The Body in the Victorian Novel Bella Book ‘15

Why the Body? ● Research Process

● Talk Outline

● Background

● Embodied Subject

● Workers’ bodies

● Protagonists’ bodies

The Kardashians’ Disobedient Maternal Bodies

The Victorian Body

Gaskell and Dickens

An Embodied Subject

Sensation

Subjectivity

Portrait of a Heart, Christian Schloe, Austria

The Worker as “Hand” “Among the multitude of Coketown, generically called ‘the Hands,’—a race who would have found more favour with some people, if Providence had seen fit to make them only hands”

-Narrator, Charles Dickens, Hard Times

“But he—that is, my informant—spoke as if the masters would like their hands to be merely tall, large children—living in the present moment—with a blind unreasoning kind of obedience.”

-Margaret Hale, Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

The Body in Industry

“And I think, if this should be th' end of all, and if all I've been born for is just to work my heart and my life away, and to sicken i' this dree place, wi' them mill-noises in my ears for ever, until I could scream out for them to stop, and let me have a little piece o' quiet—and wi' the fluff filling my lungs...I think if this life is th' end, and that there's no God to wipe away all tears from all eyes...'I could go mad, and kill yo', I could.”

-Bessy Higgins, Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

The Middle-Class Female Protagonist “Why did she tremble, and hide her face in the pillow? What strong feeling had overtaken her at last?”

-Margaret Hale, Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

‘How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of conscious death?...Where are the sentiments of my heart?...What have you done, with the garden that should have bloomed once, in this great wilderness here!’

-Louisa Gradgrind, Charles Dickens, Hard Times

Thank You! Professor Pyke, for her leadership, intelligence, and keen vision Professor Martin, for her kindness, optimism, and insight

My friends, who came today and have been so supportive throughout this process!

My family, especially my mom: Hi Mom!