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The Victorian Novel Marxist-Feminist Criticism

Feminist consciousness, according to Gerda Lerner (1993), consists of five specific elements. It encompasses the awareness of women that they belong to a subordinate group and that as members of such a group they have suffered wrongs. Secondly, it involves the recognition that this condition of subordination is not natural, but societally determined. Third, feminist consciousness mandates the development of a sense of sisterhood. Fourth, it calls for the autonomous definition by women of their goals and strategies for changing their condition. Finally, feminist consciousness is directed toward the development of an alternative vision of the future.

Feminist literary criticism, in the view of Maggie Humm (1986) assumes that there are sex-related writing strategies as well as sex-generated constructions of gender that appear in literary productions. The evidence of specifically female forms in literature and particularly of female forms in Victorian literature is catalogued by Humm (1986) who refers to patterns of disjunction, dress iconography, anxiety motifs, otherworldliness, and subordination to more powerful male figures.

Within the Victorian literary genre, male writers such as Thomas Hardy (1985) in novels such as Jude the Obscure attempted to depict women with a certain degree of sensitivity. Anne Mickelson (1976) believes that Hardy approached the man-woman relationship and human sexuality with reference to the split between nature and society. Women are associated with nature and a certain type of vitality whereas males are associated with society and with power. HardyÆs (1985) heroine, Sue, is an example of the ônewö woman or the ôurban Missö who comes from the ranks of educated women whose increasing sense of self is constantly in conflict with societyÆs low opinion of them.

Similarly, in the novels of the Bronte sisters, a different and largely feminist approach to understanding the chang...

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The Victorian Novel Marxist-Feminist Criticism. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 06:52, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1701446.html