A Study Of The Space On British Victorian Female Novels ——The Works Of Three Novelists As Examples

In Victorian England,along with changes in production methods,the spatial character of the old English rural community was gradually replaced by the new urban space and its civilization,thus the focus on the space of the increasingly modern industrial age and the relationship between people and space became the importance of the novels during this period.While writing the novel,novelists often focus on the meaning of different spatial organisms and the civilization they represent,and also observe the changes in the structure and nature of people's living spaces,especially for female novelists.From this perspective,interpreting the works of prominent female novelists of the Victorian period in the form of spatial criticism can bring to the forefront important creative perspectives on Victorian female novels.The main object of spatial criticism is the space constructed by authors in their literary works,and spatial criticism of literature focuses on the themes,content and particular narrative functions of the space presented in literary works.In terms of the presentation of themes and contents,we can divide spatial criticism into the following two types according to different research perspectives:one type is influenced by the researches of Lefebvre and Foucault and others,which focuses on the social properties of space;the other type is influenced by many cultural factors in space,which focuses on literary criticism from the cultural perspective of space.In terms of narrative form and narrative function,spaces in texts not only reveal the background and place where the story takes place,they can also appear as a potential narrative force,with functions such as shaping characters,driving the narrative process,expressing characters' emotions and establishing the theme of writing.In the Victorian period,the works of female novelists often had a spatial character distinct from that of male novelists.In writing about natural space,women novelists often saw nature as a permanent home and refuge;in their focus on urban space,women novelists observed the survival of the working class and women in the city from a detailed perspective,highlighting the many plights of women in the domestic sphere and pointing out the thinness and limitations of women's development paths under the patriarchal social system;in their creative work,female novelists also portrayed women's personalities and upbringing,creating a more realistic and layered female space.The presentation of spatial features in the works of Victorian female novelists is accompanied by reasons as follows.Firstly,the unique geographical spatial characteristics of Britain and the tradition of writing about space in literature influenced female novelists' perceptions of space;Secondly,in Victorian English society,the gender confrontation prevailing in society accelerated the emergence of a sense of independence for the female community,the particular phase of the mid-Victorian period also led women novelists to describe in detail the different types of spaces,and to reflect on the plight of women in a patriarchal society.These writing characteristics are initially reflected in the work of three representative novelists:Emily Bronte,Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot.Emily Bronte is a uniquely ecologically conscious female novelist.Influenced by her upbringing in Victorian England,her life experiences and the ecological tradition of thought,Emily consciously considers the important relationship between nature and women(and the vulnerable groups involved)in Wuthering Heights,and expresses her unique female ecological consciousness.In the novel,Emily writes about three typical ecological relationships in a spatial perspective:the alliance between women and nature,the confrontation between the natural world and civilized society,and the spiritual integration of women and other vulnerable groups with nature.When writing the novel,Emily also sets up a poetic textual space that echoes the emotions of her poems and a nested spatial narrative that shifts between different narrative voices,thus highlighting her spatial awareness and maximizing the authority of the different narrators to express her views.Elizabeth Gaskell is a highly socially observant Victorian novelist,her experience of growing up in a harmonious and fulfilling life led her to identify with and focus on her own femininity,while her experience of writing realist fiction and her acceptance of the ideas of Carlyle and others led her to make careful observations and reflections on the multiplicity of spaces in England during the Industrial Revolution.In her novels,Gaskell writes about the development and changes of society in a spatial perspective.She not only compares and contrasts the spaces of the south and the north,the countryside and the city of England,highlighting their different spatial characteristics and appearance,but also depicts the act of women moving from domestic space into public space,and the process of Cranford,the female space,moving closer to modern society.Gaskell also considered the space as a potential narrative force when writing,the non-linear narrative in Cranford and the strategy of spatial displacement in North and South both demonstrated the important narrative role of space in Gaskell's novels.George Eliot was an observant and discursive novelist whose personal life experiences,the anxieties of changing times and the emergence of different currents of thought all influenced her perception of space to some extent.Academics usually divide Eliot's literary output into two time periods,in the early part of her writing career,Eliot mainly depicted the cultural traditions of rural communities,while in the later part of her writing career,she focused more on the organic relationship between people and society in the emerging urban complex and the different ways in which people realize their values.The spatial narrative strategy chosen by Eliot in her work also shows a phase change,in other words,she wrote from creating interactive narrative scenes with a sense of space in front of the reader to a narrative approach of spatial interchange of texts,and this change in strategy helps her to effectively express her discursive conception of space.Through the above analysis,we can find that Emily Bronte,Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot,as representative novelists of the Victorian period,wrote in a unique spatial way to explore the different types of space and the spatial relationship between people and society in Victorian English society in detail.In the process of their writing,they think more about the direction of women's development and the realisation of their personal values,expressing the desire of women novelists to break away from the patriarchal social system.However,despite their 'female voice' in their novels,their work was still to some extent bound by the patriarchal system of Victorian society and culture.As a result,they chose to create a unique spatial narrative style,combining female narratives with spatial elements to help them express their obscure thoughts.This narrative style also constitutes an important feature of the spatial writing of Victorian female novels.