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JANE AUSTEN, the BRONTE SISTERS, and ELIZABETH GASKELL By

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JANE AUSTEN, the BRONTE SISTERS, and ELIZABETH GASKELL By NARRATION IN THE NOVELS OF SELECTED NINETEENTB­ CENTURY WOMEN WRITERS: JANE AUSTEN, THE BRONTE SISTERS, AND ELIZABETH GASKELL by Rosemary Townsend submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Literature and Philosophy in English at the University of South Africa Promoter: Dr Michael Williams June 1999 ABSTRACT In this studyi apply a feminist-narratological grid to the works under discussion. I show how narration is used as strategy to highlight issues of concern to women, hereby attempting to make a contribution in the relatively new field of feminist narratology. Chapter One provides an analysis of Pride and Prejudice as an example of a feminist statement by Jane Austen. The use of omniscient narration and its ironic possibilities are offset against the central characters' perceptions, presented by means of free indirect style. Chapter Two examines The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as a critique of Wuthering Heights, both in its use of narrative frames and in its at times moralistic comment. The third and fourth chapters focus on Charlotte Bronte. Her ambivalences about the situation of women, be they writers, narrators or characters, are explored. These are seen to be revealed in her narrative strategies, particularly in her attainment of closure, or its lack. Chapter Five explores the increasing sophistication of the narrative techniques of Elizabeth Gaskell, whose early work Mary Barton is shown to have narrative inconsistencies as opposed to her more complex last novel Wives and Daughters. Finally, I conclude that while the authors under discussion use divergent methods, certain commonalities prevail. Among these are the presentation of alternatives women have within their constraining circumstances and the recognition of their moral accountability for the choices they make. Key terms: Feminism; Feminist Narratology; Focalizer; Free Indirect Style; Irony; Narration; Narrative Frames; Narrator; Reader; Women Writers. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgements iv Glossary vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Pleasure as Plot: Narrative Layering in 13 Pride and Prejudice Chapter 2: Narrating Ways and Wiles in the Novels of 75 the Brontes: The Example of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Chapter 3: Women's Writing: 'Facts' versus Fiction, 125 with reference to Charlotte Bronte Chapter 4: Villette, the Feminists' Favourite 173 Chapter 5: Elizabeth Gaskell: Passionate Story-teller 221 Conclusion 282 Appendix 287 Bibliography 291 823.809 TOWN ~lffl/11111111 0001760885 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For the past ten years my promoter Dr Michael Williams has facilitated my progress in innumerable ways. Thanks are also due to his wife Merle and their sons Geoffrey and Philip for sharing their home with me on numerous visits to Johannesburg and Durban. Dawie Malan, the Unisa subject librarian for English, has been prompt, pleasant and helpful in the many dealings we have had. Professor Ivan Rabinowitz has been inspirational at crucial junctures. At the University of Transkei I have enjoyed the support of my colleagues in the Department of English, particularly in supporting my study leave application for the whole of 1996. Nosipo Bangeni, Naomi Boakye, Pat Chabane, Chaka Chaka, Teresa Chisanga, Theo Luzuka, Wezi Manning, Kgomotso Masemola and Nozipho Noruwana have all encouraged me in a variety of ways. Stewart Crehan provided a constant challenge and talks with Sheena Patchay during 1998 proved particularly helpful. I acknowledge with appreciation the financial assistance the University has provided over the years in the form of a study subsidy. Professor Mjoli, the former Dean of the Faculty of Arts, was always supportive. I would like to thank Barbara Hardy for generously giving personal encouragement and of her time and insights during our memorable meetings in Newcastle in January 1981, and particularly in London in January 1994, where she helped focus my attention on the functioning of the narrator in the fiction under consideration. Stephen Watson provided invaluable editorial help during 1996 as he empathized with my sense of urgency to complete my thesis. Russell Kaschula has been part of this project from its inception up to and including its completion. I cannot imagine that it could have taken place without his constant and inspiring friendship. My cousins Mark, Barbara, Ruth, Cath and Leo Townsend have helped me greatly in practical and emotional ways, in Durban, in Cape Town, and in Umtata, as have the Moropas with their hospitality in Pretoria, and the Satterthwaites in Manchester. The entire community of the Pinelands Congregational Church rallied round me during 1996, and I am particularly grateful for the practical and prayerful support of Gerald and Lynne England, Mark and Pat Scholtz, and Beth Mayne. I wish further to thank the following friends for their support and encouragement over the years: Liz Aspir, Phyl Beck, Father Bernhard, Cookie Bhana, Gerrit Dekker, Sister Eunan, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Liz Hannan, Dorothea Hendricks, Nhlanhla Jordan, Connie Keyter, Enoch and Stella Kwizera, Charles Lagan, Estelle Macdonald, Jenny McConnachie, Peter Merrington, Tembeka Mpako-Ntusi, Tuntufye Mwamwenda, Sister Theodula, Shirley Wittridge and Winnie Yeboah. Most importantly of all, I need to thank my sons David Sipho and Mark Thabo for their love and affection, and for v patiently and courageously putting up with a mum often preoccupied to the point of distraction. Special thanks to Roy, for finishing touches and new beginnings. vi GLOSSARY: I enclose below a brief list of some of the terms I use in the hope that my definitions will clarify the exact ways in which I intend these terms to be understood: focalizer, implied reader, narratee, narration, narrator. Focalizer The focalizer is the one who sees, and through whose eyes the reader is asked to look. The focalizer's mind and heart are open to the reader. If omniscient narration is used (as in Jane Austen), various characters may be used as focalizers at different times and to different degrees. In first-person narration, i.e. internal narration, the central character, narrator and focalizer usually converge to be a single character, but may have different roles (cf. Jane Eyre, Villette, and Great Expectations) . '[A]ll the items of the narrative content are filtered through some prism or perspective ('focalizer')' (Shlomith Rimmon­ Kenan, 1983:3). Implied reader I use the terms 'implied reader' and 'reader' almost interchangeably. I shall make it clear when by 'reader' I mean myself particularly, or a non-cooperative imagined 'real' reader, but mostly I shall be referring to the reader that appears to be implied by the text itself. In the case of Jane Eyre or Villette, for instance, this will be the reader who is frequently directly addressed. In the case of Gaskell, it will be the 'you' of the text. More subtly, in Austen, it is the one assumed to share the narrator's values, sense of irony, propriety, and so on. The. 'implied reader . embodies all those predispositions necessary for a literary work to exercise its effect - predispositions laid down, not by an empirical outside reality, but by the text itself. Consequently, the implied reader . is a construct' (Wolfgang Iser, 197 8: x) . Narratee The narratee is the one to whom the internal narrator speaks. 'Within the text, communication involves a fictional narrator transmitting a narrative to a fictional narratee.' (Rimmon-Kenan, 1983:3) Narration Narration is the means used to tell a story: it includes the point of view of the narrator, and the use of characters as focalizers. It includes, in other words, those who tell (external and internal narrators) and those who see ( focalizers) . vii Narrator The narrator is the persona of the one who tells the story. An internal narrator is part of the fictional world, whereas an external narrator is not part of the fictional world. · A reliable narrator presents views consistent with those of the implied author, whereas an unreliable narrator denotes views in conflict, or at least in tension with those of the implied author. INTRODUCTION To study the nature of narratives, to examine how and why it is that we can construct them, memorize them, paraphrase them, summarize and expand them, or organize them in terms of such categories as plot, narrator, narratee, and character is to study one of the fundamental ways - and a singularly human one at that - in which we make sense. (Gerald Prince, 1990:2) Women authors ... reflect the literal reality of their own confinement in the constraints they depict .... Recording their own distinctively female experience, they are secretly working through and within the conventions of literary texts to define their own lives. (Sandra Gilbert & Susan Gubar, 1984:87) In this study I offer a reading of five novelists which is intended to be a contribution towards the relatively new field of feminist narratology, in which a relationship between narrative techniques and feminist content is established. The need for a link between the hitherto relatively disparate fields of feminism and narratology has been repeatedly articulated by Susan Sniader Lanser. 1 In 1989 Robyn Warhol also claimed: 'Until recently, narratology has .not asked questions about gender, and feminist criticism, which by definition always asks the gender question first, has not inquired into narrative discourse' (1989:3). By bringing two disparate fields together I hope to be addressing the problem posed by Warhol. This study is an attempt to allow for narratology and gender to ask questions of each other and to answer some of them, at least in part. The reasons why women write seem to me intimately connected to how they write and what they write. As the authors under discussion found themselves in a society which largely discriminated against women, in which they were 2 generally not treated as reasonable beings, in which they were mostly not properly educated, and where rational behaviour was barely expected from them, 2 they chose to deal with women's position in society in various innovative ways.
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