Since the earliest records of culture, mankind has represented its ocularcentric
focus through images of sight. Freud theorizes that these images of viewership represent
dynamics of power: those who see, actively control, and those who are seen, passively
wait to be acted upon. In the archetypes of Western culture, these visual dynamics
follow a gendered binary—active/masculine versus passive/feminine. Freud believes that
these visual behaviors are determined during the psychosexual stages of development, and
these roles are then reinforced through cultural norms. Freudian theory stood as the
accepted model of behavioral analysis until late into the twentieth century when
feminist theorists like Luce Irigaray, Laura Mulvey, and Ann E. Kaplan began examining
and deconstructing patriarchal beliefs about visuality. These theorists agree that women
can assume the masculine position of visuality and co-opt the active position of sight
for themselves. This particular assumption of power can be seen in women's colonial
narratives of the eighteenth century, where European women were vested with power over
colonial subjects, native men and women alike. In an interesting duality, European women
simultaneously inhabited the object position of passivity vis-à-vis their male colonizer
counterpart and the subject position of activity vis-à-vis the colonial Other. This
multi-dimensional position allowed for identificatory bonds across gender and racial
lines and resulted in contradictory images of spectatorship within women's colonial
narratives. This study examines the spectatorship imagery in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko,
Thomas Southerne's Oroonoko, Charlotte Smith's Desmond and The Wanderings of Warwick,
and Anna Maria Mackenzie's Slavery, or the Times to account for the shifts in loyalty
and explain the situational alliances that women forged both with their countrymen,
viewing the Other as inferior and sub-human, and with the colonized, viewing them as
subjects in their own right, as their equals. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2009. / Date of Defense: December 5, 2008. / Anna Maria Mackenzie, The Gaze, Aphra Behn, Oroonoko, Thomas Southerne, Charlotte Smith, Colonialism / Includes bibliographical references. / Helen Burke, Professor Directing Dissertation; Eundok Kim, Outside Committee Member; Barry Faulk, Committee Member; Candace Ward, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_168141 |
| Contributors | Campbell, Megan L. (authoraut), Burke, Helen (professor directing dissertation), Kim, Eundok (outside committee member), Faulk, Barry (committee member), Ward, Candace (committee member), Department of English (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
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