The presentation of women in the fiction of Ford Madox Ford

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorTrimmer, Karen-Marieen_US
dc.date.accessioned2024-08-15T20:11:00Z
dc.date.available2024-08-15T20:11:00Z
dc.date.copyright1987en_US
dc.date.issued1987
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Englishen_US
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts M.A.en
dc.description.abstractWomen play major roles in most of Ford's novels, yet little critical attention has been paid to their presentation in his fiction. Through a close examination of three of Ford's works, The Fifth Queen trilogy (1906-1908), The Good Soldier (l9l5), and the Parade's End tetralogy (l924-28), this study establishes that Ford was strongly claimed by several considerations in his presentation of female character, which considerations he articulated only very generally in his advocacy of "realism" in their portrayal. Taking Ford's realism as a starting point, this study utilizes several criteria to determine what would theoretically constitute an acceptable presentation of female character, and applies them to Ford's writing as a means of measuring his accomplishment in the three works considered. Allowing for the independent and very real artistic achievement which each of these works represents, the presentation of women in each is explored in a different chapter. In "Katherine Howard: The Creation of a Personality," Ford's engaging portrayal of an historical personage is probed and the limitations of his creation - for in a very real sense he does indeed "create" this woman, disregarding as he does most historic accounts of her character - are delineated. In "The Good Soldier: Some Edwardian Women," Ford's masterwork of literary Impressionism, the complex, and not untroubling, accomplishment of presenting female character through a male narrator who is himself the embodiment of many of the ills of Edwardian society, and, most especially, the constraints under which Ford's female characters live in a society preoccupied with the forms of propriety, are the focal points of the inquiry. And, in "The Women in Parade's End," two of Ford's most compelling female characters, and their relation to the society in which they live, are treated in some depth. In the final analysis, Ford's sensitivity to the complexity, difficulties, and limitations which define the female relation to society is made manifest through his presentation of female character in these works, and is appreciated for the considerable achievement that it is. But it is an achievement which is tempered by the fact that Ford chose not to explore what things in society needed to be changed in order to remove, or substantially lessen, the difficulties and limitations which characterize the relation of women to the society in which they live.
dc.format.extent136 pages
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1828/19978
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.titleThe presentation of women in the fiction of Ford Madox Forden_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
TRIMMER_KAREN-MARIE_MA_1987_45536.pdf
Size:
2.86 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download

Collections

Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD)
Theses (English)
 
University of Victoria Libraries

We acknowledge and respect the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees and Esquimalt) Peoples on whose territory the university stands, and the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day.