I have chosen to investigate Dinah Maria Mulock-Craik's A Woman's Thoughts about Women. Her view of the importance of the self-dependence and education of women for personal enlightenment and social advancement greatly intrigues me. I have also chosen to put part of Ellen Barlee's Friendless and Helpless in conversation with my primary text. I believe that Barlee will offer insight into the flaws of women's education and employment.
Some critical questions that the text has led me to ask are: How is the commitment to oneself, commitment to the community, and commitment to God related? How does the education of women affect their self-reliance? According to Mulock-Craik and Barlee, what are the components of a proper and practical education for women? I believe some of my main points will be how Mulock-Craik's concepts of women's education and independence disrupt the status quo and complicate the subject of gender.
Both Mulock-Craik and Barlee rely on Biblical references to disrupt constructions of the complete subservience or the complete equality of men and women. They focus on more of the notion that men and women were made for each other, rather than exactly like each other or one subservient to the other. I would like to further explore the importance of this balance in Mulock-Craik's definition of a self-reliant woman.
As for secondary sources, I have explored the possibility of using Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor. The Reading Room attendant could only find a more recent, edited version called Mayhew's London which has excerpts from London Labour and the London Poor. It offers excellent insight into the education-based reasons for the prevalence of poverty, but I would have to explore this text further before deciding on its place in my final investigation.
Mulock-Craik makes frequent use of "feminine style," especially in the concepts of empowerment, consciousness-raising, and arguments from expediency. I believe that Campbell's "Man Cannot Speak for Her" will prove useful as the primary lens in my investigation. I am also considering using Killingsworth's "Appeals to Time" and Ong's "The Writer's Audience Is Always a Fiction."
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Mollie,
ReplyDeleteIt looks to me like you are well ready for your paper. I would suggest looking also at the sources listed on our class website, they are phenomenal. Maybe when considering your paper incorporate some more historical context of what was going on in main stream history at the time. Ong's piece might be good too for considering audience and how the construction maybe helps to disrupt the status quo.
-Good Luck Mollie!
I apologize for this being late, but I was unfortunately and unexpectedly stuck at the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre until about 30 minutes ago.
ReplyDeleteSo far, the first draft of my archival paper has varied quite a bit from this post and my proposal. It is entitle "Duty of the Victorian Woman" currently and discusses how Mulock-Craik and Barlee together onstruct guidelines for civic participation through fulfilling one’s Heavenly duties, maintaining societal equilibrium through opposition of organized movements for women’s rights, while promoting a collective social consciousness of the flaws in the current embodiment of Victorian femininity, and above all, stressing an individualistic need for personal strength.
When one imagines the ideal Victorian woman, a very distinct picture comes to mind – passive, domestic, married, elegant – but the mid-nineteenth century marked a shift in the personification of this stereotype. The numbers of single women were increasing rapidly, forcing more and more women to provide for themselves once they reached adulthood. This brought on a largely unheard of predicament in Victorian England: “the plight of the unmarried woman.” My paper will focus on single Victorian women's struggles with poverty, independence, and perpetuation of self-reliance.
I have found many critical texts through JSTOR that offer context not only to Victorian women, but Mulock-Craik herself. A critical text discussing Barlee has proven difficult to find, but I will keep searching.