Resumen de Subtle subversion: an analysis of female desire in the works of Frances Sheridan, Frances Brooke, Elizabeth Griffith and Sophia Lee /
This thesis examines the topic of female desire in the work of four lesser-known late eighteenth century women writers. The texts under analysis are Frances Sheridan’s Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph (1761), Frances Brooke’s The History of Lady Julia Mandeville (1763), Elizabeth Griffith’s The Delicate Distress (1769) and Sophia Lee’s The Recess (1783). The main objective of my thesis is to determine the discourse of desire produced by the authors I have selected.
My thesis question aims at detecting the extent to which these women writers resist the strict configuration of the ‘proper’ woman and, especially, the purpose that lies behind that resistance. It also aims to propose that those women writers depict apparently conventional female characters who achieve a significant amount of self-command.
One of the aspects analysed in this thesis is female virtue in distress, introduced by Samuel Richardson and continued by later novelists, Frances Sheridan included, is examined. Amatory fiction is yet another significant tradition which is analysed, which creates a complicated dynamics in which the role women play in seduction is examined.
The present thesis interrogates general assumptions about family life – and its implications for women – and also, most importantly, in its careful analysis of the figure of the ‘heroine, women’s cultural and social representations and the disruptive components inherent in femme fatale figures are carefully examined.
Mainstream, powerful literary traditions such as Historical Fiction and the Female Gothic, are also considered. Some elements of psychoanalytical thought, such as Freud’s notion of the uncanny or Julia Kristeva’s notion of abjection, are used to determine the ways in which Psychoanalysis can be used to access literary texts. Maternal absence is yet another traditional trope which is analysed to detect the effects such influential and perpetual literary topos has on the narratives.
