Abstract
Abstract
Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves:
Deviants in Post-Revolutionary French and American Novels
By Deborah Estelle Mayrhofer
After the French and American revolutions in the late eighteenth
century, citizens of both
countries had to build an identity that rejected an established
system of government-
monarchy-that had dominated for centuries. This dissertation traces
the role of the novel
in the development of this new identity, in which the rejection of
deviant figures would
play a critical role in fostering national unity. In this
dissertation, I show that the figure of
the deviant in novels of the post-revolutionary period reveals an
attempt to repress or
reform the sexual, racial, and anarchic bodies that threaten
national and social unity. The
dissertation features readings of key late-eighteenth and
early-nineteenth century French
and American novels. The first three chapters focus on the havoc
wreaked on social and
family structures by transgressive sexual bodies in the
Charlotte Temple, The Scarlet
Letter and Power of Sympathy in America, and
Adolphe, Madame Bovary and René in
France. The final two chapters focus on the racial other as the
deviant figure in The
Algerine Captive and Edgar Huntly, as well as La
Fille aux yeux d'or and Atala.
Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction………………………………………………………………….1
Moral Guardianship in Charlotte Temple and
Adolphe……….....................12
The Family and the King in The Power of Sympathy and
René………….…52
Moral Bankruptcy in Madame Bovary and The Scarlet
Letter.………….….94
Racial Deviance in Edgar Huntly and The Algerine
Captive........................150
Racial deviance in Atala and La Fille aux yeux
d'or………………….........193
Conclusion………………………………………………………………......237
About this Dissertation
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