Anna Veronica, the protagonist of H.G.Wells’s eponymous novel, is one of the modern women who inhabit English fiction at the turn of the century: intelligent, lively and determined young persons who well represent the New Woman’s struggle for emancipation in a crucial period of English history, heralding the pursuit of equal opportunities in the spheres of education, work and civil rights. Ann Veronica’s personal struggle to free herself from a dominating father and make an independent life of her own intertwines with her (temporary) involvement in the suffragette movement as well as with her (steadier) pursuit of sexual liberation. My intention is to read Ann Veronica alongside two novels published a few years earlier, Ella Hepworth Dixon’s The Story of a Modern Woman (1894) and George Gissing’s Eve’s Ransom (1895), which engage, each in their own way, in similar issues of emancipation and romance. London is both the physical and cultural setting for all three texts: the city - with the Central London School of Art, Imperial College and Mudie’s Circulating Library, as well as such leisure haunts as shops, theatres and museums - provides the backdrop against which the characters’ lives unwind, and supplies nourishment for their intellectual aspirations. One of the aims of the article is to analyse Ann Veronica’s progress - from suffragism to free love to marriage -, and question her status as a New Woman.
SINGLE WOMEN IN TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY LONDON: EMANCIPATION AND ROMANCE IN ANN VERONICA
CHIALANT, Maria Teresa
2011-01-01
Abstract
Anna Veronica, the protagonist of H.G.Wells’s eponymous novel, is one of the modern women who inhabit English fiction at the turn of the century: intelligent, lively and determined young persons who well represent the New Woman’s struggle for emancipation in a crucial period of English history, heralding the pursuit of equal opportunities in the spheres of education, work and civil rights. Ann Veronica’s personal struggle to free herself from a dominating father and make an independent life of her own intertwines with her (temporary) involvement in the suffragette movement as well as with her (steadier) pursuit of sexual liberation. My intention is to read Ann Veronica alongside two novels published a few years earlier, Ella Hepworth Dixon’s The Story of a Modern Woman (1894) and George Gissing’s Eve’s Ransom (1895), which engage, each in their own way, in similar issues of emancipation and romance. London is both the physical and cultural setting for all three texts: the city - with the Central London School of Art, Imperial College and Mudie’s Circulating Library, as well as such leisure haunts as shops, theatres and museums - provides the backdrop against which the characters’ lives unwind, and supplies nourishment for their intellectual aspirations. One of the aims of the article is to analyse Ann Veronica’s progress - from suffragism to free love to marriage -, and question her status as a New Woman.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
