Unveiling the Ordinary “Other” in Neo-Victorian Biofiction
| Autoři | |
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| Rok publikování | 2024 |
| Druh | Další prezentace na konferencích |
| Fakulta / Pracoviště MU | |
| Citace | |
| Popis | While neo-Victorian literature is often concerned with stories about fame or infamy, deviance, and shocking Otherness, the genre also shows a keen interest in servitude. The servant character can be characterised by inherent invisibility, with their roles strictly prescribed and their freedom limited. Neo-Victorian narratives experiment with the issue of invisibility and ordinariness, portraying servant characters with multifaceted desires and natures. These experiments result in varied levels of development of the servant character, as will be discussed in relation to two neo-Victorian biofictional works: Lady’s Maid (1990) by Margaret Forster and The Mistress of Nothing (2009) by Kate Pullinger. The depiction of Wilson (Lady’s Maid) and Sally (The Mistress of Nothing) constantly emphasises these maids’ subordinate and marginal positions compared to their mistresses, who hold all the power. When portraying the overlooked working class, adding and fictionalising stories that have been insufficiently documented becomes crucial. It is evident that without their well-known mistresses, Wilson’s and Sally’s revisitations would not exist. However, a question arises as to whether, because of their mistresses, they can also not become pivotal characters in their neo-Victorian revisitation. This presentation argues that the Otherness of both protagonists is not only rooted in their subordinate working-class position but also in the suggested ordinariness and secondariness of their lives, reliant on their employers and suspended in indeterminacy that makes them liminal. This reliance is further emphasised by the stories told due to the servant’s connection to their more well-known employers. As a result, both Wilson and Sally represent neo-Victorian protagonists of what Kohlke categorises as biofiction of marginalised subjects, while the narrative also provides “skewed insights and revelations … into the (more) noteworthy personalities” (Kohlke 11), in this case, their mistresses Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Lady Duff Gordon. Kohlke, Marie-Luise. “Neo-Victorian Biofiction and the Special/Spectral Case of Barbara Chase- Ribouds Hottentot Venus.” Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies, vol. 18, no. 3, 2013, pp. 4-21 |
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