AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

The eighteenth century marked a time of significant change in Western marriage. The new ideal of an egalitarian partnership emerged, emphasizing individual choice of spouses based on affection and companionship with family, social, political, and economic status as lesser criteria. However, this could be problematic for women until the latter half of the twentieth century, who were until then were almost wholly dependent on marriage for security. Therefore, the concept of the egalitarian marriage was premature in the eighteenth century, as it came to prominence in a period of time that could not realistically sustain it. Instead, it sparked a controversy in which this lofty ideal was often in conflict with practical reality. The era's most canonical authors explored of the paradoxes inherent to the egalitarian marriage model. As a result, the desire to achieve this ideal is a focal point as well as a note of contention among literature's pre-feminist heroines, including Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Ellen Olenska in Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence (1920). Each of these characters asserts her independence regardless of the potential consequences, risking her own future in the process. Meanwhile, more pragmatic characters like Austen's Mrs. Bennet and Charlotte Lucas, Wharton's May Welland, and Daisy Buchanan in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925) are resigned, if not entirely content, with the security provided by more orthodox methods of mate selection. While the former are portrayed as non-conformist heroines, the latter are portrayed as 'beautiful little fools', to borrow a phrase from Daisy Buchanan. However, are these characterizations accurate? Are they fair? Most importantly, how do these pre-feminist marriage narratives serve as both reinforcements and critiques of traditional marriage and social roles? By putting this literary fiction in context with feminist criticism, transatlantic theory, and the history of Western marriage, one can conclude that dismissing some women as 'beautiful little fools' for simply adapting to a society that sets parameters outside of their control was unfair and inaccurate. To the contrary, many of the so-called fools in these novels have perhaps the most lucid vision of life as it was. Rather than allowing themselves be martyrs, they simply learn how to work the system as well as can be expected. The real 'fools,' meanwhile, prove to be those characters who think that the exertion of their individual wills actually has the power to supersede the class and gender roles in which they are so firmly embedded. 'Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Art in English Literature.'; Thesis advisor: Stuart Barnett.; M.A.,Central Connecticut State University,,2016.; Advisors/Committee Members: Barnett, Stuart.