Title Impossible purities : blackness, femininity, and Victorian culture / Jennifer DeVere Brody

Published Durham [N.C.] : Duke University Press, 1998

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Description 1 online resource (xii, 257 pages) : illustrations Contents Complicating categories. --Miscegenating mulattaroons. --Casting the dye. --Masking faces. --Deforming island races. --Epilogue Summary Using black feminist theory and African American studies to read Victorian culture, Impossible Purities looks at the construction of "Englishness" as white, masculine, and pure and "Americanness" as black, feminine, and impure. Brody's readings of Victorian novels, plays, paintings, and science fiction reveal the impossibility of purity and the inevitability of hybridity in representations of ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and race. She amasses a considerable amount of evidence to show that Victorian culture was bound inextricably to various forms and figures of blackness. Opening with a reading of Daniel Defoe's "A True-Born Englishman," which posits the mixed origins of English identity, Brody goes on to analyze mulattas typified by Rhoda Swartz in William Thackeray's Vanity Fair, whose mixed-race status reveals the "unseemly origins of English imperial power." Examining Victorian stage productions from blackface minstrel shows to performances of The Octoroon and Uncle Tom's Cabin, she explains how such productions depended upon feminized, "black" figures in order to reproduce Englishmen as masculine white subjects. She also discusses H.G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau in the context of debates about the "new woman," slavery, and fears of the monstrous degeneration of English gentleman. Impossible Purities concludes with a discussion of Bram Stoker's novella, "The Lair of the White Worm," which brings together the book's concerns with changing racial representations on both sides of the Atlantic. This book will be of interest to scholars in Victorian studies, literary theory, African American studies, and cultural criticism Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-243) and index Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL Print version record Subject English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism Black people -- Great Britain -- Public opinion -- History -- 19th century Race awareness -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century National characteristics, English, in literature. Women, Black, in literature. Femininity in literature. Black people in literature. Race in literature. Black race -- Color. LITERARY CRITICISM -- European -- English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh. SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Anthropology -- Cultural. Black race -- Color Black people in literature Black people -- Public opinion Civilization English literature Femininity in literature National characteristics, English, in literature Race awareness Race in literature Women, Black, in literature Schwarze Frau Motiv Literatur Conscience de race -- Dans la littérature -- Grande-Bretagne -- Histoire -- 19e siècle. Féminité (psychologie) -- Dans la littérature. Noirs américains -- Dans la littérature. Anglais -- Dans la littérature. Svarta kvinnor i litteraturen. Rasrelationer i litteraturen. SUBJECT Great Britain -- Civilization -- 19th century. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85056625 Subject Great Britain Schwärze Englisch. Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. History Form Electronic book ISBN 9780822396956 0822396955

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