Trapped: Spatial Confinement as a Metaphor for Female Subjugation in Two Representative Nineteenth-Century Novels, 2019

Fields, Yvonne

2010-2019

From early eighteenth-century literature to contemporary Gothic literature, the existence of Gothic conventions is evident. These Gothic conventions include family secrets, ruins or isolated mansions, hidden passageways, and bad weather. During an era when women were viewed as inferior and were expected to conform to the domestic expectations of their male counterparts, some female writers took it upon themselves to use their writing as a way to voice and illustrate the conditions that women endured. A thorough examination of Gothic Trappings in Charlotte Bronts?Jane Eyre?and Hannah Crafts The Bondswomans Narrative?shows representations of various spaces that essentially confined women resulting in their silence. When analyzing the position of women during the nineteenth-century and the spaces that they were confined to, it becomes evident that the genre of Gothic literature serves as a device to challenge the?restrictions placed on women in patriarchal society. KEYWORDS: Arts and Humanities

text

application/pdf

2019-05-20

dissertation

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Clark Atlanta University

Humanities

Duncan, Charles
Bess-Montgomery, Georgene
Chapman, Rico

Clark Atlanta University
Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library

Georgia--Atlanta

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12322/cau.td:2019_fields_yvonne