Mrs. Oliphant through Other Spectacles: Ideology and Subjectivity in her Works and their Publication

Abstract

<p>This thesis considers a few of the numerous works by Margaret Oliphant (1828-1897), not in light of their literary value, but as a means of understanding how literature can offer as "natural" particular ways of understanding oneself and one's relation to society, and how one can use that same literature to dismantle the illusion of inevitability which it fosters. Mrs. Oliphant's fiction, autobiography, and letters, offer positions from which the reading subject can understand the text and their relation to it. On the one hand women, as part of humankind, are depicted as unified subjects, the originators of meaning, will, and self-definition. On the other hand women are presented as gentle, passive, and giving by nature, and the meaning in their world is defined in relation to men. Although these positions exclude each other, Oliphant offers both as obvious and natural. At moments in her writing, these conflicting ways of understanding what it means to be a woman do battle with each other, leaving gaps in the text which, if filled, would display that neither one is inevitable or unchangeable.</p> <p>"Mrs. Oliphant through Other Spectacles" draws for its theoretical framework on the work of Catherine Belsey, Terry Eagleton, and related theorists. Chapter 1 introduces those of their approaches which are relevant to the succeeding chapters. Chapters 2 and 3 present the application of the approaches to three works from Oliphant's Carlingford series, Miss Marjoribanks, The Perpetual Curate, and The Doctor's Family. The engagement scenes in particular are used to demonstrate the conflicting interpellations of women which inform much of Oliphant's writing. Chapter 4 is a study, in these same terms, of Oliphant's autobiography. Finally, Chapter 5 turns to the arena of publishing, where ideology can be seen to work not only through the author's words, but through the publishing process itself. This is demonstrated with a close study of the publication process of Miss Marjoribanks and a consideration of the letters which passed between Mrs. Oliphant and her publisher at the time prior to and around its publication.</p>