Sentimental novels were the juggernaut of the publishing industry in America in the nineteenth century. Also known as novels of domesticity and, more recently, as women's fiction, these novels were written largely by and for women. The story was one of survival, of girls cast out to make their way in the world. However, they were to hold fast to the dictates of Victorian decorum and embrace the four tenets of the so-called "Cult of True Womanhood": piety, sexual purity, submission, and domesticity. This study examines how the sentimental novel influenced four later novels by African American women writers. With harsh punishments against literacy, it was primarily only until after emancipation that African American women began writing novels. This study, then, explores how the authors of four novels both appropriated and reconfigured the template of precursory novels written by white women. Critics have more recently begun to re-evaluate the genre of the sentimental novel, a genre dismissed as unimportant for most of the twentieth century. What needs further study is the influence of these astoundingly popular texts on the novels of a previously repressed group of authors, black women. By examining this connection, this study contributes to an understanding of the intertextuality of women's fiction, an intertextuality both deliberate and inadvertent as well as often consciously oppositional. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2008. / October 22, 2008. / Plum Bun, Iola Leroy, African American Women, Sentimental Novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Linden Hills / Includes bibliographical references. / John Fenstermaker, Professor Directing Dissertation; Lauren Weingarden, Outside Committee Member; Bruce Bickley, Committee Member; Maxine L. Montgomery, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_182047 |
| Contributors | Holmes, Beverly B. (authoraut), Fenstermaker, John (professor directing dissertation), Weingarden, Lauren (outside committee member), Bickley, Bruce (committee member), Montgomery, Maxine L. (committee member), Department of English (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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