Satire/Sentimentality, Authorial Voice And Gender: A Study Of The Adventures Of David Simple In Comparison With Joseph Andrews

Scholarship before the 1990s observes a rigid gender hierarchy in mid-eighteenth-century England, and adopts a male/public, female/private dichotomy to describe the literary output of the period. This thesis questions whether such a framework is able to account for the larger realities of women’s literary endeavors in mid-eighteenth-century England. Since Sarah Fielding’s experience as a writer is both unique and representative of this group of writers, this thesis seeks to locate evidences of authorial agency in her text and complicate the "modest muse" image long attached to her.Drawing from feminist narratology theories initiated by Susan S. Lanser, this thesis compares The Adventures of David Simple by Sarah Fielding with Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding, especially their generic choices and narrative voices. This thesis looks at how the gendering of generic choice and narrative stance came about. Satire, complete with its characteristic personal attacks, partisan quarrels and biting comments, belongs to the public realm, and is long associated with masculinity. On the other hand, the social-cultural emphasis on morality, chastity and domesticity forces women writers to adopt a more self-effacing manner of narration. The thesis first examines the textual evidences in both novels that support and complicate the model of masculine satire against feminine sentimentality. Despite a male monopoly of satire, Sarah Fielding blends satiric elements into sentiments, and writes both within and out of gender-related confines. The characteristics of the authorial voices of both novels are also investigated. While the lack of masculine, overt authoriality in David Simple showcases that an author’s gender predetermines the narrative style to a great extent, the authorial voice in David Simple also encapsulates Sarah’s struggles against social confines and reflects her assertion of writerly agency despite societal regulation of discursive power of women writers in mid-eighteenth-century England.