M. Counts Jan 2003

Jane Austen's Powers Of Consciousness, Diane M. Counts

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This thesis incorporates information from recent biographies, feminist studies, and scholarly interpretations focusing on Jane Austen's narrative strategies. Such incorporation of material provides a context for understanding the significance of Austen's contributions to the novel form and illuminating the development of the female narrative voice. It focuses on Emma, Austen's last novel published during her lifetime, as an exemplification of Austen's enunciation of a feminine perspective of life and vocalization of a growing female self-awareness - her powers of consciousness - through Emma. Of primary concern is Austen's use of narrative techniques enabling the reader to become intimately acquainted and …