1. The representation of society in the early nineteenth century 1 -- 2. The interlocked coding of class and gender -- 3. Shirley -- 4. North and South -- 5. Hard times -- 6. Changes in the representation of class in the second half of the nineteenth century -- 7. Felix Holt -- 8. The unclassed -- 9. Jude the Obscure.
Summary
Annotation "The Language of Gender and Class" challenges widely-held assumptions about the study of the Victorian novel. The author analyzes language as the framework for the concepts of gender and the formations of social class, specifically, how stereotypes of gender and class encode cultural myths that reinforce the status quo. Re-examining six major Victorian novels: "Shirley" by Charlotte Bronte; "North and South" by Elizabeth Gaskell; "Felix Holt" by George Eliot; "Hard Times" by Charles Dickens; "The Unclassed" by George Gissing; and "Jude the Obscure" by Thomas Hardy, Patricia Ingham demonstrates that none of the writers, male or female, easily accept stereotypes of gender and class. The classic figures of Angel and Whore are reassessed and modified. And the result, argues Ingham, is that new representations of femininity can begin to emerge
