Abstract
The turn of the nineteenth century saw a change in the perception of
woman's nature.
Trying to salvage a female self-identity from the distorted
version of the
preceding Victorian era, New Woman novelists attempted to
tease out of a morass of social dictates of
femininity a genuine female nature.
In their novels
they wrote New Woman heroines who, like themselves, faced
the conundrum of
discerning the truth from the fallacy of what society
proposed as their identity and social role. This awareness for neither
novelists nor heroines was the
complete solution to their social problem.
The New Woman novelist
challenged on terrain that was both within her
jurisdiction and familiar to her. What she found there was simultaneously and
profoundly oppressive: the Victorian institutions of marriage, sexuality and
motherhood.
Marriage required exhaustive reform before New Woman
novelists would
encourage participation in it. These novelists blindly probed
woman's elusive
sexuality, attempting to determine her archetypal, sexual
nature, asserting that exposure to this nature by a man would be life-altering
and would save the world, no less. Like sexuality, motherhood was an
institution in which the New Woman novelist found power, and she aspired to
manipulate the small power she saw dormant in this patriarchal institution.
The New Woman
sought partnership and fellowship with a suitable
male who valued her
companionship - one who was enlightened or who was
willing to be. Confronting the reality of the dearth of such potential partners
had
devastating effects connected with a devouring sense of solitude.
Despite the growing number of New Women in society, the awareness of a
self distinct from the former social mores
proved to be isolating. An intense
loneliness became the next and ultimate oppressor of the enlightened New
Woman who lived for ideals beyond her grasp and who was hampered by
the constraints of a
society slow to make the changes she required for
survival.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosopy
