Men Writing the (New) Woman: Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure and Grant Allen’s The Woman Who Did

Abstract

One of the most controversial debates in late Victorian society results in the Woman Question. Having developed from the end of the 18th century, by the end of the Fin de Siècle, it resonates in English political affairs, journalism, and literature. Within this context, the social phenomenon of the New Woman emerges during the second half of the century, intending to create an individual freed from social constraints, leading her life based on personal choice. Although highly discussed in the public field, and copied by many contemporary women, the New Woman finds its largest expression in literature, where most female writers freely create heroines who decide for themselves. Being a feminine question for a female public, the New Woman fiction counts very little male authorship, which, however, distinguishes itself by producing disputed works. In 1895 Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) and Grant Allen (1848-1899) publish two of the most known and water-shading novels of the genre: Jude the Obscure and The Woman Who Did. Although superficially, the two heroines of the novels, Sue and Herminia, share the preoccupations of the genre, being averse to marriage and deeply independent, they also reveal themselves as the products of a masculine viewpoint, determining a modification to be detected both in the adaptation of the New Woman theorisations and in the protagonist’s epilogues. Therefore, this thesis intends to analyse the construction of the New Woman characters in Hardy and Allen’s works, focusing on the diverse strategies the two novelists use that lead to a masculine New Woman discourse and depiction.