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/
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Schraedel, Chrisanne, "The Redemption of the Literary Diva: The Role of Domestic Performance and the Body in Harriet Beecher Stowe's The Minister's Wooing" (2017). Theses and Dissertations. 6300.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/6300
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