Date of Award
1-1-2015
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Department
English
First Advisor
Eleanor McNees, Ph.D.
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.
Recommended Citation
Lewis, Joel Tyre, "Pastoral Unity: Constructions of Nostalgic Retreat Space in Charlotte Brontë's Shirley" (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1059.
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1059
Provenance
Received from ProQuest
Rights holder
Joel Tyre Lewis
File size
83 p.
Copyright date
2015
File format
application/pdf
Language
en
Discipline
English Literature, Literature
Comments
Copyright is held by the author.