The term “phantom limb” is used to describe the phenomenal tingling sensation that occurs in the nerve endings of an amputated limb; though the limb is no longer physically attached to the body, the person experiences pain and physical sensation in the space the limb once occupied. Though the body part has been removed, it haunts both the body and the brain. It is through this metaphor that I am interested in investigating the connection between the disembodied and the embodied. The disembodied connects to the embodied through the loss or lack of a bodily form; the embodied, therefore, links the disembodied to movements and mannerisms of the body. Adopting Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice, I define manner as a fluctuating force that operates as a spectrum. Manner links, rather than separates, the internal and the external through the social. In other words, the interplay between the internal and external must be socially interpreted in order to be understood as manner. The first chapter of my thesis will focus on embodied manner and use Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as a case study to explain how society impacts the construction of normative manner. Building off Jack Halberstam, I adopt the theory that Mr. Hyde “is both a sexual secret, the secret of Jekyll’s undignified desires, and a visible representation of physical otherness” (82). My argument focuses on the connection between the “deformity hidden within” Mr. Hyde and that “inscribed upon his...skin” that Utterson, Enfield and Lanyon struggle to identify (82). The second chapter of my thesis will focus on how manner operates as both a disciplinary force and cultural haunting. In other words, just as the phantom limb reproduces a distorted version of the lost limb, the social control of manner ultimately reproduces imperfect replicas. In George Eliot’s The Lifted Veil, the protagonist, Latimer, begins suffering from visions after he parts ways with his dear friend Charles Meunier. Here, the unconscious operates at the individual level; I argue that these “visions” are the result of an implosion of Latimer’s repressed sexuality. I then turn to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper to argue that manner operates as a type of social law that attempts to stave off haunting but instead inadvertently reproduces it. In this section, I argue that the narrator’s secondary status as a female character gives her a different kind of agency from Mr. Hyde and Latimer, and that her husband’s ultimate failure to control her results in a type of queer production that calls into question the dialectical relationship between haunting and manner.

Submitted by Josimara Dias Brumatti (bcgdigital@ndc.uff.br) on 2017-03-27T13:21:54Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Penny Bloods - O Horror Urbano na Ficção de Massa Vitoriana - Dissertação de Mestrado - Karina dos Santos Salles.pdf: 2970471 bytes, checksum: b224a0d73415bd90bae5f22e816cc1bc (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Josimara Dias Brumatti (bcgdigital@ndc.uff.br) on 2017-03-27T13:22:34Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Penny Bloods - O Horror Urbano na Ficção de Massa Vitoriana - Dissertação de Mestrado - Karina dos Santos Salles.pdf: 2970471 bytes, checksum: b224a0d73415bd90bae5f22e816cc1bc (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-27T13:22:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Penny Bloods - O Horror Urbano na Ficção de Massa Vitoriana - Dissertação de Mestrado - Karina dos Santos Salles.pdf: 2970471 bytes, checksum: b224a0d73415bd90bae5f22e816cc1bc (MD5) / Esta dissertação busca analisar como o horror se apresenta na ficção de massa produzida durante a era vitoriana na Inglaterra, mais especificamente a que se enquadra em um subgênero do romance vulgarmente conhecido como penny blood. Para cumprir esse propósito, duas obras representativas desse subgênero foram escolhidas como objeto de estudo: The Mysteries of London (1844-1848), de G. W. M. Reynolds, e The String of Pearls: A Romance (1846-1847), de autor anônimo. Nesta pesquisa, aborda-se a penny blood como uma das formas inauguradoras da ficção de massa, uma vez que ela surgiu a partir da combinação de fatores como a urbanização, a alfabetização em massa e o crescimento do mercado editorial e se caracterizou pela publicação extensiva de histórias sensacionalistas com o objetivo de atender à crescente demanda por leitura de entretenimento da classe trabalhadora e de produzir uma cultura impressa acessível e barata. Além disso, considera-se a penny blood como uma narrativa que se expressa por meio do gótico urbano, retratando a cidade como um lugar dominado pelo submundo do crime e povoado por vilões monstruosos. Desse modo, a penny blood, transpondo o horror para a cidade, refletiu certas ansiedades da sociedade vitoriana concernentes ao novo espaço urbano que se desenvolveu tão rapidamente ao longo do século XIX. / This dissertation aims to analyse how horror is represented in the popular fiction that was produced during the Victorian era in England, especially in the subgenre that came to be known as the penny blood. To this end, the selected body of work comprises two romances that have been considered typical of this subgenre: The Mysteries of London (1844-1848), by G. W. M. Reynolds, and The String of Pearls: A Romance (1846-1847), by an anonymous author. In this research, the penny blood is claimed to be one of the earliest forms of popular fiction, for it emerged from a combination of factors such as urbanisation, mass literacy and the development of the publishing market, and it was also characterised by the massive publication of sensational stories catering to the growing demand for light reading by the working class and creating an accessible, cheap kind of print culture. In addition, the penny blood is studied here as a set of narratives that incarnates the urban Gothic, since it often depicts the criminal underworld of the city and the monstrous villains that inhabit it. In this sense, the penny blood, by placing horror within the city, reflected certain anxieties displayed by Victorian society regarding the new urban space that developed itself so rapidly throughout the nineteenth century.

I have written a novel as a prequel and parallel narrative to Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The accompanying critical commentary draws on psychoanalytic and feminist perspectives, interpreted for “the complexities of fin‐de‐siècle British society” (Kucich, 2007, p.35), and examines my novel alongside other adaptations of Jekyll and Hyde. Although my work may invite comparisons with Neo‐Victorian novels such as works by Sarah Waters, Michael Cox’s The Meaning of Night (2006) or Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White (2002), I would argue that it has more in common with Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) and Sophie Gee’s The Scandal of the Season (2008), both of which are prequels respectively to Jane Eyre and The Rape of the Lock. My research explores the potential origins of Jekyll’s decision to divide himself – the psychological roots of “his desire to reveal himself and his desire to conceal himself” (Laing, 1960, p.37). I have used this premise for both a psychoanalytic and a feminist perspective, drawing on the key works of Freud, specifically his writings on the unconscious and in relation to dreams, and Gilbert and Gubar’s seminal text The Madwoman in the Attic. The decision to use these texts as a framework was made using the rationale of two primary perspectives: Stevenson’s novel was inspired by a dream he had, which led me to Freud, whose theories fit so well with the manifestations of the Jekyll/Hyde personae, and whose analytic attention to sex and gender, with the argument that psychological and social forms of gender oppression cause a manufactured and oppressive role for women, is correlative with a feminist approach. Gilbert and Gubar’s critique analyses nineteenth century female writers, and it is my argument that Stevenson’s novel suggests that Jekyll’s rigid beliefs about his ‘other’ can be seen as both a resistance to the feminine within himself, and as an unconscious identification with women who felt suppressed in a patriarchal society and constrained by that society’s rigid gender expectations. This feature of late Victorian culture which Stevenson’s novel appears – on the surface ‐ to actively resist, is symbolised by the anonymous and one‐dimensional female characters within his novel, therefore this narrative motif is the starting point for my novel.

My dissertation maps the "scattered hegemonies" of the British Empire in the nineteenth-century British feminist utopian tradition. Beyond recovering this significant tradition of feminist thought and women's writing, my project considers the way these works both contest and replicate the dominant hegemony of the Victorian period. In the first chapter, "A Feminist Satirical Disutopia, Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett's New Amazonia," I argue that New Amazoniais a satirical disutopiathat bears witness to the dystopic reality of women's status in nineteenth-century Britain. Through elliptical critiques of her own feminist utopia, Corbett creates a hybrid genre, enabling a multifaceted critique of her present and the space for theorizing a feminist future. The second chapter, "The Extinction of Patriarchy: F.E. Mills Young's War of the Sexes as a Parody of Patriarchy," considers the function of the gendered role-reversal in Young's feminist utopia. War of the Sexes, like New Amazonia, is less concerned with imagining an ideal future and focuses instead on exposing and investigating gendered oppression in the Victorian period. Through role-reversal, Young critiques the separate spheres doctrine that constructs gender difference and shows that the doctrine has deleterious effects on the nation's development. While both New Amazoniaand War of the Sexescritique gender inequality through role-reversal, Florence Dixie's Glorianadirectly addresses inequality through sustained gender performance. In "From Reform to Revolution: Gender Subversion in Florence Dixie's Gloriana," I aver that Dixie uses the title character's cross-dressing to undermine the gender roles created by the separate spheres doctrine. Throughout Gloriana, Dixie illustrates that gender is a social construction and that gendered oppression has a complex relationship to other intersecting forms of oppression, especially classism and imperialism. In "India as Feminist Utopia: Gender, Identity, and Nation in Amelia Garland Mears' Mercia," I demonstrate that Mears unlike Dixie, sees the scattered hegemonies of Victorian culture as too embedded to correct. Whereas Dixie's heroine starts a feminist revolution in Britain, Mears' heroine abandons England to find feminist utopia in India. Yet even as Mears replicates stereotypes and exoticizes the Other, she, like Dixie, recognizes the value of intersectional feminist critique. All four of these chapters highlight the heterogeneity of feminist thought to be found in nineteenth-century feminist utopias. Yet, even the most disparate visions of a feminist future respond to the same scattered hegemonies of the British Empire. In the conclusion, I bring two feminist utopias not traditionally categorized as British into the conversation: Annie Denton Cridge's Man's Rightsand Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain's Sultana's Dream. I include Cridge and Hossain as necessary components to complicate my analysis of the transnational flows of knowledge and the ways in which the scattered hegemonies of Empire continue to be replicated in Victorian literary studies and contemporary feminist thought in the Global North. I argue that the exclusion of works like Cridge's and Hossain's from the study of British literature further illustrates the persistent adherence to imperialistic nationalism in the Global North and point to a Global Anglophone feminist utopian tradition.

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This thesis explores the ways in which Lady Jane Wilde, writing under the pen name of Speranza, established ethos among a poor, uneducated, Catholic populace from whom she was socially and religiously disconnected. Additionally, it raises questions as to Lady Wilde's exclusion from the roster of Irish literary voices who are commonly associated with the Irish Literary Revival, inasmuch as Lady Wilde played a critical, inceptive role in that movement. Lady Jane Wilde, mother of Oscar Wilde, was an ardent nationalist who lived in Victorian Ireland. She contributed thirty-nine poems and several essays to the Nation newspaper—a nationalist publication—under the nom de plume of Speranza, which is Italian for "hope." However, her audience consisted largely of the Irish peasantry, who were for the most part poor, uneducated, and Catholic. The peasantry had little tolerance generally for members of the Protestant ascendancy who had held them in subjugation under the Penal Laws for so long. Lady Wilde, however, was wealthy, educated, and Protestant. Nevertheless, she claimed that she represented the "voice" of the Irish people. This thesis explores the notion that Lady Wilde gained popularity and trustworthiness among Irish commoners by fashioning herself after the Celtic Sovereignty goddesses in her dress, her motto and pen name, and her poetry. Also, by connecting herself with Irish folklore, Lady Wilde played an unsung role in the development of the Irish Literary Revival—a late nineteenth and early twentieth century movement that sought cultural sovereignty for Ireland in the face of English political rule. Despite her central role in the nationalist movement and her inceptive place in the Irish Literary Revival, though, Lady Wilde has been largely excluded from twentieth century historical texts and anthologies. Possible reasons for this exclusion are raised in this thesis, as well as a call for current and future critics to restore Lady Wilde to her rightful place as an important voice in Irish national and literary history. The first appendix of this thesis include selections from among Lady Wilde's poetry as they first appeared in the Nation newspaper and were later published in a compilation titled Poems, by Speranza. The second appendix contains the full text of a discourse analysis conducted on Lady Wilde's poetry in an effort to further strengthen the argument that she mimicked the role of the Celtic Sovereignty in her poetry.

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No description available.

The following study is interested in informal education in three of Charles Dickens's novels: A Christmas Carol (1843), Bleak House (1852), and Great Expectations (1860). While substantial scholarly attention has been paid to Dickens's interest in formal education, for example his educational reform efforts, his fictional depictions of schools and schooling, and his "student" and "teacher" characters, my project considers the fictional moments in which Dickens depicts education happening outside traditional "school" settings. I argue against claims that Dickens was exclusively interested in critiquing pedagogical practices; rather, Dickens offers informal solutions to Victorian attempts at establishing a state-run educational system. My project begins with a chapter providing historical context on formal Victorian educational practices; practices which inform Dickens's descriptions of both formal and informal learning/teaching experiences. In my analysis of A Christmas Carol, I analyze the Christmas Spirits's teaching strategies and find that the ghosts offer a more humane pedagogical approach than common Victorian teaching methods like Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster's Monitorial System. My chapter on Bleak House considers the ways in which gendered teaching and learning complicate a Dickensian perspective on what can be defined as best-practice pedagogy. In Great Expectations, I explore how the generic form of the Bildungsroman, or the novel of education, contributes to Dickens's evaluation of learning and social mobility. My project concludes by demonstrating how Dickens explodes and expands definitions of "teacher," "pupil," and "learning" in A Christmas Carol, Bleak House, and Great Expectations, even for twenty-first century audiences. / Master of Arts / In his novels Hard Times, Dombey and Son, and Our Mutual Friend Charles Dickens famously criticizes common Victorian educational practices by depicting unfair and cruel treatment in school and classroom settings. However, Dickens's portrayals of excellent educational settings is often overlooked. My thesis argues that examples of Dickens's successful teachers occur most frequently in his portrayals of informal education. In A Christmas Carol (1843), Bleak House (1852), and Great Expectations (1860), ghosts, friends, mothers, dancing-masters, and dubious neighbors become the best teachers to needy students. My project begins with a chapter providing historical context on formal Victorian educational practices; practices which inform Dickens's descriptions of both formal and informal learning/teaching experiences. In my analysis of A Christmas Carol, I analyze the Christmas Spirits's teaching strategies and find that the ghosts offer a more humane pedagogical approach than common Victorian teaching methods like Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster's Monitorial System. My chapter on Bleak House considers the ways in which gendered teaching and learning complicate a Dickensian perspective on what can be defined as best-practice pedagogy. In Great Expectations, I explore how the generic form of the Bildungsroman, or the novel of education, contributes to Dickens's evaluation of learning and social mobility. My project concludes by demonstrating how Dickens explodes and expands definitions of "teacher," "pupil," and "learning" in A Christmas Carol, Bleak House, and Great Expectations, even for twenty-first century audiences.

Postcolonial theory teaches us that the Empire was as much a textual as a physical undertaking: the Empire was (and is) experienced through its texts. Anthony Trollope was an enthusiastic traveller and helped to "write the Empire" in both his travel narratives and in his novels. This study examines his travel narrative South Africa, and explores how the colony is depicted in this work and in Trollope's "colonial" novels: Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, John Caldigate, An Old Man's Love and The Fixed Period. Trollope's colonies are places of moral danger where the value systems instilled by English society provide the only means for overcoming the corrupting influences of the colonial space. He writes the colonies as images of Britain, but these images are never true reflections of the homeland: there is always an element of distortion present, which serves to subvert the "Englishness" of his colonial landscapes. / English Studies / MA (ENGLISH)