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“Finished with All That”: The Death of the Southern Lady and the Emergence of the New Woman in Ellen Glasgow’s Fiction
Abstract
Throughout her extended career Ellen Glasgow turned the lives of women into the subject matter of many of her novels. Adopting the perspective of gender studies, this paper proposes a comparison of different models of femininity embodied in the main female characters of three novels from different periods: The Battle-Ground (1902), Virginia (1913) and Barren Ground (1925). This study will reveal an evolution from the conservative model of the southern lady to the progressive one of the new woman. These characters’ interaction with different patriarchal institutions as well as their outcome will ratify the model of the new woman in detriment of the lady and demonstrate Glasgow’s progression in terms of genre from the sentimental to the realist novel.
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Glasgow, Ellen. (1981b). Virginia. London: Virago. (Original work published 1913.)
Glasgow, Ellen. (2000). The Battle-Ground. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press. (Original work published 1902.)
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/ff.2020.38.2.81-92
Date of publication: 2020-12-29 08:16:36
Date of submission: 2019-11-30 19:23:20
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