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English Language and Literature Commons

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Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

2022

William & Mary

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

Framing The Female Narrative: Male Audiences And Women's Storytelling Within Two Brontë Novels, Sammy Murphy May 2022

Framing The Female Narrative: Male Audiences And Women's Storytelling Within Two Brontë Novels, Sammy Murphy

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Since being published, both Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights have attracted scholarly and critical attention on account of their framed narratives. At the time of publication, some portion of this attention was negative; however, since the early 20th century, scholars have moved towards recognizing and analyzing potential purposes for the narrative structures of both texts. Within my thesis, I enter into this field of scholarship so as to analyze how the frame narrative functions as a tool for both simulation and subversion within the two texts. More specifically, I argue that Emily and …


'Carcern' And 'Wordcræft': Enclosure, Connection And Gender In Cynewulf's "Juliana" And "Elene", Katherine Grotewiel May 2022

'Carcern' And 'Wordcræft': Enclosure, Connection And Gender In Cynewulf's "Juliana" And "Elene", Katherine Grotewiel

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The scholarly narrative around monastic enclosure has centered on rigid gender divisions. But Cynewulf's Juliana and Elene reveal a more complex picture. Through images of enclosure, binding and the creation of words, Cynewulf unwinds these restrictive ties of gender in the epilogues of his poems and instead identifies with the figures in these poems not along lines of gender, but in their experiences of enclosure.


Feelings Of Fallenness: Affect And Gender In Victorian Fallen Woman Novels, Kate Kowalski May 2022

Feelings Of Fallenness: Affect And Gender In Victorian Fallen Woman Novels, Kate Kowalski

Undergraduate Honors Theses

A famous poem by Coventry Patmore articulated Victorian expectations for women: to be “the angel in the house.” The woman was the arbiter of morality, spiritual guide and helpmeet, and was worshiped almost as a goddess of purity— and goddesses need no legal protections. Chastity and submission were not only expected, but demanded of Victorian women. After all, these qualities were scientifically inherent in women (to the Victorian mind); the biological imperative of reproduction and maternity rendered women’s bodies a sacred space and prevented their minds from developing as a man’s could.The twin forces of Victorian patriarchal science and religion …