Theses - Honors College
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/2104/8111
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Browsing Theses - Honors College by Subject "19th Century."
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Item The Coming Woman: A Study of Idealized, Secondary Female Characters in Victorian Novels(2023-05-22) Brown, Rachel; Pond, Kristen; University Scholars.Idealized, secondary female characters in Victorian novels are disliked and disregarded by most readers because they are deemed too good, unrelatable, flat, or unimportant. As soon as readers realize these characters are idealized, many readers assume they represent the typical Victorian ideal of the “angel in the house” and dismiss them. However, if read more closely and studied more carefully, readers will realize that these characters often represent a different kind of ideal that more accurately represents who women are and what they are capable of: the coming woman ideal. By analyzing Agnes Wickfield, Helen Burns, and Mary Garth as full-fledged characters, one can realize how these characters, who embody the coming woman, are worthy of study and appreciation in and of themselves. They can help readers better appreciate authors, other characters, and the novels themselves.