First Advisor
Sarah Ensor
Date of Award
2017
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in English and University Honors
Department
English
Subjects
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844-1911). Silent partner -- Criticism and interpretation, Social classes in literature, American fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism
DOI
10.15760/honors.442
Abstract
This thesis is an analysis of the ways in which Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’s 1871 novel, The Silent Partner, uses its status as a literary text to challenge the social and political status quo and to implicate the reader in an interrogation of gender and class norms. The paper argues against critics who have taken the novel’s ending as proof of its political conservatism or its literary failures, proposing instead that the text’s lack of satisfactory resolution allows for the suggestion of radical possibilities and contributes to its value as a work of political literature.
Rights
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Persistent Identifier
http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/20447
Recommended Citation
Clarke, Olivia, ""If not in this world...": Rereading Power and Possibility in The Silent Partner" (2017). University Honors Theses. Paper 445.
https://doi.org/10.15760/honors.442