DOI: https://doi.org/10.14710/ca.v7i2.21031

Aging Yet Independent Women in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford and Charles Dicken’s David Copperfield

*Eta Farmacelia Nurulhady  -  English Department, Universitas Diponegoro, Jl. Prof. A. Suroyo, Tembalang, Semarang 50275, Indonesia

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Abstract
In the Victorian England whose ideal woman was the Angel in the House, a devoted and submissive wife and mother, it would generally be unfortunate for women to be still unmarried past their reproductive years. Using feminist lens, this study compares the Jenkyns sisters (Deborah and Matty) of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford (1853) and Betsy Trotwood of Charles Dicken’s David Copperfield (1850). While aging and single, they are financially independent. Husbandless and childless, the Jenkyns sisters and Betsey could easily fall into the category of redundant women, but they skillfully manage the house and class relations the way the Angels in the House do.
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Keywords: Angel in the House; redundant women; aging yet independent

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Section: Literary Studies
Language : EN
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  1. Kay Heath. Aging by the Book: The Emergence of Midlife in Victorian Britain. New York: SUNY Press, 2009
  2. Elizabeth Langland. “Nobody’s Angel: Domestic Ideology and Middle-Class Women in the Victorian Novel.” PMLA, vol. 107, 1992, pp. 290-304
  3. Nan H. Dreher. “Redundancy and Emigration: The 'Woman Question' in Mid-Victorian Britain” Victorian Periodicals Review, Vol. 26, No. 1, 1993, pp. 3-7
  4. Vincent B. Leitch, et.al. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism Third Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2018
  5. John Ruskin. Sesame and Lilies. Ed. Deborah Epstein Nord. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002
  6. Charles Dickens. David Copperfield. New York: Norton, 1990
  7. Elizabeth Gaskell. Cranford. London: Penguin Books, 2005
  8. David Newsome. The Victorian World Picture: Perceptions and Introspections in an Age of Change. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1999

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