Nurturing in the Novels of Fanny Burney, Ann Radcliffe, and Ellen Price Wood.

270 Pages·2017·10.08 MB·English

LLoouuiissiiaannaa SSttaattee UUnniivveerrssiittyy
LLSSUU DDiiggiittaall CCoommmmoonnss
LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School
1994
NNuurrttuurriinngg iinn tthhee NNoovveellss ooff FFaannnnyy BBuurrnneeyy,, AAnnnn RRaaddcclliiffffee,, aanndd EElllleenn
PPrriiccee WWoooodd..
Sarah Domingue Spence
Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses
RReeccoommmmeennddeedd CCiittaattiioonn
Spence, Sarah Domingue, "Nurturing in the Novels of Fanny Burney, Ann Radcliffe, and Ellen Price Wood."
(1994). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 5828.
https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/5828
This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It
has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU
Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected].
INFORMATION TO USERS
This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI
films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some
thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may
be from any type of computer printer.
The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the
copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality
illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins,
and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction.
In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete
manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if
unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate
the deletion.
Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by
sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and
continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each
original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in
reduced form at the back of the book.
Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced
xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white
photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations
appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly
to order.
University Microfilms International
A Bell & Howell Information Company
300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA
313/761-4700 800/521-0600

Order Number 9508601
Nurturing in the novels of Fanny Burney, Ann Radcliffe, and
Ellen Price Wood
Spence, Sarah Domingue, Ph.D.
The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical Col., 1994
U M I
300 N. ZeebRd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48106

NURTURING IN THE NOVELS OF FANNY BURNEY,
ANN RADCLIFFE, AND ELLEN PRICE WOOD
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the
Louisiana State University and
Agricultural and Mechanical College
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in
The Department of English
by
Sarah D. Spence
B.A., Southeastern Louisiana University, 1979
M.A., Southeastern Louisiana University, 1981
M.A.E.T., University of New Orleans, 1987
August 1994
For Lee Russell Spence
ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For his scholarly guidance, I am grateful to Dr. Kevin
L. Cope, who directed my dissertation and served as an
exemplary mentor. I also want to thank Dr. Josephine A.
Roberts and Dr. Sharon Aronofsky Weltman for their careful
reading of my manuscript and helpful suggestions. I am
grateful to Dr. Rebecca W. Crump and Dr. Stephen Bretzius
for their contributions and kind words of encouragement. I
want to recognize the excellent work of the Interlibrary
Loan personnel at Southeastern Louisiana University for
their help. My thanks goes to my colleagues at
Southeastern for their support.
I appreciate the encouragement of my family: my
mother, Nola Domingue; my children, Diane, Byron, Camille,
Melanie, Maurice, and Stella. I especially owe a debt of
gratitude to my husband Lee whose patience, confidence, and
invaluable help supported my endeavors.
PREFACE
How and why is nurturing so important in childhood?
If fiction mimics life, is not the nurturance theme
relevant to the heroine as well? In my opinion, the novels
of Fanny Burney, Ann Radcliffe, and Ellen Price Wood all
accentuate attachment theory, which emphasizes caring,
protecting and nurturing.
The nurturance theme was gleaned from a paper for a
Southern Literature class. The paper on Ellen Glasgow's
Virginia. exemplifies a typical Victorian "idolization" of
the mother novel. The work of Nancy Chodorow provides the
background for the mother and daughter focus, delineating
that "women's mothering reproduces itself cyclically."
However, the novels of the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries here are problematic since the absent mother
theme is dominant in these women's writing. In the novels
of that era, I examine the heroine's foundation reinforced
by the careful nurturing in infancy, usually by the mother
or mother substitute, but then transferred to another
attachment figure.
Chapter 1 explicates the twentieth century
psychoanalytic studies and attachment theory. It also
discusses the psychologists and psychiatrists who provide
the background for John Bowlby's attachment theory. The
sociological background and the relevance of the courtesy
books are also examined.
iv
I decided to expand the scope of the theory in this
dissertation on women who authored novels with the absent
mother and explore a potential surrogate mother and/or
nurturer for the heroine. The novels included here span a
hundred years and the distinctive characteristics represent
four diverse types of novels: Burney's manners and morals
novels, Evelina and Cecilia; Burney's The Wanderer, a
combination of manners and morals and Romantic; Ann
Radcliffe's Gothic romance, The Mysteries of Udolpho and
The Italian; and Ellen Price Wood's Victorian "sensation"
novel, East Lvnne. In spite of the wide expanse in time
and variety of works, the human's need for love, nurturing,
and succor remains constant.
Chapter 2 covers three of Fanny Burney's novels
written at the end of the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries. Burney's first novel Evelina at the outset is
problematic because the mother dies immediately after the
child's birth; however, a striking resemblance exists
between the association of author and her father with the
vital bond between the heroine Evelina and Mr. Villars, her
guardian. As the work of Burney moves into the nineteenth
century, namely in The Wanderer. I explore the Romantic
movement and the French Revolution as they affect the
.actions of the heroine. In this chapter attachment theory
is manifested in the father/guardian, the surrogate mother,
and the sister bond.
v