Object Lessons: Things, New Women, and Sarah Grand’s_The Heavenly Twins_
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Pan, Chien-Wei
Abstract
_The Heavenly Twins_ is New Woman writer Sarah Grand’s bestseller. Previous studies have contributed to the issues of men’s venereal diseases and (literary) aesthetics. Departing from the previous studies, this thesis aims at investigating chinaware and female corsets – by incorporating the recent material culture studies – to reread the issues of empire and gender within the image of the New Woman. It argues that the concept of the New Woman is established on the basis of demeaning the foreign others and of limiting the fluidity of gender.
The first chapter surveys the relevant studies on Grand and on _The Heavenly Twins_ to map the recent paradigm shift of material culture studies in the New Woman studies. In order to emphasize the materiality of objects, this thesis tries to unveil the material histories of chinaware and of female corsetry. It endeavors to lead the scholarly attention to the details of how the New Woman interacts with her things.
The second chapter begins with household china to initiate a dialogue with the previous reading of the empire. Grand puts stress on women’s healthy appetites by demonstrating how the New Woman willingly craves food, and dares to abandon the social norm of slender beauty in her novel. The emphasis on female appetites then veils the significance of Chinese porcelains. The chapter will resituate the importance of chinaware, by conducting a strong metonymic reading, back to the “chinamania” in the nineteenth century to demonstrate how China exists as a plaything in the text.
The third chapter turns to probe the female corsets to re-examine the previous readings of gender issues. Grand promotes healthy female bodies by abandoning the female tight-lacing. Changing their traditional attires, New Women wear exotic garments and even wear male clothes. Yet, in liberating women from the restriction of female corsets, Grand still insists on traditional femininity. What verifies Grand’s conservatism on gender issues depends on the tragic end in the interlude of a pseudo-homosexual plot as well as New Women’s final return to matrimonial virtues.
The conclusion maintains that reading the image of the New Woman from the perspective of things best assists us to know how such woman – by emphasizing the familial and matrimonial virtues – identifies herself as a superior British woman. To conjure up the image of the New Woman, Grand has to distort and alienate the images of foreign others to outshine the image of the British Empire. To promote the healthier image of British women, she precludes the fluidity of gender by stressing the traditional femininity. Such a narrow image of the New Woman actually limits women’s autonomy and thus becomes a lesson for contemporary readers.
Subjects
Sarah Grand
The Heavenly Twins
the New Woman
material culture
chinaware
female corset
Type
thesis
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