Abstract

An exploration of Harriet Beecher Stowe's The Minister's Wooing as viewed through the lens of performance studies and domesticity. Previous tales of fallen women, both in novels and operatic form, deprived the coquette of the agency to change her societally determined route of personal destruction as previously shown in the studies of Catherine Clément. Stowe's unique tale of a French coquette overturns the typical plot of the fallen woman, as demonstrated in Hannah Webster Foster's The Coquette, by giving the coquette agency to redeem herself through key performative, domestic and, according to Judith Butler, transformative acts. Such treatment of this character made Stowe a forerunner in sexual equality.

Degree

MA

College and Department

Humanities; Comparative Arts and Letters

Rights

http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2017-04-01

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd9181

Keywords

Harriet Beecher Stowe, performance, coquetry, literary diva, undoing, Judith Butler, domesticity, Hannah Webster Foster, The Minister's Wooing, redemption

Language

english

Included in

Classics Commons

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