Sensational and Reel: Women Writing the Fallen Woman

Catalog description

Class will read four major novels by women writers of the nineteenth century, all of whom center their fictions on the topic of the "fallen woman." A major concern of the Victorian era, the "fallen woman" narrative is typically about adultery, infidelity and/or sexual relations outside of the prescribed contract of marriage. These narratives centralize a number of Victorian anxieties about morality, sexuality, gender, class, and propriety. This class will explore two wildly different modes of novel writing popular novels in Victorian era: the popular, "low culture" sensation novel of the 1860s and the more enduring, classic and "high culture" realist novel. We will look at how women writers carefully worked through the problems with sensitivity and empathy not found in male-authored "fallen woman" novels (of which we will read one for comparison's sake).