Gender and Feminist Issues in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mr . Harrison’s Confessions (1851), and Louiza May Alcott’s Little Women ( 1868)

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Date

2021

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Université Mouloud Mammeri Tizi Ouzou

Abstract

This dissertation aims to examine gender roles and feminine issues in both narratives Mr. Harrison’s Confessions of Elisabeth Gaskell and Louisa May Alcott Little Women. The purpose of this dissertation is to show women’s hard living conditions and oppression in British and American patriarchal society. This was realised by applying, some concepts from Simone de Beauvoir’s work as it is introduced in The Second Sex (1949).Among these concepts: Domesticity, Work, Transcendence and Mothering. In fact, the interest of this theory lies in the fact that it helped us to fulfill our need to better understand women’s issue. It also helped us to show their fights and struggles for the sameness and liberation from the patriarchal oppressive values and norms. This dissertation has been divided into three major sections: General Introduction, Discussion and General Conclusion. Its discussion section contains three chapters. The first chapter is entitled “Masculine Manifold oppression in both novels” we have put emphasis on the analysis of the oppressed female characters of each novel. In Mr. Harrison’s Confessions it has analyzed the dominant masculine figures and the way of treating women. In Little Women it has analysed Beth’s character that is confined to the domestic sphere following the duties imposed by patriarchal society. In the second chapter “Economic Independence toward Transcendence”, we have studied in both novels the feminine attempts to transcend the norms and how to be economically independent. As to the third chapter whose title is “Feminine Myths and Mothering as Hindrances” it discusses the obstacles that women face and myths that are invented by men to relegate women to the second position. We have analysed the two novels and reached the conclusion that both Gaskell and Alcott defend strongly women’s rights in their works; they made them struggle and act against the oppression of the patriarchal society.

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30cm ; 49p.

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Littérature et Approche Interdisciplinaire