Amelia Opie's Fiction: Contagious and Recuperative Texts

Abstract

This essay considers how moral and physical contagion feature repeatedly in the fiction of Amelia Opie, and argues that despite her reputation as a conservative writer, Opie offers a radical reevaluation of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century discourses of virtue and fallenness. Though stereotypical “fallen” characters initially appear to be the agents of contagion in narratives like The Father and Daughter, Adeline Mowbray, and Madeline, Opie reveals that the actual contaminating forces at work in each case are ideological ones, rooted in society's constrained and often hypocritical definitions of virtue. Her texts allow for the social and moral recovery of the transgressive woman, and posit that the true need for recuperation lies not in the fallen woman, but in the world that sees her as such. By the very “respectable” works through which she distances herself from the radical politics of her youth, then, Opie insidiously infects readers with lingering questions about and criticisms of the status quo.