Subjects of slavery, agents of change : women and power in Gothic novels and slave narratives, 1790-1865

著者

書誌事項

Subjects of slavery, agents of change : women and power in Gothic novels and slave narratives, 1790-1865

Kari J. Winter

University of Georgia Press, c1992

  • : pbk

大学図書館所蔵 件 / 全29件

この図書・雑誌をさがす

注記

Includes index

Bibliography: p. [157]-165

内容説明・目次

巻冊次

ISBN 9780820314204

内容説明

In "Subjects of Slavery, Agents of Change", Kari J. Winter compares the ways in which two marginalized genres of women's writing - female Gothic novels and slave narratives - represent the oppression of women and their resistance to oppression. Analyzing the historical contexts in which Gothic novels and slave narratives were written, Winter shows that both types of writing expose the sexual politics at the heart of patriarchal culture and both represent the terrifying aspects of life for women. Female Gothic novelists such as Emily and Charlotte Bronte, Ann Radcliffe, and Mary Shelley uncover the terror of the familiar - the routine brutality and injustice of the partriarchal family and of conventional religion, as well as the intersecting oppressions of gender and class. Indeed, they represent the world as, in Mary Wollstonecraft's words, "a vast prison" in which women are "born slaves". Writing during the same period, Harriet Jacobs, Nancy Prince, and other ex-slaves in America expose the "all-pervading corruption" of southern slavery. Their narratives combine strident attacks on the patriarchal order with criticism of white women's own racism and classism. These texts challenge white women to repudiate their complicity in a racist culture and to join their black sisters in a war against the "peculiar institution". Winter explores as well the ways that Gothic heroines and slave women resisted subjugation. Moments of escape from the horrors of patriarchal domination provide the protagonists with essential periods of respite from pain. Because this escape is never more than temporary, however, both female gothic novels and slave narratives conclude tensely. The novelists refuse to affirm either hope or despair, thereby calling into question the conventional endings of marriage or death. And although slave narratives were typically framed by white-authored texts, containment of the black voice did not diminish the inherent revolutionary conclusion of antislavery writing. According to Winter, both Gothic novels and slave narratives suggest that although women are victims and mediators of the dominant order, they also can become agents of historical change.
巻冊次

: pbk ISBN 9780820317885

内容説明

Analysing the historical contexts in which female Gothic novels and slave narratives were composed, this text shows that both types of writing expose the sexual politics at the heart of patriarchal culture and represent terrifying aspects of life for women.

「Nielsen BookData」 より

詳細情報

ページトップへ