The Femme Fatale in Victorian Literature: The Danger and the Sexual Threat, Student Edition
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.36 (961 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B0061DD92G |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 341 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-01-28 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
In these book reviews, the female protagonist is simply minimized to a dangerous woman. References have been removed.The Femme Fatale in Victorian Literature is a Marxist-Feminist reading of the Femme Fatale in nineteenth-century British literature that examines the changing social and economic status of women from the 1860s through the 1880s, and rejects the stereotypical mid-Victorian femme fatale portrayed by conservative ideologues critiquing popular fiction by Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Honoré de Balzac, and William Makepeace Thackeray. The femme fatale, in fact, becomes a precursor to the campaigns against the Contagious Diseases Acts, to the emergence of the New Woman, movements that illustrate more empowering subject positions of women during the later part of the nineteenth century, and subverts patriarchal constructions of domesticity and "fallenness" used to undermine women. More specifically, the femme fatale in the mid-century novel is a protest against representations of women as fallen and domestic. Note: this is a shortened version of the original, hardcover work. To overcome these hardships, she reverses her socioeconomic status, an act which demonstrates her self-reliance compared to other Victorian feminine literary figures. Refuting this one-dimensional cha
Interesting take on femme fatales. Jennifer Hedgecock describes femme fatales in Victorian literature as survivors and not just a dangerous woman who destroys men. She argues that the femme fatale represents the life struggles of middle-class Victorian woman who overcome poverty, abusive husbands, abandonment, single parenthood, limited job opportunities, crimes, and Victorian society’s abusive criticism against her. Hedgecock uses example novels like Lady Audley’s Secret, Vanity Fair, Salome, Cleopatra, and talks about the woman in novels like Rosa Dartle, Valerie, Marneffe, Lydia Gwilt and cousi