Gender and the 19th c English novel

The question of gender in the nineteenth century English novel is complicated by consideration of more recent late twentieth century theorizing about gender. In particular, Judith Butler's highly influential notion of "gender performativity" suggests that gender is, in itself, nothing more than a sort of act. However this becomes an interesting angle to approach the works of creative artists, as a female novelist will quite naturally imagine her way into all sorts of characters who are not necessarily female: although much has been made, for example, of Jane Austen's modest refusal in her fiction to imagine or depict the conversations of men without a lady present, it is noteworthy that in many other female novelists of the nineteenth century, the willingness to imagine different persons is, in many ways, the readiest way to approach the subject of gender metaphorically.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein offers...
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