Date of Award

1-1-2015

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, English and Literary Arts

First Advisor

Eleanor McNees, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Rachel Feder

Third Advisor

Candace Upton

Keywords

Brontë, Genre, Nostalgia, Pastoral, Shirley, Unity

Abstract

This thesis seeks to address questions of unity within Charlotte Brontë's Shirley. From the time of its publication, Shirley has been criticized for major characters and themes that do little to contribute to the work as a unified whole. Critics focused on the caricatured portrayal of religious figures, the ongoing industrial conflict, and the reconciliation of one of the novel's heroines to her mother as justification for the novel's lack of unity. In this thesis I hope to reconcile these criticisms and propose a unifying framework in which the characters and themes in question act as necessary components. Through an examination of Shirley as a pastoral novel, I will show how these elements contribute to Charlotte Brontë's commentary on the shifting landscape of 19th Century Yorkshire. I will also demonstrate how Brontë's pastoral in Shirley examines and comments on important social issues of 19th Century England.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Joel Tyre Lewis

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

83 p.

Discipline

English Literature, Literature

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