| This dissertation seeks to prove that women in the nineteenth century need not stay within the boundary of the domestic sphere that society had prescribed for them. Using characters from literature, I will show that women can and do create their own destinies; they can live life according to their own (and not society's) codes so long as they attempt to fashion their lives in the "proper" manner. That is, when a woman aggressively goes after her desires, and shows nothing but utter disregard or contempt for the cultural codes in which she is living, the novel's and society's dictates must punish her. In these cases, she ends up weakened and in a position far removed from where she began her quest. However, when a woman attempts to gain her autonomy while adhering to the cultural codes that surround her, then the novel can reward her accordingly.; In Chapter One, I examine the notion of separate spheres that permeates Victorian literature; I discuss its origins and look at the notion of female passivity, arguing of its societal---not biological---construction. In Chapters Two, Three, and Four, I look at three different characters from different novels (Vanity Fair, Lady Audley's Secret, and Daniel Deronda) who demonstrate the inability of women to achieve their financial and autonomous goals because of their aggressive transgressions of Victorian gender lines. They insistently place themselves within the masculine realm, disregarding all sense of feminine propriety, and for this, they end up weakened. In contrast, though, are three other characters again from different novels (Dombey and Son, Jane Eyre, and Wives and Daughters) who are the subject of Chapter Five. These female characters are rewarded at the novel's conclusion because the manner in which they struggle for independence does not obliterate the Victorian doctrinal lines of appropriate gender behavior; instead, their manners and actions demonstrate that when a woman acknowledges the rules of the society in which she operates, even when her personal desires are in opposition to those "rules," it is possible for her to obtain her independent aspirations. |
