The Importance of Being Domestic in Margaret Oliphant’s Autobiography
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The essay discusses the significance of domesticity in Margaret Oliphant's posthumously published autobiography, revisiting her reviews of autobiographies published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine and drawing insights from Nancy Armstrong's study on Victorian domesticity and female subjectivity. Oliphant’s theory and practice of autobiography is based upon the gendered distinction between the private and the public that have been culturally constructed as female and male domains respectively. Oliphant does not challenge this gendered division; instead, she challenges the hierarchical relation of the two spheres, firmly placing herself in the private and claiming the commonplace as something worth recording. Oliphant suggests that it takes a hermeneutic effort to appreciate the banal everyday life. Presenting herself as a tragic domestic heroine equipped with a hermeneutic ability, Oliphant fashions herself as an autobiographer par excellence. Particularly significant in her autobiography is the ways in which she orchestrates the genre (autobiography defined as a record of the commonplace), her subject matter (domestic details), and her autobiographical self (the deep introspective self). Situated as a mother, domestic woman, and Victorian writer, Oliphant utilizes domesticity as a valuable asset for self-invention by constructing the domestic as an archeological site that needs to be excavated and interpreted. Oliphant then becomes an interpreter and transmitter of secret meanings of domesticity, positing the 'deep self' as a proper agency for this work and incorporating a middle-class work ethic into domesticity.
Abstract
The essay discusses the significance of domesticity in Margaret Oliphant's posthumously published autobiography, revisiting her reviews of autobiographies published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine and drawing insights from Nancy Armstrong's study on Victorian domesticity and female subjectivity. Oliphant’s theory and practice of autobiography is based upon the gendered distinction between the private and the public that have been culturally constructed as female and male domains respectively. Oliphant does not challenge this gendered division; instead, she challenges the hierarchical relation of the two spheres, firmly placing herself in the private and claiming the commonplace as something worth recording. Oliphant suggests that it takes a hermeneutic effort to appreciate the banal everyday life. Presenting herself as a tragic domestic heroine equipped with a hermeneutic ability, Oliphant fashions herself as an autobiographer par excellence. Particularly significant in her autobiography is the ways in which she orchestrates the genre (autobiography defined as a record of the commonplace), her subject matter (domestic details), and her autobiographical self (the deep introspective self). Situated as a mother, domestic woman, and Victorian writer, Oliphant utilizes domesticity as a valuable asset for self-invention by constructing the domestic as an archeological site that needs to be excavated and interpreted. Oliphant then becomes an interpreter and transmitter of secret meanings of domesticity, positing the 'deep self' as a proper agency for this work and incorporating a middle-class work ethic into domesticity.
참고문헌 (19)
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