Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the NovelOxford University Press, USA, 1987 M05 7 - 300 pages Desire and Domestic Fiction argues that far from being removed from historical events, novels by writers from Richardson to Woolf were themselves agents of the rise of the middle class. Drawing on texts that range from 18th-century female conduct books and contract theory to modern psychoanalytic case histories and theories of reading, Armstrong shows that the emergence of a particular form of female subjectivity capable of reigning over the household paved the way for the establishment of institutions which today are accepted centers of political power. Neither passive subjects nor embattled rebels, the middle-class women who were authors and subjects of the major tradition of British fiction were among the forgers of a new form of power that worked in, and through, their writing to replace prevailing notions of "identity" with a gender-determined subjectivity. She also examines the works of such novelists as Richardson, Jane Austen, and the Brontes to reveal the ways in which these authors rewrite the domestic practices and sexual relations of the past to create the historical context through which modern institutional power would seem not only natural but also humane, and therefore to be desired. |
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appeared aristocratic Austen authority basis behavior body Charlotte Brontë Citations claims conduct books courtesy literature criticism culture Darwin desire Dickens discourse display domestic fiction domestic woman dominant Dora Dora’s E. P. Thompson earlier economic eighteenth century Emily Brontë Emma Emma’s emotional English Erasmus Darwin explains feelings female subjectivity feminine feminization figure Foucault Freud gender Harriet Heathcliff household Ian Watt ideal identity individual Jane Austen Jane Eyre Jane’s kind Knightley knowledge labor Lady language literary literature London marriage material means middle-class modern moral narrative nature nineteenth century notion novel novelists objects one’s Pamela political principle produce psychological qualities readers reading relationship representation represented resistance rhetorical Richardson role scene sexual contract sexual relations social social contract society status strategies struggle theory Thornfield Hall traditional transformed truth understand University Press Victorian virtue women Woolf words writing Wuthering Heights