Images of the "new woman" in the works of Late Victorian male writers

The aim of this thesis is to present an analysis of three novels by Late Victorian male novelists – Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891), George Meredith's Diana of the Crossways (1885), and George Gissing's The Odd Women (1893) – in order to reveal the New Woman images within the framework of feminist literary theory. These three novels represent the New Woman images the development of which was particularly viewed in the 1880s and early 1890s in Late Victorian fiction. Since the Victorian Period produces the Woman Question and typifies woman as the "angel in the house," the New Woman images in Late Victorian fiction represent challenges against classifications, descriptions and stereotypes in fiction. Described as Novissima, anomalous, wild, socially ill and odd, the New Woman transgresses the boundaries drawn around her by patriarchy which prevail Victorian life and literature. In these three novels, the main female characters challenge the status quo and its patriarchal qualities and subvert the norms of clichés in order to realise their selves. Even though written by male authors in the Late Victorian Period, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Diana of the Crossways and The Odd Women impersonate diverse images of the New Woman who is able to change and even to eradicate the Victorian realities constructed by paternalistic structures. This study is motivated by three fundamental questions in order to examine the New Woman images in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Diana of the Crossways, and The Odd Women: (1) "What/Who is the New Woman in the Late Victorian Period?" (2) "How do the New Woman images challenge norms and authorities of patriarchy that impose "angel in the house" onto women" in fiction? (3) "How do these novels of male writers associate the images of the New Woman to the contexts of sexuality, morality, death, marriage, work, independence, writing and politics in order to subvert the realities of women which depend on paternalistic traditions?" In order to answer these questions, this thesis relates the concepts of sexuality, morality and death to Tess; marriage, writing and politics to Diana, and marriage, work and independence to Rhoda, Mary and Madden Sisters, and bridges the images of the New Woman in diverse contexts all of which contribute to the feminist agenda that desires to emancipate women. The theoretical premise behind the argument is feminism in that the novels and novelists handle with the Woman Question and feminist thoughts for the representations of the New Woman images. In this thesis, the results of the discussion will provide enough evidence to prove writers' feminist perspectives and to enlarge the studies and visions in the New Woman literatures as three male writers contribute to the New Woman fiction in the Late Victorian Era.