“Heroic Disobedience”: The Forced Marriage Plot, 1748-1880

This dissertation examines eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British novels that use forced marriage as a plot structure to expose and subvert the oppression of women in British society. Each of the novels studied at length re-writes the forced marriage plot of Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa, highlighting the ways in which contemporaneous economic forces – the rise of capitalism in the eighteenth century, the slave trade, and speculation – drive the subordination of women. The first chapter of the project shows that, despite the depth of Clarissa Harlowe’s interiority and the extent to which the mercenary nature of her family’s greed is criticized, this novel promotes oppressive patriarchal ideologies. Beginning with chapter two, the project examines novels that mirror Clarissa’s plot with an important difference: they celebrate women who rebel against the oppressive patriarchalism of their respective periods. Chapter two analyzes novels by two of Richardson’s peers, Eliza Haywood and Charlotte Lennox, whose novels The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751) and The Female Quixote (1752) offer contemporary reactions to Clarissa. Chapter three focuses on forced marriage plot narratives, Mary Robinson’s Angelina: A Novel (1796) and Charlotte Smith’s novella “The Story of Henrietta” (1800), that situate forced marriage within the Atlantic slave trade to expose the material connections between the oppression of the enslaved and the patriarchal oppression of British women. Next, a brief Interchapter explains Jane Austen’s connection to the forced marriage plot. Novels by Charles Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, 1838-9, and Dombey and Son, 1848) and the little-studied Elizabeth Stone (William Langshawe, the Cotton Lord, 1842) move chapter four into post-industrial England during the rise of stock-market speculation and debates surrounding the morality of capitalism. Finally, chapter five examines Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now (1874-5) alongside contemporary commentary on gambling.

Author

• Grisham-Webber, Leah

Language

• en

Keyword

• Samuel Richardson
• Gender
• Patriarchy
• Eighteenth Century
• Nineteenth Century
• British literature

Date created

• 2020

Type of Work

• Dissertation

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• English

Degree

• Ph.D.

Advisor

• Frawley, Maria
• Wallace, Tara

Committee Member(s)

• DeWispelare, Daniel
• Denenholz Morse, Deborah
• Schaffer, Talia

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/nv935351p