Breaking Through Walls and Pages: Female Reading and Education in the 18th Century British Novel

Abstract

My project compiles the historical information surrounding the rise of the novel in England as well as the conversations regarding female education in the 18th century. I show how Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote, Frances Burney’s Evelina, and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey depict education and reading in the novels. Novel reading is positive for the females in the novels, despite the fear that existed of women being seduced by novel reading and romance. Ultimately, I show why these novelists choose the form of the novel to manipulate other genres in order to show the restrictive nature of conventions and institutions of patriarchy in society. Through the novel, the authors expose how patriarchy was embedded in the very texts that informed female reality.