Anne Bront?’s Economic Realism: Female Economic Bildung and the Credit Society in Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Ho, Yann-Ru
Abstract
In response to the feminist renewal of scholarly interests in Anne Brontë, this thesis investigates the issue of economic realism in Anne Brontë’s writing on nineteenth-century women. The texts examined in this thesis include Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848). Both novels are Brontë’s inquiry into the plight of young nineteenth-century women suffering a restricted life. For analyzing Brontë’s exploration of realistic economic situations for women in these two texts, this thesis presents an interpretive method incorporating the nineteenth-century credit economy context. Based on the credit system of that era and the Bildungsroman tradition, I venture the term “female economic Bildung,” which frameworks the growth of the female protagonists to identify the varying stages of their credit economic development. This framework accentuates the realistic social ideology and institutions in Brontë’s era which imposed limitations on the female characters. Also, utilizing the concept “female economic Bildung,” the female characters’ credit establishment behaviors could be evaluated. Aided by this approach, I argue that Brontë in Agnes Grey first depicts the life of female protagonists Agnes and Rosalie, who are aware of the economic limitations yet fail to utilize the credit economy and achieve economic Bildung. I then argue that the female protagonist Helen in the second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, initially suffers from her husband’s economic oppression. Fortunately, she eventually acquires the credit establishment methods in the nineteenth-century society. By situating the two novels chronologically for literary interpretation with the credit context, I am able to highlight Anne Brontë’s realistic and layered portrayal of female development in the nineteenth century.
Subjects
Agnes Grey
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
female economic Bildung
credit economy
economic realism
SDGs
Type
thesis
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