Abstract
In this thesis, I analyse the phenomenology of embodied subjectivity in a constellation of novels by French and German female authors from the nineteenth century. Through my engagement with the representation of the process towards embodied consciousness, I argue that my set of authors anticipates essential concerns of 20th- and 21st-century feminism through a plethora of themes including motherhood, material healthcare, reproductive autonomy, consent, legislative and legal structures, femicide and domestic abuse.In the thesis, I use the reading of Hegelian phenomenology developed by Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1949) in order to trace the dialectical movement towards subjectivity in the selected novels. Beauvoir argues that, due to their position as ontological othered subject to the central male subject under patriarchy, women are excluded from the process of recognition between subjects and therefore from self-transcendence. I will trace this progression beyond ontological othering, through which women constitute themselves as subjects in relation to human relationships and actions, by focusing on four different thematic concerns: class, the law, mental and physical illness and the feminine double.
In the first chapter of the thesis, I engage with the representation of the intersection between class and gendered oppression in novels by Louise Otto-Peters (1819-1895), Louise Aston (1814-1871) and Marie-Louise Gagneur (1832-1902). I argue that the protagonists of these novels realise how power and powerlessness mark their lived embodiment and create subjectivities stunted by oppressive constructs. Through this realisation, they also attain an understanding of the mechanisms of class violence, alienation and its repercussions on consciousness.
In the second chapter of the thesis, I examine novels by André Léo (1824-1900), Helene Böhlau (1859–1940) and Marie-Louise Gagneur that engage with women’s subjectivity and the law. I draw on the work of Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin on the notion of jurisprudence as an expression of sexual hierarchy, in which they problematise the concept of neutrality of the law and argue the state constitutes social and legal order to maintain male supremacy. I analyse how the law as a male-centric force of patriarchy is represented in the selected novels and how these juridical structures are inscribed upon women’s embodiment, with a particular focus on children’s custody, rape and femicide.
In the third chapter, I analyse novels by Hedwig Dohm (1831-1919), Alice Durand (1842–1902) and Helene Böhlau, focusing on the intersection between women’s subjectivity and mental and physical illness. I draw both on Foucauldian readings of regulatory mechanisms, disciplining practices and the creation of docile bodies and on Luce Irigaray’s theory of matrilineal genealogy to engage with trauma, mental illness, disease and death in the novels, with the purpose of unearthing the representation of the female bodies as battlefields between sexed oppression and emancipation.
In the fourth chapter, in which I examine novels by André Léo and Helene Böhlau, I engage with women’s subjectivity and the double. Drawing on the concept of ‘écriture féminine’ developed by Hélène Cixous and on Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s work on female authorship, I examine how couples of sisters embodying opposing modes of womanhood and femininity are represented in the novels. Paying particular attention to the constitution of selfhood of female artists, I argue that their embodied experience reflects the dialectic of the phenomenological movement towards subjectivity.
| Date of Award | 1 Jan 2024 |
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| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Rosa Mucignat (Supervisor) & Catherine Smale (Supervisor) |