O coração que não sabe encolher: a figuração da mulher vingativa na poética gótica do século XIX

Abstract

This thesis presents a reading of the vengeful woman figuration as a form of resistance to a canonical ideal of the feminine, particularly as embodied in the nineteenth-century figure of the Angel in the House. In contrast to this ideal, which was forcibly naturalised as domestic, chaste, and obedient, such figuration exposes a rebellion that complicates the full consolidation of the Angel. This rebellion is expressed through violence and revenge, highlighting a simultaneous subversion of that model that was being established at the time. I trace the development of the vengeful woman, drawing from mythological figures predating the Common Era, as well as from more familiar characters in modern English literature. This trajectory culminates in the nineteenth century with characters such as Victoria di Loredani (Zofloya, or the Moor, 1806 – Charlotte Dacre), Becky Sharp (Vanity Fair, 1847-1848 – William Makepeace Thackeray) and Lady Audley (Lady Audley’s Secret, 1862 – Mary Elizabeth Braddon). These nineteenth-century vengeful women inherit a legacy from their literary mothers and, in their time, further explore an experience not bound by masculinist ideals, but rather one that responds to their own desires. In doing so, they offer insights into our contemporary feminist issues. This interpretation, illuminated by the Gothic bestiary, demonstrates how these figures, through monstrosity, find in desexualisation the possibility of a more expansive feminine – one that can fully embrace them, and, as a result, is free