In this essay, I wish to study Frances Burneys theorization of history in her preface to The Wanderer, and her choice to frame Juliets representation through narrative deferrals and silences as the means through which this guiding aesthetic principle illuminates the novels consideration of an ethics of reading. I specifically argue that Burneys particular imagining of history and reading is encoded within her representation of Juliets shifting racial presence in the novel. By invoking an ethics of reading, I would like to suggest that however permeable and changeable Juliets skin color becomes in the text, her representation becomes a site from which readers could encounter and respond to migrant figures circulating the Atlantic world, and that Burney carefully narrates an array of responses to Juliet through the voices of other characters in the novel. Finally, I argue that Juliets entrance in the novel as (seemingly) a francophone black woman would seem to reference the emergence of the first black republic, Haiti, in 1804 at the conclusion of the slave revolution in the French colony of St. Domingue, an event Juliets entrance appears to obliquely dwell on.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07192013-121721 |
| Date | 30 July 2013 |
| Creators | Johnson, Shelby Lynn |
| Contributors | Scott Juengel |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07192013-121721/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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