Item Details

title

"I always cure you when I come": The Caregiver Figure in the Novels of Jane Austen

author

McKenzie, Kristal

abstract

This thesis will explore the evolution of the caregiver role and its attending difficulties for the characters of Elinor Dashwood, Emma Woodhouse and Anne Elliot in three Jane Austen novels. After reviewing the expected limitations that caregiving imposes on these women, I ultimately propose that Austen posits that caregiving can subversively act as an advantage to women, especially in regards to achieving greater equality between the sexes. Just as others have shown that illness is a dual role than can relegate a patient to a space of victimhood or of power, I argue that Austen slowly infuses caregiving with the same sort of subversive agency. Further, I argue that caregiving, rather than acting as an imperfect bandage that binds the traditional family together, actually assists in radically redefining the notion of family worthy of approbation.

subject

caregiving

Emma

Jane Austen

nursing

Persuasion

Sense and Sensibility

contributor

Richard, Jessica (committee chair)

Kairoff, Claudia (committee member)

Jenkins, Melissa (committee member)

date

2016-05-21T08:35:39Z (accessioned)

2021-06-01T08:30:11Z (available)

2016 (issued)

degree

English (discipline)

embargo

2021-06-01 (terms)

identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/59280 (uri)

language

en (iso)

publisher

Wake Forest University

type

Thesis