Transforming fictional genres: Five nineteenth-century American feminist novelists
Abstract
Many nineteenth-century women writers in America were popular with the general reading public and considered by contemporary critics to be serious contenders for a lasting place in American letters. Despite their obvious commercial success and critical acclaim, these writers have been excluded from the canon of American literature. There was no consensus among the women writers about what women's role should be or could be and which genres might best express such concerns. Thus, although most nineteenth-century women literary writers examined the role of women in society, their work was not confined to a single genre. This dissertation focuses on five feminist novelists each of whom experimented with and excelled in a different genre: Catharine Maria Sedgwick (the frontier romance); Louisa May Alcott (the Gothic romance); Anna Katharine Green (the detective novel); Fanny Fern (the domestic novel); and Marietta Holley (the novel of social satire). Each transformed the conventions of her chosen genre and promulgated a feminist view which undercut the assumptions of androcentric society about the proper role for women. Contesting conventions of genres whose focus were linked to formulations, these writers foregrounded female heroes, thereby providing readers with models for alternative values and roles for women. Believing in the transformative power of literature, women writers who undercut generic conventions also hoped to undercut societal assumptions about gender roles and behavior, thus helping to free women from their entrapment in the "women's sphere." That these writers were conscious of the conventions of their chosen genres and deliberately altered some or all of those conventions to contribute a distinct feminist commentary on the "Woman Question," a statement which subverted societal assumptions concerning the role of women, provides the foundation for my analyses.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Oreovicz, Purdue University.
Subject Area
American literature
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