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"The Red Brand of Murder" : = Women Who Kill in Victorian Literature.

紀錄類型:	書目-電子資源 : Monograph/item
正題名/作者:	"The Red Brand of Murder" :/
其他題名:	Women Who Kill in Victorian Literature.
作者:	Przybylowicz, Samantha.
面頁冊數:	1 online resource (157 pages)
附註:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 84-04, Section: A.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International84-04A.
標題:	Criminology. -
電子資源:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=29390245click for full text (PQDT)
ISBN:	9798845714619

"The Red Brand of Murder" : = Women Who Kill in Victorian Literature.
Przybylowicz, Samantha.

"The Red Brand of Murder" :Women Who Kill in Victorian Literature. - 1 online resource (157 pages)

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 84-04, Section: A.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Northeastern University, 2022.

Includes bibliographical references

This project explores a selection of nineteenth-century crime-centered narratives, particularly those that employ the figure of the murderess, as I aim to unfold complications in these narratives such as the ways that the murderess is typically stereotyped, misrepresented, oversimplified, and used as a tool for fearmongering. The murderess is often represented as unable to control her emotions, as irrational, and as inherently evil with no remorse or chance of rehabilitation. I argue that the real-life murderess becomes horrific because gender expectations suggest that women should not be capable of killing. For example, the angel in the house was framed as a self-sacrificing, pure ideal who would never stray to such vile thoughts or acts. Therefore, when women do kill, they are represented as not belonging to the category "women" but are moved into the category "monsters." Sensation novels of the 1860s such as those by Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Wilkie Collins make such women terrifying to readers by suggesting that there could be a monster hiding beneath someone who seems, at least physically, very much like a woman; Thomas Hardy, conversely, at the end of the century, attempts to demonstrate that the woman who kills is not simply a monster. This dissertation is important not to justify the crimes that real-life women commit, but to alter our perspective on such crimes through thoughtful feminist analysis that helps separate the male-dominated criticism about such fictional texts to consider how women who kill are represented and to learn from these representations. I examine several nineteenth century genres-including true crime narratives, the sensation novel, and the realist novel-to consider conventions of how these stories were told; genre not only shapes how the narrative is crafted but also influences audience response. There was also a growing reading audience for true crime and a number of developing fiction genres in the nineteenth century to consider, due to an increase in literacy and education. I am also interested in how gender roles and expectations shape the representations of women who kill, particularly in the Victorian period, when expected adherence to gender roles was fairly rigid. Understanding societal attitudes toward the murderess in both fictional and nonfictional nineteenth century texts help us reflect on representations of women's roles and values; by extension, comparing how we talk about criminal women today in similar, often unproductive, and typically misogynistic ways can help us learn to be more progressive in the ways we discuss feminine violence and begin to change that problematic rhetoric into something useful. The three chapters in this project each focus on a different genre. Chapter One: Nineteenth Century True Crime and Journalism situates nonfiction narratives of murderesses as presented in the press in ballads, broadsides, newspapers, and other similar accounts within the contexts of discourses of genre studies. I pay attention to defining horror and true crime to account for how the murderess is situated among these texts as a monster and how this accounts for readers' fears of her. I focus on the case of Mary Ann Cotton, executed in 1872 for poisoning her stepson and possibly up to twenty-one friends and family members. Chapter Two: Sensation Fiction and the Criminal Woman considers two portrayals of the Victorian murderess in sensation fiction: Lady Audley of Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret (1862) and Lydia Gwilt of Wilkie Collins's Armadale (1864). Both of these women are simultaneously portrayed as villains and has having mitigating circumstances or features that some readers may find sympathetic, but the narrative ultimately does not allow readers to complete sympathetic identification. In other words, the characters end up as outcast, punished, and ultimately represented as monstrous with no chances for redemption, doomed from the beginning of their story arcs. Sensational women were generally vilified, and, in this chapter, I argue that it is not always or only because of the crimes themselves, but rather because of their ambitions, selfishness, and threatening representations of womanhood that lead to their crimes. Chapter Three: Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Subverting Femininity in Realism, covers the final genre of the realist novel by examining Tess Durbeyfield of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891) in depth, particularly juxtaposing her character with the antagonists of sensation fiction examined in Chapter Two. Tess is portrayed as a highly sympathetic character, passive for most of the novel, and beholden to fate. As a character, Tess garnered sympathy from many readers in spite of her transgressions. However, her actions at the end of the novel complicate her character; Hardy does not code Tess as a monster, but he does use masculine language and coding for her after she kills Alec. Hardy does this through choices in narration such as having her use a knife to kill and having her kill him in an unplanned fit of rage. However, Hardy balances her heinous act with a sense of personhood and agency for Tess, which may dominate reader responses.

Electronic reproduction.
Ann Arbor, Mich. :
ProQuest,
2023

Mode of access: World Wide Web

ISBN: 9798845714619Subjects--Topical Terms:

533274
Criminology.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Gender studiesIndex Terms--Genre/Form:

542853
Electronic books.

"The Red Brand of Murder" : = Women Who Kill in Victorian Literature.
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Sensation novels of the 1860s such as those by Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Wilkie Collins make such women terrifying to readers by suggesting that there could be a monster hiding beneath someone who seems, at least physically, very much like a woman; Thomas Hardy, conversely, at the end of the century, attempts to demonstrate that the woman who kills is not simply a monster. This dissertation is important not to justify the crimes that real-life women commit, but to alter our perspective on such crimes through thoughtful feminist analysis that helps separate the male-dominated criticism about such fictional texts to consider how women who kill are represented and to learn from these representations. I examine several nineteenth century genres-including true crime narratives, the sensation novel, and the realist novel-to consider conventions of how these stories were told; genre not only shapes how the narrative is crafted but also influences audience response. There was also a growing reading audience for true crime and a number of developing fiction genres in the nineteenth century to consider, due to an increase in literacy and education. I am also interested in how gender roles and expectations shape the representations of women who kill, particularly in the Victorian period, when expected adherence to gender roles was fairly rigid. Understanding societal attitudes toward the murderess in both fictional and nonfictional nineteenth century texts help us reflect on representations of women's roles and values; by extension, comparing how we talk about criminal women today in similar, often unproductive, and typically misogynistic ways can help us learn to be more progressive in the ways we discuss feminine violence and begin to change that problematic rhetoric into something useful. The three chapters in this project each focus on a different genre. Chapter One: Nineteenth Century True Crime and Journalism situates nonfiction narratives of murderesses as presented in the press in ballads, broadsides, newspapers, and other similar accounts within the contexts of discourses of genre studies. I pay attention to defining horror and true crime to account for how the murderess is situated among these texts as a monster and how this accounts for readers' fears of her. I focus on the case of Mary Ann Cotton, executed in 1872 for poisoning her stepson and possibly up to twenty-one friends and family members. Chapter Two: Sensation Fiction and the Criminal Woman considers two portrayals of the Victorian murderess in sensation fiction: Lady Audley of Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret (1862) and Lydia Gwilt of Wilkie Collins's Armadale (1864). Both of these women are simultaneously portrayed as villains and has having mitigating circumstances or features that some readers may find sympathetic, but the narrative ultimately does not allow readers to complete sympathetic identification. In other words, the characters end up as outcast, punished, and ultimately represented as monstrous with no chances for redemption, doomed from the beginning of their story arcs. Sensational women were generally vilified, and, in this chapter, I argue that it is not always or only because of the crimes themselves, but rather because of their ambitions, selfishness, and threatening representations of womanhood that lead to their crimes. Chapter Three: Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Subverting Femininity in Realism, covers the final genre of the realist novel by examining Tess Durbeyfield of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891) in depth, particularly juxtaposing her character with the antagonists of sensation fiction examined in Chapter Two. Tess is portrayed as a highly sympathetic character, passive for most of the novel, and beholden to fate. As a character, Tess garnered sympathy from many readers in spite of her transgressions. However, her actions at the end of the novel complicate her character; Hardy does not code Tess as a monster, but he does use masculine language and coding for her after she kills Alec. Hardy does this through choices in narration such as having her use a knife to kill and having her kill him in an unplanned fit of rage. However, Hardy balances her heinous act with a sense of personhood and agency for Tess, which may dominate reader responses.
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