Subverting the dominant culture: Sarah Fielding's double message

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dc.contributor.authorMcPeek-Newman, Kristin Genevieveen_US
dc.date.accessioned2024-08-14T22:46:55Z
dc.date.available2024-08-14T22:46:55Z
dc.date.copyright1991en_US
dc.date.issued1991
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of English
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts M.A.en
dc.description.abstractThis thesis is an inquiry into the eight known novels of Sarah Fielding (1710-1768), a mid-eighteenth-century woman novelist. Using William Godwin's 1797 reader-response theory, it argues that two layers of meaning exist throughout her novels. These layers contradict each other: the first, surface layer supports the dominant cultural norms, while the second, hidden layer subverts these norms and criticizes social conventions. By creating alternative meanings, and then educating her readers in the method of finding these meanings, Fielding escapes possible accusations of impropriety. Chapter One outlines Godwin's reader-response theory and argues that Fielding actively supported female moral education and educated her audience to read critically, in order to find for themselves her hidden meanings. Chapter Two discusses Fielding's treatment of marriage as an essentially hierarchical institution (which she appears on the surface to support), and female friendship as a social mechanism of female integration into patriarchy (of which she also appears to approve). Chapter Three outlines Fielding's criticisms of contemporary moral and religious attitudes and illustrates her double-layered approach to reason and repression as both necessary and damaging to women. Finally, Chapter Four examines Fielding's use of truth and fiction in her novels, and fin ds that she deliberately used deceptive strategies to widen and improve her audience. This thesis thus concludes that Fielding was a radical, experimental writer who constructed two layers of meaning, one for the unsympathetic world of patriarchy, and one for her sympathetic readers. Fielding's true message(s) can be understood by all those who read beyond the surface level of her work.
dc.format.extent94 pages
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1828/18971
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.titleSubverting the dominant culture: Sarah Fielding's double messageen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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