Surrogate motherhood abounds in nineteenth-century fiction. Governesses, nurses, aunts, and close family friends often form strong attachments with young girls, guiding them through life and their comings-of-age. Many surrogate mothers train their “daughters” according to the rules of societal expectations that mothers and daughters have cordial, respectful relationships, where the mother is unselfish, loving, and sympathetic toward her respectful, obedient, honest daughter. Many other nineteenth-century novels, however, depict surrogate mothers who are cruel, selfish, and unloving toward their “daughters.” While the role of the surrogate mother exists in various forms, it is regardless a strong presence in nineteenth-century fiction that leads daughters to choose to become surrogate mothers themselves.

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Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Esta dissertação é um estudo comparativo do legado vitoriano deixado para as escritoras do século XX, Virginia Woolf e Sylvia Plath. Primeiro discutem-se as agências controladoras do corpo feminino na era vitoriana e a formação de um ideal de feminilidade que chamamos de Anjo do Lar. Em seguida, discute-se como Virginia Woolf apreende essa imagem e a subverte, criando seu duplo, que chamamos de Demônio do Lar. Por fim, promovemos o diálogo entre Sylvia Plath e Virginia Woolf. Plath parece escrever aos moldes de Woolf, criando uma literatura de morte, feita para assassinar o Anjo do Lar. Usamos para tal estudo o conceito de écriture féminine, criado pelas francófonas Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, e Julia Kristeva, entre outras, para traçar os paralelos entre um lugar para o feminino na escrita e a busca de uma tradição por Woolf. A abjeção de Kristeva, a dinâmica de poder entre alma e corpo de Foucault e o conceito de duplo de Otto Rank nos ajudarão, por fim, a entender como se dá a morte do Anjo na literatura, especificamente no romance A redoma de vidro (1963) de Sylvia Plath / This dissertation is a comparative study of the legacy left behind by the Victorians to the twentieth-century woman writers Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath. Firstly, we shall discuss the controlling agencies governing the female body in the Victorian Era and the rise of an ideal, the Angel in the House. Secondly, we expose how Virginia Woolf apprehends and subverts this Victorian ideal, duplicating it into what we call the Demon in the House. At last we encourage the dialogue between Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf. Plath seems to write in accordance with Woolfs parameters, creating a literature of death, a literature that is the killer of the Angel. We use the concept of écriture féminine promoted by the French critics Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva, among others, to parallel a feminine space for writing to Woolfs search for a feminine literary tradition. Kristevas abjection, Foucaults power dynamics between the soul and the body, and Otto Ranks work on the double, shall foster our discussion on the death of the Angel in literature, especially in Sylvia Plaths The Bell Jar (1963)

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Esta dissertação é um estudo comparativo do legado vitoriano deixado para as escritoras do século XX, Virginia Woolf e Sylvia Plath. Primeiro discutem-se as agências controladoras do corpo feminino na era vitoriana e a formação de um ideal de feminilidade que chamamos de Anjo do Lar. Em seguida, discute-se como Virginia Woolf apreende essa imagem e a subverte, criando seu duplo, que chamamos de Demônio do Lar. Por fim, promovemos o diálogo entre Sylvia Plath e Virginia Woolf. Plath parece escrever aos moldes de Woolf, criando uma literatura de morte, feita para assassinar o Anjo do Lar. Usamos para tal estudo o conceito de écriture féminine, criado pelas francófonas Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, e Julia Kristeva, entre outras, para traçar os paralelos entre um lugar para o feminino na escrita e a busca de uma tradição por Woolf. A abjeção de Kristeva, a dinâmica de poder entre alma e corpo de Foucault e o conceito de duplo de Otto Rank nos ajudarão, por fim, a entender como se dá a morte do Anjo na literatura, especificamente no romance A redoma de vidro (1963) de Sylvia Plath / This dissertation is a comparative study of the legacy left behind by the Victorians to the twentieth-century woman writers Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath. Firstly, we shall discuss the controlling agencies governing the female body in the Victorian Era and the rise of an ideal, the Angel in the House. Secondly, we expose how Virginia Woolf apprehends and subverts this Victorian ideal, duplicating it into what we call the Demon in the House. At last we encourage the dialogue between Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf. Plath seems to write in accordance with Woolfs parameters, creating a literature of death, a literature that is the killer of the Angel. We use the concept of écriture féminine promoted by the French critics Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva, among others, to parallel a feminine space for writing to Woolfs search for a feminine literary tradition. Kristevas abjection, Foucaults power dynamics between the soul and the body, and Otto Ranks work on the double, shall foster our discussion on the death of the Angel in literature, especially in Sylvia Plaths The Bell Jar (1963)

This essay explores how adolescent girls in two pieces of children’s fiction are portrayed in children’s literature from the start and end of the 20th century to examine how they perform their gender in relation to expectations as informed by the Angel in the House discourse. Anne of Green Gables and the Harry Potter series were published at the start and end of the twentieth century, and both texts engage with the discourse. Using Judith Butler’s theory of Gender Performativity, this essay demonstrates that the Angel in the House discourse continues to influence expectations of how adolescent girls should behave, particularly with regards to being responsible for upholding the moral code to ensure the social standing of their family. However, they differ in regard to other aspects of the discourse, indicating that parts of the discourse appear to have lessened over the course of the 20th century.

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This paper analyses the characters Mina and Lucy in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, showing how they are juxtaposed in terms of femininity. By using feminist criticism and the concepts of the angel in the house, monstrous femininity, and the virgin/whore dichotomy, this paper explores how Mina represents the self-sacrificing, supportive, and wifely angel in the house, while Lucy represents the sexual, disobedient, and powerful monstrous female. This is analyzed through Mina’s interactions with the men, as well as through her view on femininity, and through Lucy’s interactions with the men and with Mina. This paper then explores how these differing gender roles lead to different outcomes for the two women. Mina is excluded but is able to be purified from vampirism while still alive. In contrast, Lucy, being a threat to British Victorian femininity, has to be killed and mutilated before her memory can be purified. How well the women fit into the male community’s view of the Victorian female ideal, with Mina fitting it the best, is found to be the reason for why Lucy suffers a worse fate than Mina.

Building on previous feminist literary criticism of Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South (1854-55), this essay analyses the portrayal of wives and mothers in the novel from an intersectional feminist perspective. It examines how the narrative shows that gender and economic status or class intersect to create varied representations of Victorian women's marginalisation. The analysis argues that the novel, on the one hand, depicts wives and mothers as united by their status at "the other" in patriarchal Victorian society. On the other hand, the novel juxtaposes economically privileged and poor wives and mothers to show that they are not equally isolated, powerless, or willing to comply with Victorian gender roles. The result is a complex and empathetic portrayal of wives and mothers' privilege and poverty under patriarchy, which challenges the Victorian ideal of wives and mothers as "angels in the house".

Universidade Castelo Branco / A presente dissertação objetiva a comparação proposta no Prelúdio do romance Middlemarch por sua autora George Eliot entre a protagonista da obra, Dorothea Brooke, e a figura histórica Teresa dÁvila. A partir de tal estudo, busca-se compreender de que modo a situação específica da mulher na Era Vitoriana é articulada no romance de modo a espelhar a crise ontológica e epistemológica do próprio ser humano diante das transformações consolidadas com o Iluminismo e as revoluções liberais do século XVIII que culminariam na morte de Deus. Dorothea mostra-se uma cristã tão fervorosa quanto a Teresa quinhentista, mas faltam-lhe certezas e a resolução para concretizar as reformas sociais que defende, pois ela encarna o mito de feminilidade oitocentista batizado de Anjo do Lar ideal de sujeição feminina à ordem falocêntrica cujas funções são a proteção e difusão da moralidade burguesa e a substituição de elementos cristãos no universo do sagrado a uma sociedade cada vez mais materialista e insegura de valores absolutos. As aflições de Dorothea representam as aflições da mulher vitoriana, mas o momento crítico desta mulher reflete, em Middlemarch, uma crise muito maior do Ocidente, que teve início com a Era da Razão / The present dissertations purpose is the comparison proposed by George Eliot in the Prelude of the novel Middlemarch between its protagonist, Dorothea Brooke, and the historical character Teresa of Avila. Such study endeavors to understand in which way the specific situation of the Victorian woman is articulated within the novel as to mirror the ontological and epistemological crisis of the human being itself during the transformations consolidated by the Enlightenment and the liberal revolutions of the eighteenth century which culminated in the death of God. Dorothea is as ardent a Christian as the fifteenth century Teresa, but she lacks the certainties and the resolution to concretize the social reforms she defends, because she incarnates the nineteenth century myth of womanhood known as the Angel in the House an ideal of feminine subjection to the phalocentric order whose functions are the protection and diffusion of the bourgeois morality and the replacement of Christian elements within the imaginary universe of the sacred to a society progressively more materialistic and insecure of absolute values. The afflictions of Dorothea represent the afflictions of the Victorian woman, but the critical moment of this woman reflects, in Middlemarch, a much greater crisis in the Western thought, which began with the Age of Reason

Universidade Castelo Branco / A presente dissertação objetiva a comparação proposta no Prelúdio do romance Middlemarch por sua autora George Eliot entre a protagonista da obra, Dorothea Brooke, e a figura histórica Teresa dÁvila. A partir de tal estudo, busca-se compreender de que modo a situação específica da mulher na Era Vitoriana é articulada no romance de modo a espelhar a crise ontológica e epistemológica do próprio ser humano diante das transformações consolidadas com o Iluminismo e as revoluções liberais do século XVIII que culminariam na morte de Deus. Dorothea mostra-se uma cristã tão fervorosa quanto a Teresa quinhentista, mas faltam-lhe certezas e a resolução para concretizar as reformas sociais que defende, pois ela encarna o mito de feminilidade oitocentista batizado de Anjo do Lar ideal de sujeição feminina à ordem falocêntrica cujas funções são a proteção e difusão da moralidade burguesa e a substituição de elementos cristãos no universo do sagrado a uma sociedade cada vez mais materialista e insegura de valores absolutos. As aflições de Dorothea representam as aflições da mulher vitoriana, mas o momento crítico desta mulher reflete, em Middlemarch, uma crise muito maior do Ocidente, que teve início com a Era da Razão / The present dissertations purpose is the comparison proposed by George Eliot in the Prelude of the novel Middlemarch between its protagonist, Dorothea Brooke, and the historical character Teresa of Avila. Such study endeavors to understand in which way the specific situation of the Victorian woman is articulated within the novel as to mirror the ontological and epistemological crisis of the human being itself during the transformations consolidated by the Enlightenment and the liberal revolutions of the eighteenth century which culminated in the death of God. Dorothea is as ardent a Christian as the fifteenth century Teresa, but she lacks the certainties and the resolution to concretize the social reforms she defends, because she incarnates the nineteenth century myth of womanhood known as the Angel in the House an ideal of feminine subjection to the phalocentric order whose functions are the protection and diffusion of the bourgeois morality and the replacement of Christian elements within the imaginary universe of the sacred to a society progressively more materialistic and insecure of absolute values. The afflictions of Dorothea represent the afflictions of the Victorian woman, but the critical moment of this woman reflects, in Middlemarch, a much greater crisis in the Western thought, which began with the Age of Reason