This thesis discusses the representation of spinsters in mid-Victorian literary fiction, examining how different authors deviate from the negative view of these unmarried women and respond to the...Show moreThis thesis discusses the representation of spinsters in mid-Victorian literary fiction, examining how different authors deviate from the negative view of these unmarried women and respond to the contemporary debate on their ‘superfluity’. It analyses the representation of spinsterhood in three novels from the mid-Victorian period: Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford (1853); Charlotte Brontë’s Villette (1853); and Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations (1861). This thesis argues that these authors take spinsters out of their marginal space, and present them at the heart of their texts. Moreover, by granting spinsters a central position and considerable power, these mid-Victorian authors validate their existence, oppose their ‘superfluity’, and demonstrate that women can be unmarried and independent instead of relying on men.Show less
This thesis investigates the role of rural, urban, and industrial landscapes in Charles Dickens’s Hard Times, Benjamin Disraeli’s Sybil, and Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South and Mary Barton....Show moreThis thesis investigates the role of rural, urban, and industrial landscapes in Charles Dickens’s Hard Times, Benjamin Disraeli’s Sybil, and Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South and Mary Barton. These four novels focus on the social turbulences surrounding industrialisation and are all set in an industrial town in the north of England. In each novel, the descriptions of rural, urban and industrial landscapes support that novel’s view on industrialisation and the subsequent social tensions.Show less
