Exhuming M. Paul: Carman Maria Machado and Creating Space for Pedagogical Discomfort

Abstract

"Exhuming M. Paul" examines Carmen Maria Machado's "The Real Tragedy of Beth March" and "A Fate Worse Than Marriage" in dialogue with Charlotte Brontë's Villette (1853) to look at the ways in which discomfort and lack of clarity in the classroom can be a boon. It uses the example of M. Paul's ambiguous ethnicity alongside my own passing privilege in order to discuss the ways in which the pedagogical imperative to ground literary analysis in specific textual evidence is often a disservice to issues that a novel elides or adumbrates as well as to the students who see themselves only dimly and often grotesquely reflected in the overwhelming whiteness of Victorian novels. Ultimately, it seeks to create a space for uneasiness and ambiguity in the classroom in order to better facilitate critical thinking and make space for emotionally charged readings for which critical distance typically can't allow.