Self-making: Acts of performance in the Victorian novel

Self-Making" combines an examination of the self-conscious, theatrical construction of identity with attention to the malleability of character attributed to socio-economic changes.In the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries-the latter stages of the industrial revolution in Britain-an unprecedented number of people migrated from their ancestral rural homes to everexpanding urban centres.While some saw this urbanization as a mark of the destabilization of the country and longed for a return to the relative stability of the not-too-distant, pre-industrial past, many others used the opportunity to recreate their personal identities outside of the previously restrictive ties of family and home.Critics considered such self-creation dangerous, as it allowed for the blurring of historical boundaries of class and status.Supporters, however, saw the hypothetical ability of all men (and it was a predominantly masculine opportunity) to form a self separate from an inherited identity as a great democratic advancement.This perspective gave rise to a series of self-help narratives in the Victorian period, both fictional and factual, which take their name from Samuel Smiles's 1859 text, Self-Help.Smiles's work documents a string of men whose respective talents and devotion to hard work allowed them to rise from lower-class beginnings to become leaders in the fields of industry, politics, and the military.The concept of "self-help" was primarily directed at men making their way in the world through a combination of hard work, temperance, and frugality.But many characters in novels of the period, both actors and non-actors, use explicitly theatrical techniques of self-invention.This is especially true of female characters, excluded as they are from most professional paths.Using the language of the stage and methods of characterization employed by nineteenth-century actresses, "Self-Making" applies the self-help narrative beyond the expected area of the economically self-made man."Self-Making" posits theatrical technique as a female alternative to 1 Self-help dsigne l'action ou le processus de s'aider soi-mme, de s'amliorer ou de surmonter ses problmes sans l'assistance des autres.iv personnages fminins exclus de la plupart des voies professionnelles.En utilisant le langage de la scne et les mthodes de caractrisation employes par les actrices du XIXe sicle, la dissertation Self-Making applique le rcit de self-help au-del du domaine typique de l'homme conomiquement autonome. Self-Making propose la technique thtrale comme alternative fminine de self-help , mthode par laquelle les femmes du XIXe sicle pourraient crer des identits sociales viables.Je souligne ma discussion sur la fiction de cette priode en lisant dans les crits autobiographiques d'actrices du XIXe sicle une construction de soi parallle, tout en tirant de mmoires publies et de sources archivistiques associes une thorie de performance pratique par chaque actrice.Les mmoires de Fanny Kemble, de Marie Bancroft, de Stella Campbell et d'Elizabeth Robins relatent la carrire de chacune des actrices, refltent le dveloppement du thtre anglais et clairent leurs propres thories de performance.Chacune des actrices cre un personnage crit l'aide des mmes techniques qu'elle utilise sur la scne.Dans leurs romans thtraux, Geraldine Jewishbury et Florence Marryat considrent la mme rhtorique antithtrale qui sous-tend le soi construit de Bancroft.Les deux romanciers subvertissent une hirarchie anti-thtrale en identifiant la scne comme la sphre de l'authenticit et la socit celle des artifices.Wilkie Collins et Charlotte Bront utilisent la figure de l'actrice dans leurs romans afin de commenter sur le caractre performatif de l'identit.Ils soulignent la ncessit d'adapter ces caractrisations aux exigences de diverses situations hors-scne, en anticipant la thorie de performance de Campbell en tant que collaboration entre acteur et public.Ailleurs, Collins anime ses personnages fminins crapuleux de la dualit indispensable toute performance, tel que cite par Kemble et Charles Dickens.Les deux romanciers crivent des personnages gnralement traits comme des figures de femme fatale; je suggre que leur v mchancet est plutt un acte conscient, accompli afin de protger un soi priv.Tout au long du XIXe sicle, les actrices et les personnages de fiction sparent dlibrment leurs sois performants et performs, ce qui leur permet de crer une identit publique durable tout en prservant leur soi-mme priv.Ce faisant, ces femmes engendrent une forme de self-help qui va au-del de la pratique masculine et conomique typique.vi

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