The Language of Gender and Class

by Patricia Ingham

The Language of Gender and Class challenges widely-held assumptions about the study of the Victorian novel. Lucid, multilayered and cogently argued, this volume will provoke debate and encourage students and scholars to rethink their views on ninteenth-century literature.
Examining six novels, Patricia Ingham demonstrates that none of the writers, male or female, easily accept stereotypes of gender and class. The classic figures of Angel and Whore are reassessed and modified. And the result, argues Ingham, is that the treatment of gender by the late nineteenth century is released from its task of containing neutralising class conflict. New accounts of feminity can begin to emerge. The novels which Ingham studies are:
* Shirley by Charlotter Bronte
* North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
* Felix Holt by George Eliot
* Hard Times by Charles Dickens
* The Unclassed by George Gissing
* Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

208 pages, Paperback

First published April 4, 1996

About the author

Patricia Ingham is senior research fellow and reader at St. Anne's College, Oxford. She is the general editor of Thomas Hardy's fiction in Penguin Classics and edited Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South for the series.

Reviews

[Daphne Harries · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her brash approach to the obvious intersections of class and gender in Victorian society are refreshing. Ingham doesn’t shy away from recognising discrepancies in societies, as well as in language as an effect. The use of novels as more focused explorations of her critical observations is such a brilliant way to order and navigate the broad topic. I particularly enjoyed the part on ‘The Professor’. Gender roles being subjects of class hierarchies are obvious to most modern feminist critic readers, although the way in which Ingham gently reminds us of the initial receivers of these texts imparts a message of valuing observation, and not assuming everything based on generalised GCSE history lessons.

[Lorraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some very good commentary on North and South.

[[ J o ] · Rating 1 out of 5]

[Short review from memory before I re-read and review at a later date:

Read for my University thesis. Probably just annoyed at University rather than this book. I'm sure it's great.]