While literary critics acknowledge Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret and Wilkie Collins's No Name as sensation novels that were considered popular literature during the 1860s, many critics often fail to recognize the social and political implications embedded within these texts. In No Name, for instance, Collins's use of a heroine that is disinherited and deemed illegitimate by the law emphasizes the overpowering force of patriarchy. In response to patriarchal law, therefore, the heroines of Lady Audley's Secret and No Name attempt to improve their social positions in a society that is economically dependent upon men. Braddon's Lady Audley and Collins's Magdalen Vanstone are fictional representations of women who internalize the inequality of patriarchy and strive to contest male domination. By centering their novels on heroines who endeavor to defy Victorian social norms, Braddon and Collins highlight the problem of the female in a male-dominated society. / by Rebecca Ann Smith. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

This project explores the use if illegitimacy within Western discourse over the last three centuries. Illegitimacy was used in Victorian literature as a literary device to drive plot but evolved into a touchstone for Western discourse to explore the bounds of what is considered respectable society. Over time, as illegitimacy has become more mainstream, I contend illegitimate identities have been utilized to serve as a mirror for Western hegemony. In the first chapter, I explore the origins of illegitimacy being used as a literary device in novels by Victorian authors Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. In the second chapter, I examine the role illegitimacy plays in the origin stories of canonical comic book superheroes Batman and Superman. Lastly, in the third chapter, I scrutinize the role illegitimacy plays in defining the human condition within science fiction as human culture continues to advance technologically towards a post human world. / by Ryan Dessler. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

《兩個閒蕩徒弟的懶惰旅行》(The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, 1857) 是一本由查理‧狄更斯(Charles Dickens)與威爾基‧柯林斯(Wilkie Collins)根據他們的旅途見聞再加上各自創作的兩篇短篇故事所集結而成的小說。在過去，許多批評家只單論文本中的兩篇短篇故事，而忽略鑲嵌短篇故事的主架構，把文本切割至互不相連的碎片。本論文主要採取昂希‧列斐伏爾(Henri Lefebvre)對於空間三面向的理論概念來剖析《兩個閒蕩徒弟的懶惰旅行》在文本中反覆出現，並且被不同主體所論述的閒蕩(idleness)一詞，試圖藉由呈現閒蕩的多重意義而把《兩個閒蕩徒弟的懶惰旅行》視為一有機的整體。論文第二章借助空間的再現(representation of space)概念論述看似懶散、不事生產的地景是如何被規劃，最終喪失其神性(deity)。論文的第三章則檢視空間使用者與空間的互動。本章從空間實踐(spatial practice)的角度切入，試圖證明文本中的精神病院(lunatic asylum)、火車站(railway station)與賽馬週(race-week)的空間規劃異化(alienate)了生活在其中的空間居民，而居民無所事事的遊蕩正是此異化的展現。第四章援引再現的空間(space of representation)之概念，試圖證明閒蕩也有其積極面向。藉由檢視故事主人翁法蘭西‧古柴爾德(Francis Goodchild)與湯瑪士‧艾朵(Thomas Idle)既合作又競爭的夥伴關係，閒蕩對於湯瑪士‧艾朵而言，是一種在文本中爭取發言權的手段。至於對缺乏官方實證的怪談野史而言，閒蕩也是一種抵抗大論述收編、並且同時揭露資本主義中金錢對於人性腐蝕的路徑。 / The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices is a travelogue worked in collaboration between Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Besides noting down what they observe and encounter during the trip, Dickens and Collins also enclose two gothic tales which is written respectively by them. Nevertheless, when most critics mention The Lazy Tour, they limit their concerns to simply the two interpolated tales, which violates the integrity of The Lazy Tour by dissecting it into disconnected pieces. This thesis proposes to apply Henri Lefebvre’s conceptual triad to analyze the recurring theme, idleness, which is interpreted by different subjects. By presenting the variations of the concept of idleness, this thesis attempts to see The Lazy Tour as an organic whole. Applying the idea of representation of space, Chapter Two explains how the seemingly inoperative landscapes are programmed and designed, which results in the demise of the deity of Nature. With the support of the concept of spatial practice, Chapter Three proposes to demonstrate how the spatial designs of the lunatic asylum, railway station, and the festive occasion, the race-week, respectively alienate the spatial inhabitants. The idleness manifested by these spatial inhabitants is the syndrome of their alienation. Chapter Four analyzes the constructive aspect of the idleness with the assistance of Lefebvre’s idea of space of representation. In terms of Thomas Idle, one of the protagonists, idleness serves as a resistant measure to develop his own narrative. As far as the two interpolated tales are concerned, idleness can be compared to a way to resist the incorporation of the narrative framework of The Lazy Tour, and in the meanwhile discloses the moral corruption brought by Capitalism.

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.

This by-practice project is the first to provide an extensive investigation of the marginalisation of era appropriate science (EAS) and professional investigators by detective and historical detective fiction authors. The purpose of the thesis is to analyse specific detective fiction authors from the earliest formats of the nineteenth century through to the 1990s and contemporary, selected historical detective fiction authors. Its aim is to examine the creation, development and perpetuation of the marginalisation tradition. This generic trend can be read as the authors privileging their detective’s innate skillset, metonymic connectivity and deductive abilities, while underplaying and belittling EAS and professional investigators. Chapter One establishes the project’s critique of the generic trend by considering parental authors, E. T. A Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe, Émile Gaboriau and Wilkie Collins. Reading how these authors instigated and purposed the downplaying demonstrates its founding within detective fiction at the earliest point. By comparing how the authors sidelined and omitted specific EAS and professional investigators, alongside science available at the time, this thesis provides a framework for examining how it continued in detective fiction. In following chapters, the framework established in Chapter One and the theoretical views of Charles Rzepka, Lee Horsley, Stephen Knight and Martin Priestman, are used to discuss how minimising EAS and professional investigators developed into a tradition; and became a generic trend in the recognised detective fiction formula that was used by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Freeman Wills Crofts, H. C. Bailey, R. Austin Freeman, Agatha Christie, Ruth Rendell and P. D. James. I then examine how the device transferred to historical detective fiction, using the framework to consider Ellis Peters, Umberto Eco and other selected contemporary authors of historical detective fiction. Throughout, the critical aspect considers how the trivialisation developed and perpetuated through a generic trend. The research concludes that there is a trend embedded within detective and historical detective fiction. One that was created, developed and perpetuated by authors to augment their fictional detective’s innate skillset and to help produce narratives using it is a creative process. It further concludes that the trend can be reimagined to plausibly use EAS and professional investigators in detective and historical detective fiction. The aim of the creative aspect of the project is to employ the research and demonstrate how the tradition can be successfully reinterpreted. To do so, the historical detective fiction novel A Hidden Life uses traditional features of the detective fiction formula to support and strengthen plausible EAS and professional investigators within the narrative. The end result is a historical detective fiction novel. One that proves the thesis conclusion and is fundamentally crafted by the critical research.