Thesis
"The inmate of my parents' house": adoption and social critique in nineteenth-century women's literature
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
05/2016
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/100077
Abstract
Catalyzed by the high number of casualties in World War I, adoption in Britain did not become a legally protected status until 1926. Parentless or otherwise “unwanted” children had to navigate a wide array of living situations, unprotected by laws or social services. While many ended up in charity schools or workhouses, others found degrees of protection in the homes of “adoptive” parents. These de facto adoptions, however, should not be dismissed as unproblematic, or read as untempered “happy endings” for the adopted children. Though free of the immediate dangers of life in a workhouse or on the street, life in the adoptive home was often defined by isolation and neglect, if not psychological and emotional abuse. This thesis looks at how early nineteenth-century women authors present the orphaning and adoption narratives of women and girls. This approach, which valorizes the relevance of the gender of author and subject to representations of the adoption experience, requires analysis through an autobiographical lens. The texts examined here include Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park (1814), and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847). Though preferable to other living situations available, the de facto adoptions presented in these and other texts shed light on the oppression and exploitation orphan girls suffered in exchange for a family “home.” By examining the orphan characters in these texts in the context of the lives of the women who wrote them, one begins to see representations of adoption as critiques of the practice.
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Details
- Title
- "The inmate of my parents' house"
- Creators
- Claire Elizabeth Watson
- Contributors
- Debbie Lee (Chair)Roger Todd Whitson (Committee Member) - Washington State University, English, Department ofDonna M. Campbell (Committee Member) - Washington State University, English, Department of
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- English, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Number of pages
- 82
- Identifiers
- 99900525197101842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis