Thomas Hardy and His Family -Class and Gender in the Late Nineteenth Century

Research Project

Project/Area Number	12610509
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	英語・英米文学
Research Institution	Tsuda College
Principal Investigator	TSUCHIYA Shizuko Tsuda College, English, Professor, 英文学科, 教授 (80055300)
Project Period (FY)	2000 – 2001
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 2001)
Budget Amount *help	¥1,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,900,000) Fiscal Year 2001: ¥600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000) Fiscal Year 2000: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000)
Keywords	Thomas Hardy / Emma Hardy / Florence Hardy / T.Hardy and His Two Wives / T.Hardy and His Family / T.Hardy and Class / T.Hardy and Gender / Class and Gender in the Late 19th Century / トマス・ハーディ / トマス・ハーディの小説 / Wessex Novels / ヴィクトリア時代のクラスとジェンダー / ヴィクトリア時代の「クラス」 / ヴィクトリア時代の「ジェンダー」 / トマス・ハーディの詩
Research Abstract	This study derives from my book titled Women and the Novels of Thomas Hardy (Tokyo : Nanundo, 2000), in which I discussed women in the six major novels of Thomas Hardy from a feminist point of view, paying special attention to the gender-biased discourses in those days. Having written this book, I found it extremely important to study the relationships between Thomas Hardy and his family, especially his two wives, Emma and Florence, because Hardy's class-conscious and gender-biased relationships with them are at the root of his literature. This study is an attempt to probe the roots of his literature, focussing on his relationships with his two wives. Chapter I deals with Hardy's encounter with his first wife Emma and his start as a writer encouraged by her. In ChapterII I treat their marriage and their happy Sturminster Newton days when Hardy wrote <The Return of the Native and some difficulties between Hardy and Emma began to be noticed. ChapterIII depicts the period when Hardy decided that his novels should be geared to the questions of his native rural people and country well known to him from his infancy. Here we find the germ of Hardy's Wessex Novels. The whole scheme of this study covers the time from Hardy's encounter with Emma to the death of Florence after Hardy's demise, but this contains the first three chapters.