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Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until January 01, 2026

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Gendered Shame, Female Subjectivity, and the Rise of the Eighteenth-Century Novel

Distel, Kristin M.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1604057648041618

Abstract Details

2020, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, English (Arts and Sciences).
Distel’s dissertation examines novels by Eliza Haywood, Samuel Richardson, Frances Burney, and Jane Austen, focusing on the ways in which female characters in each text experience, negotiate, or reject allocations of shame. The project posits that discussions of shame took narrative form in the long eighteenth century, making this era particularly important to examine because of the drastic improvements in print technology and a rapidly expanding female readership. In analyzing the era’s fiction, Distel argues that if female characters do not actually suffer shame, they frequently demonstrate an awareness of its potentially destructive power, and of the fact that patriarchal social structures often demanded women’s obedience and shamefacedness. Ultimately, the dissertation posits that the genre of the novel exposes in detail the process by which patriarchal power structures assign shame and impose gender and social norms onto women, while also revealing alternatives to those norms. Additionally, the project offers a bridge between modern (often sexualized) shame and shame experienced during the long eighteenth century, which is, Distel argues, the era in which detailed representations of female shame take narrative form and become a crucial feature of fiction. The dissertation thus serves as a prehistory to contemporary theories of shame, positioning analyses and allocations of shame in their respective historical moments.
Linda Zionkowski (Advisor)
403 p.
British and Irish Literature; Gender Studies; Literature; Womens Studies
eighteenth-century literature; gender; shame; gendered shame; Haywood, Eliza; Richardson, Samuel; Burney, Frances; Austen, Jane; rise of the novel; novel genre; eighteenth-century novel

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Distel, K. M. (2020). Gendered Shame, Female Subjectivity, and the Rise of the Eighteenth-Century Novel [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1604057648041618

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Distel, Kristin. Gendered Shame, Female Subjectivity, and the Rise of the Eighteenth-Century Novel. 2020. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1604057648041618.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Distel, Kristin. "Gendered Shame, Female Subjectivity, and the Rise of the Eighteenth-Century Novel." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1604057648041618

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ohiou1604057648041618
© 2020, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.