The archigenderic territories: mansfield park and a handful of dust

Abstract

This article compares two novels, 120 years apart, which have at their centres the English country house with all its social and economic implications. It contrasts the treatment of the women and men who inhabit such houses and the ways in which they are controlled - or not a controlled – by the iconic “Country House-Man”. Both Hetton and Mansfield are highly successful representations of gendered space, belonging inescapably to the periods in which they were written, but superimposing the two works adds depth to the reader's understanding of both.