Depictions of marriage: Fictions of race and gender in the Age of Realism

"Depictions of Marriage: Fictions of Race and Gender in the Age of Realism" intervenes in the field of American literary realism by arguing that selected marriage fiction of Kate Chopin, Frances Harper, Pauline Hopkins, William Dean Howells, Emma Kelley, and Edith Wharton interrogates the possibility of harmonious societies based on racial, gender, and social equality. Megda (1891), An Imperative Duty (1891), Iola Leroy (1892), The Awakening (1899), Contending Forces (1900), and The House of Mirth (1905) express suspicion about marriage and its potential consequences. These six novels use marriage as a forum to explore the problem of the "color line," sexism, and class difference that promoted social boundaries. These novels demonstrate how choices about marriage made by female protagonists are metaphorical representations of social equality while simultaneously revealing threats to that ideal vision. I explore the ways marriage infringes upon protagonists' development into autonomous women in imperfect societies.; Marriage holds a distinct place in the American cultural imagination, and it is an important index of female identity in the Age of Realism. My work intervenes in current critical debates in American literary realism by showing how realism functions as a mode of narration for fictive constructions of marriage and the race, gender, and class upheavals these depictions of marriage represent. In a wider context, this dissertation aims to widen the conventional narrow focus on canonical realist writers by highlighting intellectual exchanges that were taking place between traditional and non-traditional writers about marriage.