The Morgesons
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Book Overview
Elizabeth Stoddard combines the narrative style of the popular nineteenth-century male-centered bildungsroman with the conventions of women's romantic fiction in this revolutionary exploration of the conflict between a woman's instinct, passion, and will, and the social taboos, family allegiances, and traditional New England restraint that inhibit her. Set in a small seaport town (1862), The Morgesons is the dramatic story of Cassandra Morgeson's fight against social and religious norms in a quest for sexual, spiritual, and economic autonomy. An indomitable heroine, Cassandra not only achieves an equal and complete love with her husband and ownership of her family's property, but also masters the skills and accomplishments expected of women. Counterpointed with the stultified lives of her aunt, mother, and sister, Cassandra's success is a striking and radical affirmation of women's power to shape their own destinies. Embodying the convergence of the melodrama and sexual undercurrents of gothic romance and Victorian social realism, The Morgesons marks an important transition in the development of the novel and evoked comparisons during Stoddard's lifetime with such masters as Balzac, Tolstoy, Eliot, the Brontes, and Hawthorne.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0140436510
ISBN13:9780140436518
Release Date:September 1997
Publisher:Penguin Publishing Group
Length:304 Pages
Weight:0.52 lbs.
Dimensions:0.8" x 5.1" x 7.7"
Age Range:18 years and up
Grade Range:Grade 12 and higher
Related Subjects
Classics Fiction History Literary Literary Criticism & Collections Literature Literature & FictionCustomer Reviews
1 rating
Weird but good
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 24 years ago
The Morgesons is a magnificently strange book that takes the conventions of the 19th-century coming-of-age novel & turns them inside out. It comes so close to being a deliciously cosy, quasi-gothic, read that you find yourself wondering whether you're imagining the peculiarities-- & perhaps they are only the natural consequences of transplanting this sort of novel into an American setting, where instead of sheepfolds & Anglican churchiness, barren Cape Cod coastline and cold Calvinism are the order of the day. Obsession with inheritance & the family line & that terrible 19th century question: what should a woman do? runs through the book, whose coldness occasionally gives way to flaring episodes of violence and passion.
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