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The Woman in White (1859 60), de Wilkie Collins, foi a obra inaugural do subgênero vitoriano conhecido como romance de sensação, isto é, narrativas permeadas por crimes como bigamia e identidades falsas, ambientadas em lares ingleses que, à primeira vista, parecem estar acima de suspeitas, e que introduziam novos segredos e reviravoltas a cada página para prender a atenção do leitor. Feito um panorama das condições materiais que possibilitaram o surgimento desse subgênero, postula-se que o protagonista do romance de Collins, Walter Hartright, edita os relatos dos outros narradores, estruturando a narrativa com mecanismos emprestados do romanesco e do Gótico, apresentando as evidências como se o fizesse a um tribunal e organizando os testemunhos da forma que melhor lhe convém, para assim legitimar sua ascensão social. / The Woman in White (1859-60), by Wilkie Collins, was the inaugural piece of the Victorian subgenre known as the sensation novel, that is, narratives pervaded by crimes as bigamy and fake identities, set in English homes that, at first sight, seem to be above suspicion, and that introduced new secrets and plot twists at every page to hold the readers attention. Following an overview of the material conditions that enabled this subgenre to emerge, I argue that the protagonist in Collinss novel, Walter Hartright, edits other narrators accounts by structuring the narrative with procedures borrowed from romance and from the Gothic, by producing evidence as if in a Court of Justice, and by assembling the testimonials in the way that best suits his interests in order to legitimize his social ascension.

The Woman in White (1859 60), de Wilkie Collins, foi a obra inaugural do subgênero vitoriano conhecido como romance de sensação, isto é, narrativas permeadas por crimes como bigamia e identidades falsas, ambientadas em lares ingleses que, à primeira vista, parecem estar acima de suspeitas, e que introduziam novos segredos e reviravoltas a cada página para prender a atenção do leitor. Feito um panorama das condições materiais que possibilitaram o surgimento desse subgênero, postula-se que o protagonista do romance de Collins, Walter Hartright, edita os relatos dos outros narradores, estruturando a narrativa com mecanismos emprestados do romanesco e do Gótico, apresentando as evidências como se o fizesse a um tribunal e organizando os testemunhos da forma que melhor lhe convém, para assim legitimar sua ascensão social. / The Woman in White (1859-60), by Wilkie Collins, was the inaugural piece of the Victorian subgenre known as the sensation novel, that is, narratives pervaded by crimes as bigamy and fake identities, set in English homes that, at first sight, seem to be above suspicion, and that introduced new secrets and plot twists at every page to hold the readers attention. Following an overview of the material conditions that enabled this subgenre to emerge, I argue that the protagonist in Collinss novel, Walter Hartright, edits other narrators accounts by structuring the narrative with procedures borrowed from romance and from the Gothic, by producing evidence as if in a Court of Justice, and by assembling the testimonials in the way that best suits his interests in order to legitimize his social ascension.

Two of Wilkie Collins’ sensation novels, The Woman in White (189-60) and Heart and Science (1882-83), represent women and non-human animals as occupying comparable cultural positions of vulnerability in Victorian society. This alignment between women and animals became particularly apparent in the emerging debates over the scientific practice of vivisection in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. The first chapter of this thesis examines the antivivisection movement which protested strongly against the practice of vivisection on animals and came to beled primarily by women. This chapter’s focus is on the reasons behind women’s passionate identification with non-human animals subject to cruel and painful experiment and how this reflected both groups’ vulnerable and subordinate position in society. The second chapter analyzes Collins’ own contribution to the antivivisection campaign in his polemic Heart and Science. This novel demonstrates the cruelty of the vivisector in Collins’ villain, Dr. Benjulia, but also, the strength and value of instinct and emotion as forms of knowledge which are typically feminized and devalued. Collins ultimately recommends a type of medical care that is attentive to both the body and the mind rather than separating them into binary structures. Lastly, the third chapter examines The Woman in White, which was published before the vivisection controversy yet still demonstrates women’s alignment with animals particularly in their relationships with the two different male villains Count Fosco and Sir Percival. This novel represents women resisting these men’s attempts to treat them like inferior animals and instead asserting their own authority as capable beings. By doing so, Collins reveals not only the constructed ideals of superiority and inferiority in society but also the extreme vulnerability of those labeled ‘inferior’ beings. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

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Victorian inquisitiveness about sleep and dysfunctions of sleep is exemplified in novels published during the fifty-year period from Jane Eyre (1847) to Dracula (1897). This inquisitiveness foreshadows modern medical sleep science and immerses the reading public in a body of popular literature that subverts the concept of "normal" sleep. My dissertation explores the ways in which Victorian fiction brings physiological and psychological female concerns to the fore through the plot devices of sleep and sleeplessness. I examine the Victorians' diverse interpretations of illness, physical and sexual vulnerability, moral insanity, criminality, and anxiety to determine the thematic and narratological ways in which these issues are linked to sleeping and waking states. Drawing on feminist literary criticism, cultural historicism, and medical insight from the early nineteenth-century to the present, I argue that Charlotte Brontë, Wilkie Collins, and Bram Stoker use sleep and wakefulness as vehicles to navigate gendered fluctuations of power and loss. Jane Eyre, The Woman in White, and Dracula each present sleep as a gendered space in which power is contested. I argue that sleeplessness and restlessness are the methods women adopt, either on purpose or unintentionally, to realize self-sufficiency and protect themselves from patriarchal jurisdiction and other social restrictions on women. Women must reject their instinctual desires for a certain amount of sleep so that they can maintain agency and authority over their bodies and narratives. Implicit in the novels is the idea that deep sleep is a mechanism for achieving health and moral strength of character. However, explicitly and without apology, the novels use the trope of sleep for women as a violent instrument of loss, infection, powerlessness, and weakness. The cultural and medical artifacts of the time suggest that deep, indulgent sleep is the only way to achieve or maintain health. Yet Victorian authors write sleep as a sure road to incapacitation and subjugation. Brontë, Collins, and Stoker demonstrate that a woman's mind is only as healthy as her sleep, while her body is always safer awake.

This dissertation aims to examine the various ways in which three Victorian novels, such as Wilkie Collins?s The Woman in White (1860), Anne Bront�?s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Charlotte Bront�?s Villette (1853), address the relationship between storytelling and self-formation, showing that a subject formulates a sense of self by storytelling. The constructed nature of self and storytelling in Collins?s The Woman in White shows that narrative is a significant way of attributing meaning in our lives and that constructing stories about self is connected to the construction of self, illustrating that storytelling is a form of self-formation. Anne Bront�?s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall exemplifies Bront�?s configuration of the relational and contextual aspect of storytelling and self-formation in her belief that self is formed not merely through the story he/she tells but through the triangular relationship of the storyteller, the story, and the reader. This novel proves that even though the writer?s role in constructing his/her self-concept through his/her narrative is important, the narrator?s triangular relationship with the reader and the text is also a significant component in his/her self-formation. Charlotte Bront�?s Villette is concerned with unnarration, in which the narrative does not say, and it shows that the unnarrated elements provide useful resource for the display of the narrator?s self. For Charlotte Bront�, unnarration is part of the narrative configuration that contributes to constructing and presenting the storyteller?s self-formation. These three novels illuminate that narrative is more than linguistic activities of the symbolic representation of the world, and that it cannot be fully conceived without taking into consideration the storyteller?s experience and thoughts of the world.

Abstract: Modern readers frequently perceive female characters in Victorian novels as insipid and inane, blaming the static portrayals on the angel in the house stereotype attributed to Coventry Patmore's poem of the same name. The stereotype does not accurately reflect the actual Victorian woman's life, however. Examining how the stereotype evolved and how the middle-class Mid-Victorian woman really lived provides insight into literary devices authors employed either to reinforce the angel ideal or to reconcile the ideal with the real. Wilkie Collins's portrayal of Marian Halcombe in The Woman in White features a dynamic female who has both androgynous characteristics and angel-in-the-house qualities, exemplifying one more paradox in a society riddled with contradictions.

My thesis explores why beauty became so much more important in nineteenth-century Britain, especially for marriageable young women in the upper and middle class. My argument addresses the consequences of that change in the status of beauty for plain or ugly women, how this social shift is reflected in the novel, and how authors respond to the issue of plainer women and issues of their marriageability. I look at how these authorial attitudes shifted over the century, observing that the issue of plain women and their marriageability was dramatized by nineteenth-century authors, whose efforts to heighten the audience's awareness of the plight of plainer women can be traced by contrasting novels written early in the century with novels written mid-century. I argue that beauty gained more significance for young women in nineteenth-century England because the marriage ideal shifted, a shift which especially influenced the upper and middle class. The eighteenth century brought into marriage concepts such as Rousseau's "wife-farm principle" the idea that a man chooses a significantly younger child-bride, mentoring and molding her into the woman he needs. But by the end of the century the ideal of marriage moved to the companionate ideal, which opted for an equal partnership. That ideal was based on the conception that marriage was based on personal happiness hence should be founded on compatibility and love. The companionate ideal became more influential as individuality reigned among the Romantics. The new ideal of companionate marriage limited parents' influence on their children's choice of spouse to the extent that the choice lay now largely with young men. Yet that choice was constrained because young men and women were restricted by social conventions, their social interaction limited. Thus, according to my reading of nineteenth-century authors, the companionate ideal was a charade, as young men were not able to get to know women well enough to determine whether or not they were compatible. So instead of getting to know a young woman's character and her personality, they distinguished potential brides mainly on the basis of appearance.