“Wherefore Remember Pain?”: Women and Transnational Crossing in Stella Benson’s I Pose and The Poor Man

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article I explore female mobility and spatiality in the two novels, I Pose (1915) and The Poor Man (1922) by Stella Benson (1892–1933), who is an under-researched British writer in the early twentieth century yet whose works have raised key questions surrounding women’s condition, and most importantly, the existential crises that modern men and women confront. Focusing on the two leading female characters in the novels but also drawing attention to gender relationship, I explore how the constant negotiations and tension between their hope to break away from social constraints and expectations, and the difficulty that they face in their personal relationships are symbolized by their global traverses, and at times the (im)possibility of return.