The Dangerous Potential of Reading: Readers & the Negotiation of Power in Selected Nineteenth-Century Narratives (Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory) PDF
Preview The Dangerous Potential of Reading: Readers & the Negotiation of Power in Selected Nineteenth-Century Narratives (Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory)
L C A C ITERARY RITICISM ND ULTURAL T HEORY Edited by William E.Cain Professor of English Wellesley College A ROUTLEDGE SERIES L C A C T ITERARY RITICISM ND ULTURAL HEORY WILLIAM E.CAIN, General Editor WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN? DEATH, MEN, AND MODERNISM Family and Sectionalism in the Virginia Trauma and Narrative in British Fiction from Novels of Kennedy, Caruthers, and Tucker, Hardy to Woolf 1830–1845 Ariela Freedman John L.Hare WRITING THE CITY POETIC GESTURE Urban Visions and Literary Modernism Myth, Wallace Stevens, and the Motions of Poetic Desmond Harding Language Kristine S.Santilli THE SELF IN THE CELL Narrating the Victorian Prisoner BORDER MODERNISM Sean Grass Intercultural Readings in American Literary Modernism REGENERATING THE NOVEL Christopher Schedler Gender and Genre in Woolf, Forster, Sinclair, and Larence THE MERCHANT OF MODERNISM James J.Miracky The Economic Jew in Anglo-American Literature, 1864–1939 SATIRE AND THE POSTCOLONIAL NOVEL Gary Martin Levine V.S.Naipul, Chinua Achebe, Salman Rushdie THE MAKING OF THE VICTORIAN NOVELIST John Clement Ball Anxieties of Authorship in the Mass Market Bradley Deane THROUGH THE NEGATIVE The Photographic Image and the Written OUT OF TOUCH Word in Nineteenth-Century American Literature Skin Tropes and Identities in Woolf, Ellison, Megan Williams Pynchon, and Acker Maureen F.Curtin LOVE AMERICAN STYLE WRITING THE CITY Divorce and the American Novel, Urban Visions and Literary Modernism 1881–1976 Desmond Harding Kimberly Freeman FIGURES OF FINANCE CAPITALISM FEMINIST UTOPIAN NOVELS OF Writing, Class, and Capital in the Age of Dickens The 1970s Borislav Knezevic Joanna Russ and Dorothy Bryant Tatiana Teslenko BALANCING THE BOOKS Faulkner, Morrison, and the Economies of DEAD LETTERS TO THE NEW WORLD Slavery Melville, Emerson, and American Erik Dussere Transcendentalism Michael McLoughlin BEYOND THE SOUND BARRIER The Jazz Controversy in Twentieth-Century THE OTHER ORPHEUS American Fiction A Poetics of Modern Homosexuality Kristin K.Henson Merrill Cole SEGREGATED MISCEGENATION THE OTHER EMPIRE On the Treatment of Racial Hybridity in the U.S. British Romantic Writings about the and Latin American Literary Traditions Ottoman Empire Carlos Hiraldo Filiz Turhan T “D ” P O HE ANGEROUS OTENTIAL F R EADING Readers and the Negotiation of Power in Nineteenth-Century Narratives Ana-Isabel Aliaga-Buchenau Routledge New York & London Published in 2004 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 www.routledge-ny.com Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE www.routledge.co.uk Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. Copyright © 2004 by Taylor and Francis Books, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permis- sion in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Aliaga-Buchenau, Ana-Isabel. The ‘dangerous’ potential of reading : readers and the negotiation of power in nineteenth- century narratives / by Ana-Isabel Aliaga-Buchenau. p. cm.—(Literary criticism and cultural theory) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-96833-X (alk. paper) 1. American fiction—19th century—History and criticism. 2. Books and reading in litera ture. 3. Books and reading—United States—History—19th century. 4. French fiction—19th century—History and criticism. 5. Books and reading—France—History—19th century. 6. Literature, Comparative—American and French. 7. Literature, Comparative—French and American. 8. Power (Social sciences) in literature. 9. Narration (Rhetoric) I. Title. II. Series. PS374 .B67A45 2003 813’.309355—dc21 2003010600 ISBN 0-203-48608-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-57935-6 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-96833-X (Print Edition) To Jürgen, Nicolas, and Julia Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix INTRODUCTION xi CHAPTER ONE Reading and Power in the Nineteenth Century 3 CHAPTER TWO “The Pathway from Slavery to Freedom”: Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass 13 CHAPTER THREE The Passage to Middle-Class Respectability: Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick 23 CHAPTER FOUR The Road to Revolt: Emile Zola’s Germinal 33 CHAPTER FIVE Women, Reading, and Power 45 CHAPTER SIX The Demonic Underneath the Angelic Little Woman: Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women 69 CHAPTER SEVEN A Little Woman Gone Astray: Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary 97 vii viii Contents CONCLUSION 125 NOTES 129 BIBLIOGRAPHY 167 INDEX 183 Acknowledgments T his project has been made possible by the help of many individuals who gave generously of their time to aid me in my efforts. My thanks go to all of them. My friend and advisor, Lilian R. Furst, taught me comparative litera- ture, helped me through the various stages of becoming a comparatist, provided invaluable advice, read the many incarnations of this study, believed in me and always found words of encouragement. My warmest thanks go to her. My thanks also go to Joy Kasson, Stirling Haig, Susan Navarette, and Eric Downing for serv- ing on my dissertation committee. I would also like to thank Everett Emerson, the first to introduce me to American literature in the United States. His thoughtful advice on my master’s thesis kindled my desire to continue as a scholar. I must go further back in time to thank Armin Paul Frank, who was the first to encourage me in the study of literature and who would not let me abandon a piece of work— teaching me never to give up. I would like to thank him for his constant encourage- ment and help—even from afar. Among my colleagues and friends whose advice and friendship were invalu- able, I would like to mention Rosalba Esparragoza Scott, whose friendship, un- wavering faith in my abilities and countless hours of babysitting have contrib- uted greatly to this project. I would also like to thank Carol Hartley, whose great ability and willingness to listen, insightful comments and strong moral support have been invaluable during my years in Charlotte. I would also like to mention Tom Cole, Laine Doggett, Paul Worley, Gavin Sundwall, Hans Boas, Tolu Odugbesan, Ann and Roger Waldon and Ida and Jack Morgan. I also wish to thank my colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and espe- cially Martha Miller, Paul Youngman, Tracy Guzmán, Colleen Culleton, Michele Bissière, and Katherine Stephenson for their support. I am particularly thankful for a course release, which made the completion of this project possible. Among my former colleagues at Davidson College, I am especially grateful to my friend ix
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