Mapping Gendered Spaces in Victorian Literature for Children
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GIRLHOOD GEOGRAPHIES: MAPPING GENDERED SPACES IN VICTORIAN LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN A Dissertation by SONYA SAWYER FRITZ Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 2010 Major Subject: English Girlhood Geographies: Mapping Gendered Spaces in Victorian Literature for Children Copyright 2010 Sonya Sawyer Fritz GIRLHOOD GEOGRAPHIES: MAPPING GENDERED SPACES IN VICTORIAN LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN A Dissertation by SONYA SAWYER FRITZ Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved by: Co-Chairs of Committee, Lynne Vallone Claudia Nelson Committee Members, Susan Egenolf James Rosenheim Head of Department, M. Jimmie Killingsworth December 2010 Major Subject: English iii ABSTRACT Girlhood Geographies: Mapping Gendered Spaces in Victorian Literature for Children. (December 2010) Sonya Sawyer Fritz, B.A., Harding University; M.A., Texas A&M University Co-Chairs of Advisory Committee: Dr. Lynne Vallone Dr. Claudia Nelson “Girlhood Geographies: Mapping Gendered Spaces in Victorian Literature for Children,” analyzes Victorian literature for girls and contemporary discourses on girlhood through the lens of cultural geography in order to examine the importance of place in the Victorian girl‟s identity work and negotiation of social responsibilities, pressures, and anxieties. The premise of my project is that one of the pressing cultural concerns in Victorian England, which greatly valued the stability of gender and class identities, was to teach children to know their place—not simply their proper position in society but how their position in society dictated the physical spaces in which they belonged and those in which they did not. Girls‟ virtue, in particular, was evinced in their ability to determine and engage in behavior appropriate to the spaces in which they lived. I argue that, by portraying girls‟ negotiation of the spaces of the home, outdoors, school, and street, Victorian children‟s literature sought to organize for the girl reader both the places in which she lived and her ability to define these places in relation to her own subjectivity. Each of my chapters considers a genre or body of children‟s literature that centers on place, including domestic fiction such as Charlotte Yonge‟s The Daisy iv Chain and Catherine Sinclair‟s Holiday House, literature set in the garden and outdoors, including Christina Rossetti‟s Speaking Likenesses and Kate Greenaway‟s Under the Window, and school stories by such writers as L.T. Meade, Geraldine Mockler, and Evelyn Sharp. In analyzing these texts, this dissertation illuminates the manner in which girl characters‟ relationships with nuanced physical spaces affect their negotiation of personal interests and social responsibilities, and their development into Victorian women. v DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my family, who encouraged and supported me every step of the way. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my committee co-chairs, Dr. Lynne Vallone and Dr. Claudia Nelson, for their guidance, patience, and encouragement throughout the course of my research. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Susan Egenolf and Dr. James Rosenheim, for their thoughtful encouragement and valuable feedback on my work. Thanks also go to the faculty and staff of the Department of English, who offered intellectual and moral support during my years as a graduate student, not to mention the department‟s financial assistance in the form of assistantship stipends, a dissertation fellowship, and numerous travel grants. I also extend my gratitude to the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research for its generous support. Its numerous funding opportunities and Graduate Colloquium program have enriched my graduate experience and provided me with vital opportunities to refine my work. To my friends and family, I owe a huge debt of gratitude. I could not have succeeded without the in-the-trenches encouragement given by fellow graduate students Amanda Himes, Rochelle Bradley, Sarah Peters, and Sara Day, to name a few. I thank Kendra Beasley for her priceless friendship throughout my graduate career, and I am grateful for the love shown by my extended family, including John and Frances Sawyer, K and David Pipes, and Fred and Sondra Strietelmeier, who have always been enthusiastic about my work. Most of all, I thank my parents, Janet and C.W. Sawyer, my sister, Holly Sawyer, and my husband, Aaron Fritz, for their unfailing love and support. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. iii DEDICATION .......................................................................................................... v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................... vi TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... vii LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................. ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ................................................................................ 1 Victorian Girlhood and Spaces ....................................................... 5 Literary Geography ........................................................................ 11 Theories of Cultural Geography ..................................................... 15 Chapter Overviews ....................................................................... 20 II “ONE ALWAYS COMES TO A WOOD”: CULTIVATING IDEAL GIRLS IN THE COUNTRYSIDE AND GARDEN ............... 27 The Countryside ............................................................................. 33 The Garden as Domestic Space ...................................................... 46 The Garden as Natural Space ......................................................... 58 III “OUR NICHE AT HOME”: LEISURE, PRIVACY, AND GIRLHOOD IN DOMESTIC SPACES .............................................. 75 The Nursery .................................................................................... 78 The Bedroom ................................................................................ 96 The Drawing-Room ........................................................................ 110 Liminal Spaces ............................................................................... 121 IV LEARNING TO THINK FOR THEMSELVES: GIRLS‟ NEGOTIATION OF INDEPENDENCE AT SCHOOL ...................... 128 Liminal Spaces: Hallways, Nooks, and Corners ............................ 134 viii CHAPTER Page The Dormitory Room ..................................................................... 144 The School Grounds ....................................................................... 156 V “MAK[ING] OUR WAY IN THE WORLD”: GIRLS‟ TRAVEL AND WORK IN PUBLIC SPACE ...................................................... 169 Travel .............................................................................................. 176 Work ............................................................................................... 197 VI CONCLUSION: DAPHNE IN FITZROY STREET AS A CASE STUDY ................................................................................... 216 WORKS CITED ........................................................................................................ 229 VITA .......................................................................................................................... 244 ix LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE Page 1 from Speaking Likenesses (1874) by Christina Rossetti ............................ 41 2 from “The New Mother” (1882) by Lucy Lane Clifford ........................... 43 3 from Under the Window (1879) by Kate Greenaway................................. 53 4 from Marigold Garden (1885) by Kate Greenaway .................................. 55 5 photograph of Kathleen Tidy (1858) by Charles Dodgson ........................ 60 6 from The Gentleman’s House (1864) by Robert Kerr ................................ 80 7 from Nooks and Corners (1889) by J.E. Panton ........................................ 82 8 from The Bedroom and Boudoir (1878) by Lady Barker ........................... 98 9 from Every Girl’s Book of Sport, Occupation, and Pastime (1897) by Mary Whitley ........................................................................................ 99 10 frontispiece of The Daughters of England (1842) by Sarah Stickney Ellis .............................................................................. 111 11 from School Architecture (1874) by Edward Robert Robson .................... 145 12 from Through the Looking-Glass (1872) by Lewis Carroll ....................... 177 13 from Six to Sixteen (1875) by Juliana Horatia Ewing ................................ 181 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION “Girls are everywhere. You cannot go into society, you cannot go to church, you cannot visit the theatre, you cannot walk the streets, without meeting girls” (qtd. in Fraser, Green, and Johnston 24). This provocative statement regarding the apparent ubiquity of the Victorian girl is found in the short-lived periodical The Girl of the Period Miscellany (1869), one of many publications spawned by Eliza Lynn Linton‟s “The Girl of the Period,” published in the March 14,