“Tired Inside”: Illness as Social Resistance in George MacDonald’s Adela Cathcart
“Tired Inside”: Illness as Social Resistance in George MacDonald’s Adela Cathcart
Academic discussion has long limited the works of George to their function as fairy tales and didactic narratives. This article explores the notion of illness as a form of resistance against the confines of upper-class femininity in MacDonald’s Adela Cathcart (1864). The article suggests that Adela’s mysterious illness, diagnosed as “moral atrophy”, is symptomatic of limits enforced by contemporary expectations for women, and that this incapacitating illness prevents Adela from fulfilling these expectations. Whether conscious or unconscious, the article explores both, Adela’s resistance against the duties of performative femininity necessitate her management by an all-male storytelling club who are tasked with restoring Adela to her role as dutiful daughter and suitable marriage-prospect. I argue that MacDonald uses illness to query contemporary gender ideals through Adela’s corporeal legibility, read through the lens of patriarchal medical theory.
Adela, Cathcart, gender, illness, femininity, resistance
95-113
Lewis, Jessica
14721a32-9590-472a-aeb3-67eae69b6361
January 2020
Lewis, Jessica
14721a32-9590-472a-aeb3-67eae69b6361
Lewis, Jessica
(2020)
“Tired Inside”: Illness as Social Resistance in George MacDonald’s Adela Cathcart.
Romance, Revolution and Reform, (2), .
Abstract
Academic discussion has long limited the works of George to their function as fairy tales and didactic narratives. This article explores the notion of illness as a form of resistance against the confines of upper-class femininity in MacDonald’s Adela Cathcart (1864). The article suggests that Adela’s mysterious illness, diagnosed as “moral atrophy”, is symptomatic of limits enforced by contemporary expectations for women, and that this incapacitating illness prevents Adela from fulfilling these expectations. Whether conscious or unconscious, the article explores both, Adela’s resistance against the duties of performative femininity necessitate her management by an all-male storytelling club who are tasked with restoring Adela to her role as dutiful daughter and suitable marriage-prospect. I argue that MacDonald uses illness to query contemporary gender ideals through Adela’s corporeal legibility, read through the lens of patriarchal medical theory.
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Published date: January 2020
Keywords:
Adela, Cathcart, gender, illness, femininity, resistance
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Local EPrints ID: 438281
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/438281
ISSN: 2517-7850
PURE UUID: 118592e0-4206-40e7-bbf1-8fee9b970cc9
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Date deposited: 04 Mar 2020 17:32
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 06:59
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Author:
Jessica Lewis
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