Log in
|
Help
|
English

English

Engish-Pirate

한국어

Search

Advanced Search

Find results with:

Add another field

Search by date

to

Searching collections:

CCSU Theses and Dissertations

Add or remove collections

Home Becoming : consciousness and desire in the novels of George Eliot

Reference URL

Share

Add tags

Comment

Rate

To link to this object, paste this link in email, IM or document

To embed this object, paste this HTML in website

Becoming : consciousness and desire in the novels of George Eliot

View Description

Download

small (250x250 max)

medium (500x500 max)

large ( > 500x500)

Full Resolution

Print

you wish to report:

Your comment:

Your Name:

Submit

Cancel

...

Back to top

Powered by CONTENTdm®

Select the collections to add or remove from your search

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

Select All Collections

C

CCSU Student Publications

CCSU Theses and Dissertations

G

GLBTQ Archives

M

Modern Language Oral Histories

O

O'Neill Archives Oral Histories

P

Polish American Pamphlets

T

Treasures from the Special Collections

V

Veterans History Project

OK

Cancel

Identifier	Thesis 2098
Author	Rose, Jeanine M., 1969-
Title	Becoming : consciousness and desire in the novels of George Eliot
Publisher	Central Connecticut State University
Date	2010
Resource Type	Master's Thesis
Notes	The reception of George Eliot’s female protagonists has undergone dramatic transformation in the wake of feminist criticism. Feminists tend to reproach Eliot for a depiction of women that did not demonstrate Eliot’s own social progressiveness. Writing in an age dominated by romance novels depicting heroines with angelic qualities and steadfast virtues, George Eliot sought to create a more complex female character. I would argue that Eliot intended to show her female characters as she did, not simply to demonstrate the realistic consequences of veering from social norms, but to convey a need to redirect and invert the idealized trajectory of the romantic narrative. Eliot contradicts the romance narrative with technique that Jonathan Arac’s article terms “hyperbole,” wherein Eliot diverts the conventions of the romance novel to demonstrate an antithetical romance. With a focus, and often hyper-focus, upon female beauty, George Eliot depicts beautifully becoming women beset by withering social stigma as the central characters of her novels. Sometimes brutally critical—but always keenly observant—of the beautiful female form Eliot deals in her writing with her own bitterness and deeply felt deficiencies. Eliot’s point is not that her women cannot progress, but rather that they cannot progress, cannot become, while they retain romantic ideals and desires. Consciousness unveils as her protagonists renounce narcissistic desires in favor of social subjectivity. My thesis examines the development of Eliot’s female protagonists from her first novel, Adam Bede, to The Mill on the Floss, and then Middlemarch, refuting this claim. In the terms of Hegel and subsequent theorists, particularly Kojeve and Lacan, Eliot’s becoming women are indeed Becoming. In a deliberate, conscious and progressive evolution of being, Eliot’s heroines portray a realistic inter-novel development. With fictional women who depict to a readership accustomed to the dreamy and delusional aspirations of social advancement in the idealized and stylized relationships depicted in romantic novels, Eliot demonstrates full consciousness, realized through mutual recognition and inter-subjective relationships, in a progressive and growing understanding of consciousness across her novels.
Subject	Eliot, George, 1819-1880 -- Characters -- Women Eliot, George,1819-1880 -- Criticism and interpretation Women in literature -- 19th century
Department	Department of English
Advisor	Jones, Jason B., 1971-
Type	Text
Digital Format	application/pdf
Language	eng
OCLC number	696158274
Rating

Find results with:

Searching collections:

Home Becoming : consciousness and desire in the novels of George Eliot

Becoming : consciousness and desire in the novels of George Eliot

Description

Tags

Comments