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theses

This thesis examines ghost stories written by female authors of the Victorian period. I begin by briefly discussing the role of short supernatural fiction as part of the popular Victorian tradition of reading spooky stories together on Christmas Eve while huddled around the Christmas tree. Christmas Eve was considered a time when the veil between the living, natural world and the supernatural, spirit world was thinnest; for Victorians this tenuousness of the division between life and death raised questions of great cultural importance, which were reflected in the spiritualist and mesmerist movements, as well as in common public discourse. I then link the role of the spectral female found in ghost stories to that of the living, breathing Victorian woman by arguing that the developing role of the Victorian woman as moral figurehead of the English household severely limited the female experience to the private domestic sphere. Isolated from the outside world, the home, which is often the site of hauntings within supernatural tales, held the potential to become a prison to women. Seeking to better articulate Vanessa Dickerson’s concept of the “feminized limbo,” I then perform analytical close readings of various ghost stories written by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Rhoda Broughton, and Charlotte Riddell, paying close attention to the role of women and the limiting social conditions affecting then which each writer sought to address through her stories. Through these close readings, it becomes apparent that women writers sought to insert their voices into public discourse concerning gendered cultural conditions which enervated women politically and socially, relegating them to a ghostlike state of social existence. Concluding the article length thesis is an annotated bibliography citing works for continued research intended to expand and further develop the project at a later date, potentially in an English doctoral program.

ETD_6534

M.A.

by Nicole Lyn Lawrence

doi:10.7282/T3FB54SF

ETD graduate

The author owns the copyright to this work.