• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.261-280
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• 2007

This paper attempts to examine how woman's role defined by the public discourse took issue with private desires of an individual woman in Tabitha Gilman Tenney's Female Quixotism (1801). Tenney borrows and transforms the ideas of quixotism and picaresque from Don Quixote, which involve an inherent paradox in the post-Revolutionary America. The Republican Ideology emphasized women's crucial role as guardians of family virtue and molders of republican citizens. Therefore, women were not allowed to travel outside of the domestic space as freely as a male picaro could do. In fact, the"adventures"depicted in the novel are constituted of a series of courtship in which Dorcasina, the heroine, unceasingly tries but fails to find a husband fit for her romantic idea about love and marriage formed by novel reading. However, the process shows that a variety of socially disadvantaged groups as well as women were excluded from the public space of the post-Revolutionary America. This half-a-century quest does not end with a conventional happy marriage, but Dorcasina finds herself a disillusioned old maid, resigned to a life of charity. Yet the ending exposes social contradictions inherent in early Republic of America, by showing how an individual woman's life was prescribed and limited by the dominant public discourse.

• English & American cultural studies
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.193-218
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• 2014

This essay explores Congreve's last play The way of the World in terms of English new identity of the gentry represented by Mirabell in political, social and historical context of the Bloodless Revolution. Particularly, this essay focuses on behavioral differences between Mirabell and Fainall as characters who manage a certain type of acceptable Englishness through their heir. The acceptable Englishness separates what the differences are between two rakes from the outside of normative principle. The Way of the World reflects Lockean republican ideology in personal and familial relationships. Mirabell as a heroic rake represents new expectations for Englishmen who rejects absolute sovereign contrasted by Fainall's foreign tyrannical ways of domesticity. The Foreignness of Fainall's in the play is displaced by corollary change in the new model of English identity exemplified by Mirabell. Through the play, Congreve tends to satirize repressive morality of Hobbesian extremism and emphasizes the Revolution settlement based on consent sand trust instead. Mirabell's normative will harmonizes individual desire for happiness with social demand. In a sense Congreve's The Way of the World is a play reaching typical Restoration ending of intrigue and conspiracy through two rakes's interaction. Accordingly, this essay tries to show what separates the heroic rake from tyrannical libertine through their way of love, money, compromise and negotiation, which is their way of life.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.27
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• pp.81-104
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• 2012

This paper looks into the complexity of the comparative and conflictive elements portrayed on the novel Nada. Through the interpretation of the actions of the female characters, we can classify them into two different categories: pro-Franco and anti-Franco system. Thus, for example, the character Ena is an active, intellectual and liberal woman capable to manipulate and control men who lives at her own free will. This active and liberal personality is clearly not the favored type of woman under Franco, which prefers a society where men are the dominant figures. Another female character, Gloria, places herself far from the Catholicism based morality during the Franco period as she is having an affair with her husband's brother. We also find examples of the opposite, that is, affinity with Franco ideals, such as Angustias' decision to become a member of the convent, in line with the motto "Spain, united and great, through Catholicism"; the example of Ena's mother, nurturing six sons and daughters, also resonates with Franco ideology of a woman's role in the Spanish society, being mostly a reproductive instrument. One of the topics of this novel is the confrontation between the prewar petit bourgeoisie and the new postwar bourgeoisie. We can appreciate a big difference between the lifes of Andrea's family and Pons' family. Andrea has friendly relationships with friends from the new bourgeoisie; however, these interactions are not genuine, but superficial. Because of that, we also conclude that this novel reflects the underlying conflicts between different social strata. We also observe the conflicts and confrontations between republicans and nationalists in this society, through the relationships between two brothers, Juan y $Rom{\acute{a}}n$. During the civil war, Juan collaborates with the national faction, while $Rom{\acute{a}}n$ joins the republican faction. Consequently, they separate from each other due to their different ideologies. We will conclude that this novel also reflects on the idea that the Spanish civil war destroyed fraternity and separated families.