Date of Thesis

Spring 2025

Description

This thesis explores non-normative expressions of gender in three nineteenth-century novels: Valperga (1823) by Mary Shelley, The Hermaphrodite (c. 1846) by Julia Ward Howe, and The Awakening (1999) by Kate Chopin. Each novel’s protagonist displays gender expression that rejects nineteenth-century British and American ideals and is consequently exiled from society and faces death. The project diagrams trajectories of gender expression and identity by tracing adherence, failure, and consequences to illustrate how non-normative gender expression directly leads to social exclusion and death. The findings of this literary analysis suggest that nineteenth-century understandings of gender were rigidly policed and the novel served as a discursive space for exploring different non-normative expressions. In Valperga, Euthanasia’s “masculine” political loyalty prevails over her feminine identity in a heterosexual relationship; in The Hermaphrodite, Laurence struggles to identify as truly masculine or feminine due to their intersex body; in The Awakening, Edna rejects femininity by resisting marriage and motherhood. Each character defies gender expectations in a different manner, yet none of them are spared death. This project provides a foundation for future analyses of other works of literature through a similar framework and thus demonstrates literature as a method of conveying commentary on the destructiveness of gender expectations.

Keywords

Shelley, Howe, fiction, gender, intersex

Access Type

Honors Thesis

Degree Type

Bachelor of Arts

Major

English- Literary Studies

Second Major

Anthropology

First Advisor

Erica Delsandro

Second Advisor

Chase Gregory

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