Action in Charlotte Bronte's fiction.
Item
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Title
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Action in Charlotte Bronte's fiction.
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Identifier
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AAI9530875
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identifier
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9530875
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Creator
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Green, Gail.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Felicia Bonaparte
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Date
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1995
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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 | Women's Studies
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Abstract
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In literature, the linking of activity with maleness and passivity with femaleness is a prominent structural element. In her fiction, Charlotte Bronte in large part subscribes to the dictates of a narrative structure in which men "do" and women "be." However, there is a pronounced ambivalence in Bronte's portrayal of male activity. Charlotte Bronte, on one hand, suggests that male activity is aligned with progress and that there is something unstoppable in progress. Yet, she defies inevitability. She creates characters who respond to events as if they, the characters, have some control over the course of their lives.;Bronte's most fundamental step in departing from the narrative structure in which men "do" and women "be" is her placement of females at the center of three of her four novels. Thus she raises a question which her characters frequently ask themselves and each other: What should I do? It is a question that points to a crisis in the narrative. Unless something is done, the narrative cannot go forward. And in the very asking of that question by a woman, the quite radical possibility is raised that a woman character is responsible to make the narrative move.;The first chapter of the dissertation identifies elements in Bronte's fiction that point to a crisis in the narrative. The second chapter concerns the relationship between Bronte's portrayal of providence and desire. The third chapter focuses on change as related to action in Bronte's fiction. The fourth chapter presents vision as a form of action in her four novels. The fifth chapter is an examination of one novel--Villette--in relation to the ideas discussed in the previous chapters.
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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.
