A Study of Victorian Female Servants : Their Clothes, Lives, and Representations in Literature
| Project/Area Number |
17520179
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
ヨーロッパ語系文学
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| Research Institution | Fukuoka University of Education |
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Principal Investigator |
NISHIMURA Miho Fukuoka University of Education, Education, Associate Professor, 教育学部, 准教授 (60284452)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2005 – 2006
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| Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 2006)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,200,000)
Fiscal Year 2006: ¥1,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥1,700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000)
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| Keywords | British Studies / Victorian Culture / Gender / Fashion / Class / Working Class / Victorian Novel / ヴィクトリア朝文学 / イギリス / 民族史 |
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| Research Abstract |
In this research, Victorian female servants' clothes, lives and literary representations are examined. In Victorian Age, servants were status symbol for the middle class. People who wished to be regarded as the middle classes employed one servant at least. In the hierarchy of female servants, housekeeper was at the top whereas a maid of all work was at the bottom. The circumstances under which they found themselves were so complex that there remain some questions left unsolved. The photographs of Victorian servants tend to give us such an impression as if they wore black or white dresses as the photographs are all monochrome, but Arthur Munby's reference to Hannah Cullwick's working clothes and Victorian servants' clothes which are held in museums in Britain suggest the possibility that the frock of lilac cotton print was also popular as the working dress of servants. Servants' literary representations are also examined in four Victorian novels, including Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urberville (1891). Whereas most female servants are often seen as the object of sexual desire, some of them are promoted from an employee to a friend or even to the wife of their employer, the latter of which is something that would very rarely occur in the real world. Servants also play the role as an informant so as to give the plot a twist. The fact that the servants represented in literary texts are not very different from those in the actual world reflects the familiarity with which they were known to the authors. The appearance of servants in the novels serves to give them reality as well as fantasy. Finally, the romance between Arthur Munby and Hannah Cullwick is discussed. Their story gives us an insight into the trials of love and marriage beyond classes in Victorian society.
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Report
(3 results)
Research Products
(2 results)
