Abstract
This essay explores the depiction of the “New Woman” figure in J. M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy (1911). By exploring contradictory modes of femininity, Barrie’s novel points to the ways in which established norms of masculinity at the fin-de-siècle were defined and frustrated by their relation to an unstable feminine ideal. The following essay will argue that the novel’s inconsistent depictions of femininity point to an end-of-the-era anxiety surrounding the emergent New Woman, an ambivalence which is symptomatic of the wider social and political uncertainties that defined the aftermath of the nineteenth century.
Highlights
This essay explores the depiction of the “New Woman” figure in J
Numerous theorisations of the New Woman emerged towards the end of the nineteenth century, but common traits attributed to the figure include sexual transgressiveness, revolutionary politics, and a rejection of heterosexual marriage, all of which were at odds with the gendered expectations of late-Victorian society (Ledger 6)
Representing a radical challenge to the status quo, the New Woman’s existence as a consistent entity beyond fiction, is debatable, and critics have tended to view the figure as an amalgamation of various mythologies around female emancipation; as Patricia Marks puts it, “her very existence depends on the desire of others to fictionalize her” (10)
Summary
This essay explores the depiction of the “New Woman” figure in J. As Mary Louise Roberts points out, ambivalence towards motherhood formed a key component of the New Woman sensibility, a rejection of domesticity which moved the figure beyond previous feminist movements that had attempted to justify legal or political rights by a reassertion of the moral influence of women as wives and mothers (21) This mothering imperative might be seen to constitute a deviation from total masculine supremacy, being as it is both an inflection of status and maturity, Wendy’s willingness, desire, to undertake this maternal responsibility does not overtly align with New Womanhood. Wendy’s narrative ends as “a married woman” fulfilling the hegemonic expectation of marriage which Peter denies her and, rather than gaining psychological independence, she becomes further identified with a necessarily dependent maternal ideal at odds with the tenets of New Womanhood (Barrie 220)
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More From: FORUM: University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Journal of Culture & the Arts
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