"I am my own mistress": Narrating professional autonomy and love in Charlotte Bronte's novels.
Item
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Title
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"I am my own mistress": Narrating professional autonomy and love in Charlotte Bronte's novels.
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Identifier
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AAI3310597
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identifier
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3310597
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Creator
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Davis, Helen H.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Anne Humpherys
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Date
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2008
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, English
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Abstract
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The social order of nineteenth-century England was rapidly shifting as power and wealth were increasingly controlled by the professional man. Writing in the middle of the nineteenth century, Charlotte Bronte used her art to attempt to make a place in this emerging power structure for the professional woman. In her novels, Bronte's heroines struggle to form an autonomous self while developing and maintaining social ties. This struggle manifests itself differently in each novel, but in each the quest for autonomy is intrinsically linked to professionalization, and the women's autonomy is complicated by relationships with men and women. Professionalization matters because work leads to autonomy only if the woman is in an authoritative professional position, and if her professional authority is not restricted by a husband. In Bronte's novels, the professional space occupied by women is specifically intellectual: her heroines are teachers and/or writers. My study brings together discussions of professionalization with a feminist narratological analysis of Bronte's texts. This analysis expands Bronte studies and presents a new application of feminist narratology. It offers a new perspective on Bronte's feminism by analyzing the ways narration constructs empowered female space in the novels, and also by challenging previous feminist critiques of Bronte that dismiss her feminism because all of her heroines marry or become engaged. To claim that any domestic ending is a "domestication" ignores the reality that independent women still want to have social relationships. When Bronte's heroines marry, it is not at the expense of the feminist tendencies of the novels; in fact, the marriages serve to highlight the tension between social acceptance and autonomy. Bronte demonstrates that relationships and autonomy are not exclusive of one another, but are uneasy companions. In the course of her novels, she moves from an idealistic portrayal of marriage to preemptive widowhood, gradually distancing her heroines from relationships, but never eliminating them altogether. Although Bronte moves away from domesticity through the course of her novels, she never abandons the heroines' urges for relationships. Rather, all four novels can be seen as repeated attempts to negotiate autonomy while maintaining relationships.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
