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GÉNERO E IDENTIDAD
Throughout the 18 th^ century, women writers wrote novels for women, but most of these novels were rejected by male readers. Most of them thought they were dangeroud because they were filling women's minds with irrealistic romantic view of life and ideas. It was a dangerous drug.
Women writers gained respect by the end of the 18 th^ century because they changed the content of the novels. They wanted to be accepted by men: they had to be dictated (teach young women the right moral values) and they tended to reflect conservative moral values; they played safe. They wanted to avoid the charge of being frivolous by teaching good sense to young women.
Most of these women weren't independent (home with parents). Most of them didn't go to university or school and owed their education to their parents, so they didn't want to offend them with their novels. Nevertheless, men never had this problem. [!]
- Fanny Burney wrote her first novel ( Evelina ) and published it anonymously with a very humoroud tone. The next three novels, she changed her tome because she didn't want to offend her readers (and now she had a family to feed and she needed the money).
Women writers also changed their own image. They tried to conform the 18 th^ century ideal of
womanhood: chastity, modesty, they had to be humble, virtuous and domestic (her place was at home). Novels were writtern because of financial necessity or because they wanted to express their opinions/teach the moral values (this is explained in the prefaces of the novels; apology for writing).
Women writers had to be careful not only with the way of their writing, the content, but also they had to be physically pure (faithful, chaste). Men didn't have to worry about any of that.
- Mary Wollstonecraft “Reivindication of the rights of women”. First feminist. She rejected the idea that men were superior intellectually than women. After her death, her husband published a book with her memories. After that, her name wasn't heard again for a whole century, just because it was published by a man.
- Eliza Haywood “The history of Betsy Thoughlers”. First novels that had erotic contents. Quite scandalous. Then, she rectified and wrote this book, “The female spectator” : journal. She wanted to rectify some errors. She learnt the same lesson as Charlotte Smith: if she wanted to be respected, she had to fit into the 18 th^ century standards. 1928: Pope “The Dunciad” → attaking Eliza Haywood's work.
Most women writers promoted a type of novel emphasizing the need of filial obedience aspect (obey the parents), the priviledge of chastity and emphasizing the need of wife being submissive → 18 th^ century morality.
Mary Wollstonecraft → “If you're not ready or don't have the skill to write, don't write. But don't apologize for doing it”.
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL BACKGROUND
Most women came from a good environment. Middle and upper class. Social status derived from the father of the husband. Upon the death of the father of the marriage, the life of that woman would change completely. Without the figure of the father, women had no money. Some of them would have to start writing to survive (Charlotte Smith). The one who inherited the money was the son.
kind of husband. 18th^ century → the husband and wife became one person in law. When a woman married, she became dependant of her husband.
- Priscilla Wakefield → worried about the situation of middle class women. Aware of the difficult circumstances. More job options for women.
- Charlotte Lennox → daughter of a captain. Father died and she was left without any money, so she had to start writing. Although writing became something decent in the late 18 th^ century, it was something precarious still. Women had to combine writing with other jobs to survive (Lee Sisters).
- Elizabeth Inchbald → writer and actress. Married women writer's situation was completely hard. They were in the shadow of her husbands. Novels written by women were legally property of their husbands; so they could destroy it, change it, claim it as their own, etc. All the benefits belonged to the husband too, not the wife. 18 th^ century → women had no right over their children. The husband had all the rights inside the marriage. If a woman abandoned her husband, she lost everything (money and children). Divorce was very complicated. Formal separation instead. After the mid 18 th^ century, publishers started publishing catalogues and magazines in which women writers appeared. They became quite popular. Very important change [!] Women writers playing important roles at that time.
Women writers in the 18 th^ century had some fears: threat of poverty and going to prison for debts.
- Amelia Opie: Good writer; ended her life in debt.
CHARLOTTE SMITH
Charlotte Turner (Single name)
- Eldest daughter of Nicholas Turner → country gentleman with states in Sussex and Surrey. Low aristocracy. Charlotte likes the country so much. Natural beauty of this region. When she was 4, her mother died. Her father left her education to her aunt. After his wife's death, Nicholas enjoyed social life in London and the continent, and he lived beyond his means (spent more money than he could afford). This extravagant lifestyle led to financial problems and in 1964 he decided to marry a young life, who had a 20 thousand pounds dowry (dote). Charlotte wouldn't approve of the marriage, so he arranged a marriage for Charlotte. She was married to Benjamin Smith, son of Richard Smith, who was a very wealthy merchant with states in the West. “I was sold as a legal prostitute”, Charlotte said years after. At the beginning of the marriage, life was very hard for Charlotte (different social classes). She came with other values from the upper class to the new middle class. Richard Smith wasn't very happy with her at the beginning, but finally he did. (He realized she was a very sensible woman). Her married life was similar to that of many women in the 18 th^ century. First child at the age of 17. Second child at 18. A day before the second child was born, the first one died. For the net 15 years, she would be pregnant or revovering from pregnancy. 4 of her 10 children died before her. Benjamin was the worst kind of husband (wouldn't care for the children, no money, abused her...) Charlotte wasn't happy living in London so she persuaded Richard to buy Benjamin a farm in the country. She believed that Benjamin would change his behaviour when going to the country, but it didn't happen.
1776 → Richard Smith died. Great problem started here. He wanted to protect his grandchildren
Charlotte was so careful because she needed the money. They wanted to please the reader (most of
them were conservative).
Most critics say that there's a female aesthetics different from the male one (specifically in the 18 th century). Women use imagery differently: they use the same images as men but with a different meaning (the needle is a symbol of responsability and roles that involve women. Also a way of reflecting the psychological state of the heroine.)
Other way that they subvert novelistic conventions is that women reinterpret and reconstruct the romance pattern. By doing that, women can reflect the feminine perspective. They tell a story in which they reflect the struggle and victory of women in patriarchal society.
In romances written by men, the hero seduces the heroinewith his visions of patriarchal power. Also, the heroine thinks of herself in terms of submission.
Women writers challenge this discourse of romance by introducing in a hidden way an anti- romantic discourse that subverts the traditional image of the heroine → The novels written by women, women learn to act by themselves and control the situation, and not the hero. The heroine is not seduces or raped against her will; they learn how to protect themselves. Survive in the patriarchal world.
Main differences [!] Women celebrate female survival and resistance. The heroines created by women show a courage that make them equeal as men.
Women writers decided to create a new hero too.
New feminized man → The new hero is converted to egalitarian principles and he also shows the tenderness, kindness and sensibility that is associated with women. In the Conduct Books of the age, you get the image of an agressive and dominant man. This new hero, he's willing to give up his power and doesn't use his power to explode the heroine; doesn't treat her like his property; he respects her sense of herself as an autunomous person → being capable of controlling your passion is very important in the new hero. Self-restraint. By restraining your passion you're allowing the heroine to have a choice in the relationship. He refrains his feelings; backs up. Doesn't impose his power. The new hero considers the heroine as his spiritual and moral equeal. Passionate heroes are a threat to heroines because they want to impose their power on the heroine. In novels written by comen the villains are the passionate heroes.
New feminized man → tendency to burst into tears.
Charlotte and other women writers subverted the conventions of the sentimental novel from the shift from Romance to Realism. Through her novels, she wanted to offer a more realistic view of life: truth teller. She tries, as far as possible, to scape melodrama and sentimentalism and introduces more unromantic and realistic experience in her novels(she had to include some of these elements though).
Vulnerability is a common feature in the women of novels written by women. Men have power upon them. Men weren't aware of these problems, only women duffered them.
her representation of extramarital relationships that are more loving and responsible than conventional marriages.
- Adeline : (always secondary character) marries a man she doesn't love, commits adultery. Gets pregnant. Goes insane. She gives birth to her child and goes back to normal. In another novel with this situation, the woman would pay a price. Instead, her husband dies and marries her lover. This woman that commits adultery is so lucky at the end.
- Desmond : secondary character, same as Adelina. The heroine doesn't have a “happy ending”. The readers would never accept a heroine who is sexuaally transgressive.
- These women have been forced to commit adultery because they have been forced by the rules of society: the fact the parents marry their daughters with men they don't love, brutal men who abuse them. Criticized by Charlotte [!]. Victims of society.
Charlotte is sympathetic with those women who have fallen into prostitution (mistresses). She gives these women so many good quality that the readers forget they are not chaste.
18 th^ century → Appearance was everything to a womean. Women only commit adultery with men they love and they end up marrying.
Economic vulnerability → make women become mistresses, commit adultery. Victims.
IMPORTANCE OF CHASTITY IN THE 18TH CENTURY.
When the French Revlution started many people in Emngland believed that it would serve as mode for a change in England. Jacobins → peyorative term. If the French model was followed, English society would become more regalitarian. (Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Hays believed that the revolution opened up more new possibilities for them.) They defended the right to be consiedered moral and rational beings.
Middle years of the 1790s the revolutionary exxcitement declined. They were news in England about the masacres that were being commited in France.
With this decline there was a reasartation of traditional values. The Jacobins became unpopular, criticized and ridiculed at that time. Conservative writers critizeiced these new ideas of the Jaacobins. Feminism, after the ecitement for the French revolutions, beamse considered anti- English, Any kind of reforms, specially these concerning women equeality, were rejected.
Conduct books → ideal woman: modest, chaste, submissive, gentle, capable of controlling herself. New editions at the end f the 18 th^ century. Emphasis on the chastitty of women and decorum.
Unchastity was a sin that couldn't be forgiven in a woman. It marked her social death. There's no way back. Big mistake. Unchasttity was tolerated in men. Lower standard of behaviour was tolerated by men. Double standard (chaste women, free men): the eldest son inherited the family goods and the father wanted to be sure that his son was the night heir (not a bastard).
Mary Wollstonecraft, Hays and Catharine Maccaulay critziced these moral standard so no fault in what they did. More flexible for men. It was ridiculous to consider women eak of intellect and reason, unsabble to control their passions and yet be able to have a higher standard of behaviour of them.
These women didn't want to ridicule or destroy the virtues of modesty and chastitty. They wanted a
MAIN GOTHIC NOVELS
“The Old English Baron” (1777) Clara Reeve. “The Recess” (1783-86) Sohpia Lee. Charlotte Smith “The Mysteries of Udolpho” (1794) Ann Radcliffe. “The Italian or the confessional of the black penitent” (1797) Ann Radcliffe. (great writer)
Great similarity in the language and imagery used by women writers that write realistic novels and gothic novels. In the realistic novels, heroines use to have frightened dreams and suffer temporary insanity. In gothic novels, they use these attacks to express feminine pain. The language that realistic writers is very similar as the one used in gothic novels to describe these mental terrors. In realistic novels, the dreams and insanity doesn't last forever and the heroine wakes up or comes to her senses and goes back to reality. The world is rational and reasonable, although not friendly. In gothic novels, there's no real world to come back to because reality is a bad dream; it is irrational, it is really a nightmare.
- Charlotte Lennox “The Female Quixote” → It's also about a woman that reads many libros de caballería and she has a period of insanity, so she has power over men and believes herself as one of them. At the end, she comes back to her senses and she becomes submissive again (reality).
Gothic novels → mixture of the real and the fantastic. Sometimes the reader doesn't know what is real and this gives women the power to give voice to their own opression in an indirect way. This is specially obvious. Women can say what they couldn't say.
- Charlotte Brontë “Jane Eyre” → Orphan, brought up in an orphanage. Governess for Rochester → Falls in love and wants to marry her. She keeps hearing these screams and laughter. Jane discovers he is already married to Bertha (crazy in the attic). Through Bertha, Charlotte Brontë says what she couldn't say: she subverts all the conventions (loose clothes, laughs, expresses her feelings). Bertha is a victim of society. She is insane because of what she has suffered in her marriage. Because she is crazy, she is allowed to do things that other characters can't.
- Jean Rhys “ Wide Sargasso Sea” (1966) → Other point of view of Jane Eyre. Bertha is a character only women could create because they knew what they had been through.
- Fanny Bryce “The Wanderer” → Crazy character.
The female gothic was from the very begining concerned with imprisonment. Very typical. The legitimate daughters of Mary Queen of Scotts → they ae brought up secretly in a cavern (they have no identity, they don't exist). The concern of being trapped. Places like dungeons (attic later). These are places from which they cannot scape. This physical imprisonment are a metaphor for the imprisonment in society.
- Mary Shelley “Frankestein” → Kind of monster a woman only could create. Because he's ugly, the monster is an outsider to society in the same way women because of their sex are. Like women, he's not responsible for his situation but he can't change it. He is deprived, he hasn't got any education or priviledges in the same way as women. He would like to be as the others.
end she ends up defiting patriarchal society. This apparently weak heroine wins. Gothic novels written by women they subvert this legal and social construction. Most of the novels, there's a property in dispute (a fight for intelligence). At the end of the novel, the heroine gets everything (her lightful part) and marries the new feminized man.
In esssence, these women writers were creating what critics called an empowering female, created fantasies (because in real life, woman could not defeat patriarchal society). For most women in real life the patriarchal home was little, a prison or an asylum, In this patriarchal home they were educated to the status of an object and few many of them living in these houses was a nightmare. That's why in the novels they end up marrying a man that treat them equeally (so they can escape the patriarchal society). There are certain men that are wounded by the patriarchal society world (physically wounded) and that allows them to become a feminized man.
“The Castle of Ofranto” H. Walpole → mix improbably, supernatural elements with nature. From the beginning, the gothic novel was associated with dreams and the irrational world.
“The Mystery of Udolpho” → At the end, the heroine gets her property back and marries a man she loves. The villain pays for his crime.
“The Italian” → At the end, the villain realises that the heroine is his daugher, so he helps the lovers to afterwards fall in hands of the Insquisition.
“The Monk” by Lewis.
Women writers were writing a very different kind of novels.
When talking about Charlotte Smith , we have to talk about her use of nature. In her novels, the description of nature emphasized the dramatic situation they portrair, and reflects the main character's state of mind and feelings.
She also distinguishes between nature/art characters. Nature characters enjoy nature, whereas art characters don't enjoy it. The hero and the heroine aren't capable of enjoying it. The hero and the heroine are always nature characters because they have strong feelings and they prefer simple style of life. They have natural elements rather than learned accomplishments, they respond to the suffering of others and they feel alienated from a world that values the things they don't value. Art charaters value special status, they lack sympathy for other a and don't help these in need. They have no capacity for feelings. Charlotte Smith was very fond of botany. She really believed that the study of botany could really help these “sick at heart” and that time it was an alternative 18 th^ century conventional medicine.
Women's life → meaningless, social activies. In her works, she emphasized that the study of nature would strenghten a woman physically, mentally and spiritually. But she knew that nature could not cure human suffering misery. This is clear in her last novel “The young philosopger” (if few disobey social rules, few pay for them).
The defense of the name was very subversive. At the end of the 18 th^ century, some critics believed that the study of nuture...
- Richard P Hole “The Unsex'd female, A Poem” .: Of few are a chaste women, how can few study the sexual system of plants).
Most of the literature published at the end of the 18 th^ century was political. They believed that women were not prepared for it. But because writing had had become a respetable profession for women, many women had a debate in whether women writers should write about politics.
the writers deficienly because she knew that the remaining attitude was against her. In the preface of “Desmond”, she apologizes for mixing politeness and entertainments but her readers liked the way in which she introduces these elements in the novel,. She says that a woman can care about politics without neglecting her domesticable duties. She makes an argument ni defense of woman's education and to write about politics. She was defensive because her anxiety about her readers' reaction was not exagerated. Charlotte Smith's political principle was liberal and republican, She valued liberty and hated tirany.
She showed more courage than any of her contemporaries for setting some of her novels during the French Revoluton. British people felt at the beggining of the French Revolution. She also made a “reflection on the revolution in France”. Critic of Edmuntd Burke's. In the novel, she says that the book is a treatize on depotism. Charlotte Smith's attitude towards the French Revolution changed through the years as the news about the massacres in France began to arrive in England (The French Revoluton turned to chaos and tirany). It is always the same end to all revolutions. Smith never abandoned her faith on the idea of the revolution. By the time she writers “The young philosopher”, she has given up hope for reform society in Europe but she believed that there was hope of a reform in society in America.
MARRIAGE IN THE 18TH CENTURY The husband had all the power. Autoritarian or not, it depended on the husband. Not all marriages were bad. Companionate marriage → based on mutual steem and affection. Many people who were promoting it. It depended on the husband. Upper classes: arranged marriages. No changes in the laws → abussive marriages, women couldn't do anything.
Most of the novels in the 18 th^ century were about courtship (cortejo, noviazgo). It ends with the marriage. Novels about marriage tends to be darker than the novels about courtship. The majority of novels in the 18 th^ century ends with the marriage of the hero and the heroine and we expect them to be happy in the future. Many novels that show what happens in the future.
- “Euphemia” Charlotte Lennox,
- “The school for widows” Clara Reeve → describe with great realism the daily suffering of an incompatible marriage. But they don't suggest rebellion. They just put up with it.
In novels by Charlotte Smith, there is always this beautiful wife. Men treat wthem as a piece of property and don't treat them as intellectual equals. Through these wifes, she's endorsing the traditional values of self-sacrifice, submission, etc. She's denouncing the injustice of how unfair relations are inside marriage. She challenged the idea that women can only achieve happiness throguh marriage, These women don't rebel because 18 th^ century society doesn't tollerate any rebellion against its rules. Very realistic portrait. Charlotte Smith shows simpathy for those who are trapped in an unhappy marrriages (she knew their suffering).
Her novels end up with the marriage of the hero and the heroine because the life of spinsters (old maids) was even worse. Marriage was the natural course of life. Spinters were werid because they weren't attached to a man that dominated or protected them, They were ridiculized, so women writers tried to raise their statuses in their novels and celebrate their status.
- “School for widows” → women prefred to be teaccher and poor than being married.
- Elizabeth Hamilton “The cottages pf Glenburnie” → the old maid's a governess and she organizes the whole neighbourhood. Reforms it. The one who reforms the whole neighbourbooh is a single woman. Writers try to celebrate this.
Why is life so hard for a single woman? 18 th^ century, the negative of the stereotype of the single woman appeared and the word spinster had a negative meaning. They were a menace to English society.
- “A satyr upon old maids” → describes old maids as filthy sluts. Impure. Disgusting and dangerous because they would marry anyone just to avoid being single. This stereotype prevailes throughout the 18 th^ century. Single women were presented as furstrated, greedy, disagradable, sexually promiscuous of prudish.
Single women were considered a national destriment → since they didn't have children, they retarded the economic, political and military power that depended on population growth. The number of singe women in the 18th^ century increased a lot. There was a fear that the experience of single women would encourage other women to remain single. Also, there was the necessity to make sure that women get married. Finally, England had no place for single women in its society (converts in other countries, not in England). In the 19 th^ century, convents were reated again in England partly to solve this problem., so women would have a place.
Society didn't approve single women living alone unless they were old because they believed women had to be controlled when they were young. England created this negative stereotype of the old maid before any other country. Other countries of Europe exploited and followed the example set up by England → Nowadays still.
Spinsters lived in a society where marriage and motherhood were considered to be a blessing and if not, it was a curse. Marriage was considered to be the only road to happiness and a higher social status spinsters were marginalized. In the letters written by 18 th^ century women, they are aware of the way in which society didn't like them. Some women (married) praised single life rather than married.
Critics that gives us a hard view of single women (poverty, loneliness, neglection). As daughters, single women were expected to look after her parents, a role that wasn't easy nor a furfilling one.
Anne Seward → spent the first 50 years of her life with her father and when he got ill, she had to take care of him. She never doubted of this. She believed it was her duty, difficult tho.
Very often, the last was very hard because the parents never gave them much affecteion. Their lives could become a real nightmare after they died because they depended economically on their brothers (and they weren't always good brothers).
Spinsters were often neglected by heir relatives. Jane Austen was very much aware of that “Persuasion”, “Emma”.
Critics say that the picture of the spinster is misleading. People tend to overlook the number of single women that they decided to live together (more economic; together in the struggle with men; they wanted companionship; sexual relation). Other writers reject the idea that women were marginal or a burden to their families, Sisters and brothers play a very important part in the life of spinsters (not alone). Sisters live together. Close ties with their sister's husbands. They helped them as if they were their brothers and husbands would to. Single women had a very close relationship with their nieces. Important roles as aunts → encouraged to help other children in the family if they didn't have any of their own.
