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©2011 Sandra Sokowski ALL RIGHTS RESERVED SUBVERSIVE BODIES IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY NARRATIVES OF PARIS AND LONDON By SANDRA SOKOWSKI A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School – New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Comparative Literature Written under the direction of M. Josephine Diamond And approved by ______________________________ ______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey MAY, 2011 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Subversive Bodies in Nineteenth-Century Narratives of Paris and London By SANDRA SOKOWSKI Dissertation Director: M. Josephine Diamond In this dissertation, Subversive Bodies in Nineteenth-Century Narratives of Paris and London, I compare representations of subversive bodies (transgressive women, revolutionaries, and monsters) in six paradigmatic French and British texts written from the beginning to the end of the nineteenth century and set in the metropolitan centers of Paris and London. This is an original comparative study of subversive bodies in the context of metanarratives of discipline and control. Working with Fredric Jameson’s concept of the political unconscious, and Michel Foucault’s work on discipline and the body, I analyze the articulation of contemporary scientific and sociological discourses in these novels to ultimately show how bodies that defy the dominant social order and ideology are effectively contained and silenced. In Mary Wollstonecraft’s The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria, the protagonist struggles to find a language that legitimates her experience as a moral subject in a female body, which gestures toward a narrative of subject formation that finds fissures in the institutions that define the female. In Claire de Duras’ Ourika, the material realities of the protagonist’s African body are erased through her narrative told in the discourse of the colonizer; in turn, her body disintegrates from an impossible longing to enter the symbolic order that denies subjectivity to her black body. In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens uses Edwin Chadwick’s construction of the ii working classes, and popular prejudices toward colonial subjects and political women, to inscribe the French revolutionary body with feminine hysteria, a projection of Victorian fears which serves to reaffirm the patriarchal hegemony of the British middle class. Victor Hugo’s configuration of the immaterial body of revolutionary leader Enjolras in Les Misérables reveals an ambiguous position toward discourses on the working class and conflicting narratives of bourgeois progress and social justice. In Emile Zola’s Nana, the demonized courtesan embodies the degenerating Second Empire, and the discourse of working class infection hints at the erasure of the Paris Commune. Lastly, the construction of the vampire that invades London in Bram Stoker’s Dracula consists of an over-determined conglomeration of medical and pseudo-scientific discourses that constructed veritable monsters. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my late father, Stanley J. Sokowski (May 30, 1938- August 2, 2007) and my brilliant, kind, and talented late nephew, Kevin R. Dieffenbach (September 13, 1990 – November 4, 2010). I wish you could have lived to see me become our family’s first Ph.D. This dissertation would not have been possible without the continuing support of my mother, Katherine Sokowski, and my sister, Susan Sokowski. I am honored to have had the opportunity to work with Professor M. Josephine Diamond, whose vast knowledge of nineteenth-century history and literature has consistently fascinated and humbled me. I first met Professor Diamond in her graduate French course on the representation of the prostitute in nineteenth-century literature. I was so inspired by her informed approach to historicizing literary representations that I insisted on working with her on my dissertation, and I refused to take “no” for an answer. I can only hope to come close to the intellectual erudition of such an admirable post- modern feminist. Without Professor Diamond’s wisdom, patience, and foresight, my project would not have been possible. I am also honored to have the immeasurable support of Professor Janet Walker. I first had the pleasure to work with Professor Walker on my undergraduate honors thesis in Comparative Literature (which, despite her continued praise, I think was terrible). iv Professor Walker’s skills in close reading and historical contextualization, as well as her deft ability in numerous languages, represent for me a comparatist ideal that I will always strive for. Professor Walker’s knowledge of world languages and literatures is only equaled by her kindness and compassion. I am thankful to have known such a wonderful person and scholar. I am equally honored to have had the opportunity to work with Professor Martha Helfer, whose impeccable method of close reading has revealed to me a level of textual construction that I was not previously aware of. Dr. Helfer is an expert at constructing a critical argument, and I will always admire her work. I first met Professor Helfer in her Introduction to Literary Theory graduate course, and was then compelled to also take her course on the German Romantics, where I learned to read the theory within each literary text. I was so intrigued by our study in Literary Theory of Nietzsche’s essay “Über Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinn,” that I am still determined to learn enough German to be able to read Nietzsche’s original text. I am thrilled to have had pleasure of knowing Dr. Geoff Baker, an expert comparatist, who miraculously finds time for a successful music career. I envy his ability, his wit, and his creativity. I had the pleasure of reading his book Realism’s Empire while still in manuscript form, and his discussion of the Other at the center of the realist novel was an inspiration for this dissertation. v I want to thank the Program in Comparative Literature, especially Professors Elin Diamond, Alessandro Vettori, and Richard Serrano, for their invaluable help as Graduate Directors, and Professor Jorge Marcone, Undergraduate Director. I would also like to thank the Rutgers French Department, in particular Professors Mary Shaw, Jerry Aline Flieger, and Lorraine Piroux; from the Women’s and Gender Studies Department, Professors Mary Gossy and Elizabeth Grosz; and from the Rutgers German Department, Professor Nicholas Rennie. I also have to thank Professor M.A.R. Habib from the English Department at Rutgers Camden, for inspiring me to continue my studies in a Ph.D. program. I would also like to thank my co-editors of Exit Nine: The Rutgers Journal of Comparative Literature, for their help and inspiration for Volume 9: Textuality and Terror: Josh Beal, Monica Filimon, and Mahriana Rofheart. Lastly, I want to thank my friends and colleagues, for their inspiration and moral support (in no particular order): Michelle Brazier, Heather Robinson, Romana Uhlirova, Jacqueline Grubner, and Maren Masino. It takes a village to write a dissertation. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Subversive Bodies in Nineteenth-Century Narratives of Paris and London By SANDRA SOKOWSKI Abstract ii Acknowledgements and Dedication iii Table of Contents vii Introduction 1 Part One: Speaking Statues Chapter One: The Possibility of Speaking in Stone: Mary Wollstonecraft’s The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria (1798) 18 Chapter Two: The Immured African Body in Claire de Duras’ Ourika (1823) 59 Part Two: The Revolutionary Chapter Three: The Hysterical Feminine Body of the French Revolution in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities (1859) 107 Chapter Four: The Immaterial Revolutionary in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables (1862) 150 Part Three: Blood-Sucking Monsters Chapter Five: A Prostitute Drains the Blood of an Empire: Emile Zola’s Nana (1879) 193 vii Chapter Six: Invading Degeneracy in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) 228 Conclusion 270 Bibliography 280 viii 1 INTRODUCTION Subversive Bodies in Nineteenth-Century Narratives of Paris and London The rise of industrial capitalism in imperial nations of England and France led to the growth of metropolitan areas. The growth of industrial capitalism brought more power to the bourgeoisie, and as the ideology of this class became more normalized it served as a lens through which to conceptualize this changing urban environment. As impoverished people migrated into the cities, rapidly expanding the population and creating an exploited work force and feared underclass, the urban environment became a threateningly heterogeneous space. With the presence of this multitude of bodies also came the desire to regulate them and, as Michel Foucault shows us throughout his work, nineteenth-century discourse around the body multiplied in efforts to analyze and discipline the masses. The nineteenth-century novel, informed by both the gender roles of bourgeois ideology, and the growing medical and social scientific discourse around the body, is a crucial part of the intellectual effort to make sense of this increasingly diverse and fast-paced environment. While in the public imagination, the cities came to represent the entire social order and power of the empire, this space is also teeming with the nameless figures of the underclass that seems to emerge from the streets themselves. The man-made structures in the city seem to progressively squeeze out the natural landscape around which the