THE FEMALE MONSTERS OR THE MONSTROUS OTHERS: GEORGE ELIOT AND HER HETTY SORREL IN ADAM BEDE

Yıl 2022, Cilt: 23 Sayı: 42, 583 - 607, 31.01.2022

Nazan Yıldız

https://doi.org/10.21550/sosbilder.960874

Öz

In the Victorian society, the fallen woman was identified with the monstrous Other as in the case of George Eliot’s Hetty Sorrel in Adam Bede as well as the author herself. Both Eliot and her Hetty were monsters of their society as they violated the Victorian norms. Through the tragic story of Hetty Sorrel, Eliot depicts how the victimized female becomes a monstrous Other. This paper asserts that Eliot creates Hetty as her double to reflect her own unrest and anger in the conservative Victorian society. The paper also examines how, as a product of Eliot’s complex mind, Hetty takes two polar opposite roles throughout the novel: a monster who contravenes the Victorian rules and a monstrous Other who is the victim of Victorian ethics and principles. Accordingly, Hetty becomes Eliot’s madwoman who mirrors her own wrath and dilemma between the traditional role attached to woman and her rebellion against patriarchy.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Adam Bede, George Eliot, Hetty Sorrel, monstrous Other, Victorian woman

Kadın Canavarlar veya Canavar Ötekiler: George Eliot ve Adam Bede’deki Karakteri Hetty Sorrel

Öz

In the Victorian society, the fallen woman was identified with the monstrous Other as in the case of George Eliot’s Hetty Sorrel in Adam Bede as well as the author herself. Both Eliot and her Hetty are monsters of their society as they violate the Victorian norms. Through the tragic story of Hetty Sorrel, Eliot depicts how the victimized female becomes a monstrous Other. I argue that Eliot creates Hetty as her double to reflect her own unrest and anger in the conservative Victorian society. This paper examines how, as a product of Eliot’s complex mind, Hetty takes two polar opposite roles throughout the novel: a monster who contravenes the Victorian rules and a monstrous Other who is the victim of Victorian ethics and principles. Accordingly, Hetty becomes Eliot’s madwoman who mirrors her own wrath and dilemma between the traditional role attached to women and rebellion against patriarchy.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Adam Bede, George Eliot, Hetty Sorrel, canavar Öteki, Viktorya dönemi kadını

Kaynakça

• Auerbach, N. (1980). The rise of the fallen woman. Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 35(1), 29-52.
• Austen, Z. (1976). Why feminist critics are angry with George Eliot. College English, 37(6), 549-561.
• Brontē, C. (1993). Villette. Wordsworth.
• Carroll, A. (1989). Tried by earthly fires: Hetty Wesley, Hetty Sorrel, and Adam Bede. Nineteenth-Century Literature, 44(2), 218-224.
• Cohen, J. J. (1996). Introduction. In J.J. Cohen (Ed.), Monster Culture (Seven Theses). Monster Theory: Reading Culture (pp. 3-25), Minnesota University Press.
• Citron, J. A. (1989). Delusions of gender. The Women’s Review of Books, 7(2), 18-19.
• De Traci, R. (2021, September 9). The Curse of Medusa from Greek Mythology. https://www.thoughtco.com/greek-mythology-medusa-1524415
• Diekhoff, J. S. (1936). The happy ending of Adam Bede. ELH, 3(3), 221-227.
• Dolin, T. (2005). George Eliot. Oxford University Press.
• Edwards, L. R. (1972). Women, Energy and Middlemarch. Woman: An Issue, 13(1), 223-238.
• Eliot, G. (1896). Silly novels by lady novelists. Westminster Review, 66, 442-461.
• Eliot, G. (1994). Adam Bede. Penguin Books.
• Fyfe, A. J. (1954). The interpretation of Adam Bede. Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 9(2), 134-139.
• Gilbert S. M. & Gubar, S. (2000). The madwoman in the attic: The woman writer and the nineteenth-century literary imagination. Yale University Press.
• Haldane, E. S. (1927). George Eliot and her times. Appleton and Co.
• Herbert, C. (1975). Preachers and the schemes of nature in Adam Bede. Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 29(4), 412-427.
• Levine, G. (2001). Introduction: George Eliot and the art of realism. In G. Levine (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to George Eliot (pp. 1-20), Cambridge University Press.
• Manheimer, J. (1979). Murderous mothers: The problem of parenting in the Victorian novel. Feminist Studies, 5(3), 530-546.
• Martin, B. K. (1974). Rescue and marriage in Adam Bede. Studies in English Literature, 12(4), 745-763.
• McDonagh, J. (2001). Child-murder narratives in George Eliot’s Adam Bede: Embedded histories and fictional representation. Nineteenth-Century Literature, 56(2), 228-259.
• Mitchell, J. (1990). George Eliot and the problematic of female beauty. Modern Language Studies, 20(3), 14-28.
• Moers, E. (1977). Literary women. Anchor Books.
• Pinney, T. (1963). Essays of George Eliot. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
• Power, E. (1975). Medieval women. Cambridge University Press.
• Rignall, J. (2000). Oxford reader’s companion to George Eliot. Oxford University Press.
• Tumanov, V. (2011). Mary versus Eve: Paternal uncertainty and the Christian view of women. Neophilologus, 95(4), 507-521.
• Woolf, V. (2021, September 9). Professions for Women. https://www.wheelersburg.net/Downloads/Woolf.pdf