Verified Document

George Eliot's Novels And Feminism Term Paper

George Eliot and Feminism Given, a man with moderate intellect, a moral standard not higher than the average, some rhetorical affluence and a great glibness of speech, what is the career in which, without the aid of birth or money, he may most easily attain power and reputation in English society? Where is that Goshen of mediocrity in which a smattering of science and learning will pass for profound instruction, where platitudes will be accepted as wisdom, bigoted narrowness as holy zeal, unctuous egoism as God-given piety?"

George Eliot, "Evangelical Teaching: Dr. Cumming," an essay ridiculing the career of evangelism, printed in "Westminster Review," 1850s

In this day and age, books are being written with a motive to inculcate motives, teaching the readers a lesson every time they open the book.

Good books always serve as a constructive way to provoke idle thoughts. Women started writing as a profession back in the early 1800's. They started off writing articles for magazines, containing information on fashion, science, household tips, and covering other domestic issues. These magazines fostered every women with the proper code of etiquette, style and manner of dressing nicely even motivated women from the lower-class to take up writing as a paid profession. Since periodicals require many writers, it was very natural for women to be hired by these magazines because it was only they who could add that touch of class and approach. So it was the advent of magazines that made writing a profession to many women.

Women who took up writing as a profession had talent, drive, and the economic need just like men did. Most of these women came from families who provided them with good schooling. Some of them worked as writers because they were either widows or were the sole supporters of their families. Back then the range of careers for women were very limited, so besides teaching the only other option was writing. However, they were looked down upon for choosing a career in writing, this was openly accepted as a male-oriented career line.

In the earlier years of the twentieth century, women played a crucial role in reforming the society that was torn by two world wars and a sagging economy. This was the time where women began writing...

Many slaves who managed to emancipate wrote on their experiences, while other contemporary authors wrote on subjects those fictitious subjects that mocked the society of those days.
Marian Evans otherwise known by her pen name of George Eliot was born in London, where she spent most of her life. Eliot, because of her father's Victorian attitudes about the proper role of women, received little formal education. Nevertheless, the advantages of an upper-class family and an extraordinarily powerful and inquiring mind allowed Eliot to educate herself. She was also a distinguished literary and social critic. A strong supporter of women's rights, she expressed her views on the subject in a collection of essays and books. Due to discrimination against female writers, she chose to go by the identity of a man under the name of George Eliot.

Eliot uses her own creativity to model women's right to demand equality in the artistic world. She believed that if women's education, freedom, and equality continue to improve, and if women are able to secure private space and income, it may only take another century for women writers to take their place in the history of genius.

Eliot's witty and beautifully crafted essay has a practical message for aspiring women writers: as pioneers in the virtually unexplored frontier of women's literature, and to create timeless, powerful works of art, they must forsake the established mores of masculine creativity and forge their own traditions and styles.

She does not disclose the truth as she sees it; rather, she requires the audience to "participate in the drama of asking questions and searching for her creative departure from established lecture style delightfully foreshadows her intent to generate entirely new feminine traditions and searching for answers. Eliot encourages women to personally participate and identify with her ideas. She creates a fictitious narrator through, which she chronicles her thoughts and discoveries in her books and essays.

Through her clever use of fiction, Eliot shrewdly removes herself from the position of authority, enhances audience identification with her narrator, and invites women to join her search for 'the true nature of…

Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Eliot and Feminist Theory Theories
Words: 6196 Length: 15 Document Type: Term Paper

George Eliot Kristeva's philosophy can be applied to nearly every narrative especially in association with the body as a universal source of human language. In every narrative there are traces of description that help the reader understand the universal stance of the body, be it a description of a facial expression or the full description of a character based upon the description of his or her appearance. Eliot makes clear through

"Dead, and Never Called Me Mother ": Feminist Gender Performativity...
Words: 2349 Length: 5 Document Type: Essay

Gender and the 19th c English novel The question of gender in the nineteenth century English novel is complicated by consideration of more recent late twentieth century theorizing about gender. In particular, Judith Butler's highly influential notion of "gender performativity" suggests that gender is, in itself, nothing more than a sort of act. However this becomes an interesting angle to approach the works of creative artists, as a female novelist will

Science Fiction & Feminism Sci-Fi & Feminism
Words: 13761 Length: 50 Document Type: Chapter

SCIENCE FICTION & FEMINISM Sci-Fi & Feminism Origins & Evolution of Science Fiction As with most things including literature, science fiction has progressed and changed a lot over the years. Many works of science fiction were simply rough copies and following the altready-established patterns of prior authors. However, there has always been authors and creators that push the envelope and forge new questions and storylines that have not been realized or conceptualized before.

Critique of Marriage in 19th Century English Literature
Words: 1588 Length: 4 Document Type: Essay

Her blooming full-pulsed youth stood there in a moral imprisonment which made itself one with the chill, colorless, narrowed landscape, with the shrunken furniture, the never-read books, and the ghostly stag in a pale fantastic world that seemed to be vanishing from the daylight. (Eliot, XXVIII) However it is worth noting the implicit paradox expressed here in the notion of a married woman's "oppressive liberty." Dorothea Brooke marries sufficiently well

Dark Spirituality As a Symbol of Female
Words: 3949 Length: 12 Document Type: Term Paper

Dark Spirituality as a Symbol of Female Frustration: Voodoo Gothic and the Mill on the Floss George Eliot's The Mill On the Floss is arguably one of the most widely read novels of the Victorian period. Although many differ as to just why this is the case, one thing is clear -- what was once a rather straightforward tragic tale, tinged with the time's popular romantic/gothic influence, has become a bastion of

Fiction and Non-Fiction in 19th Century England: Example of the Grotesque...
Words: 1450 Length: 5 Document Type: Essay

All without distinction were branded as fanatics and phantasts; not only those, whose wild and exorbitant imaginations had actually engendered only extravagant and grotesque phantasms, and whose productions were, for the most part, poor copies and gross caricatures of genuine inspiration; but the truly inspired likewise, the originals themselves. And this for no other reason, but because they were the unlearned, men of humble and obscure occupations. (Coleridge Biographia

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now