Gender

Gender

1. Breaking of gender stereotypes

   • Eleanor reads history books
   • Henry knows about fashion
   • Catherine doesn't keep a journal or know how to paint or play and instrument like 'most' girls do

2. Sexism, male power and patriarchy

   • In marriage
     • It is the men who initiate the courtship not the women
     • Women can only gain wealth through marriage
   • General Tilney's power over Eleanor, doesn't let her speak for herself
     • ‘‘Well, proceed by all means. I know how much your heart is in it. My daughter, Miss Morland,’ he continued, without leaving his daughter time to speak,’ pg. 154
     • ‘‘What say you, Eleanor? - speak your opinion, for ladies can best tell the taste of ladies in regard to places as well as men. I think it would be acknowledged by the most impartial eye to have many recommendations’’ pg. 196
   • “women write better letters than men, than that they sing better duets, or draw better landscapes. In every power, of which taste is the foundation, excellence is pretty fairly divided between the sexes." Pg. 22

3. Feminism

   • Isabella is presented as a strong female character and does as she wills, yet does not achieve the marriage she is looking for
     • In the end all her goals revolve around finding security in marriage
   • It is not Catherine's beauty or intellect/skill that wins her the hero, it is the fact that she has a good heart
   • Redefinition of the stereotypical heroine (and hero)
     • “No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be a heroine” Pg. 5
     • “and Catherine for many years of her life, as plain as any” Pg. 5