Transforming the Traditional: Margaret Fuller’s Treatment of the “Woman Question” in Woman in the Nineteenth Century
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This paper explores Margaret Fuller’s treatment of the ‘Woman Question’ through an analysis of her feminist manifesto, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845), in conjunction with other writings such as Autobiographical Romance and her 1844 poetry. The period in which Fuller lived was largely characterized by two competing positions on the “Woman Question” – woman as separate, distinct nature as opposed to that as woman as a free human being on an equal level with man. I examine how Fuller incorporates and reshapes these two opposing arguments about the nature of women to revise and transform existing gender relations. Fuller wants women both to claim equal opportunities with men and at the same time to discover their special powers as women. First, I discuss how Fuller’s concept of androgynous soul asserts for fundamental equality of men and women, thereby dismantling rigid gender stereotypes. Second, I analyze how Fuller appropriates conventional notions of the feminine as essentially different from men to reconstruct a powerful female selfhood, as evident in her feminist mythmaking of various classical pagan goddesses. Overall, I conclude that Fuller’s skillful appropriation of sexual discourses allows her to subvert and redefine patriarchal values and ideologies to some extent.
Abstract
This paper explores Margaret Fuller’s treatment of the ‘Woman Question’ through an analysis of her feminist manifesto, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845), in conjunction with other writings such as Autobiographical Romance and her 1844 poetry. The period in which Fuller lived was largely characterized by two competing positions on the “Woman Question” – woman as separate, distinct nature as opposed to that as woman as a free human being on an equal level with man. I examine how Fuller incorporates and reshapes these two opposing arguments about the nature of women to revise and transform existing gender relations. Fuller wants women both to claim equal opportunities with men and at the same time to discover their special powers as women. First, I discuss how Fuller’s concept of androgynous soul asserts for fundamental equality of men and women, thereby dismantling rigid gender stereotypes. Second, I analyze how Fuller appropriates conventional notions of the feminine as essentially different from men to reconstruct a powerful female selfhood, as evident in her feminist mythmaking of various classical pagan goddesses. Overall, I conclude that Fuller’s skillful appropriation of sexual discourses allows her to subvert and redefine patriarchal values and ideologies to some extent.
참고문헌 (18)
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