Manchester University Press
1 The Life and Adventures of Mr. Francis Clive (1764)
Abstract
Gibbes begins her career in one of her two earliest novels, Francis Clive, by subverting the patriarchal assumptions of male domination behind the sentimental genre’s marriage plot. Gibbes destabilizes her third-person narrator’s attempt to tell a traditional story of masculine prodigality and return, of fallenness and redemption, and of young women navigating their way through a world of predatory men to be rewarded with marriage. Instead, stories within stories transform traditional plotlines, compounding the predation of young women by powerful men who are defeated by storytelling women at odds with the narrator. The novel represents generational replication of abuse of women by a spectrum of male characters ranging from overt predators to the more insidious, including those embodiments of masculine heroism whom the narrator has promised both the reader and heroine as rescue from the perils that have formed the world of the novel. Introducing a new level of metanarrative to her precursors’ satire of their male precursors and contemporaries, Gibbes targets the hypocrisy of the reader of sentimental novels, anticipating Wollstonecraft’s attack on the genre as a source of women’s miseducation. As Gibbes’s moralistic narrator attempts to tell a tale of vulnerable young men pulled off the path of virtue by seductive women, Gibbes uses metanarrative wordplay and layers of plotting and scheming by her characters to derail her narrator’s attempt to control the narrative.
Abstract
Gibbes begins her career in one of her two earliest novels, Francis Clive, by subverting the patriarchal assumptions of male domination behind the sentimental genre’s marriage plot. Gibbes destabilizes her third-person narrator’s attempt to tell a traditional story of masculine prodigality and return, of fallenness and redemption, and of young women navigating their way through a world of predatory men to be rewarded with marriage. Instead, stories within stories transform traditional plotlines, compounding the predation of young women by powerful men who are defeated by storytelling women at odds with the narrator. The novel represents generational replication of abuse of women by a spectrum of male characters ranging from overt predators to the more insidious, including those embodiments of masculine heroism whom the narrator has promised both the reader and heroine as rescue from the perils that have formed the world of the novel. Introducing a new level of metanarrative to her precursors’ satire of their male precursors and contemporaries, Gibbes targets the hypocrisy of the reader of sentimental novels, anticipating Wollstonecraft’s attack on the genre as a source of women’s miseducation. As Gibbes’s moralistic narrator attempts to tell a tale of vulnerable young men pulled off the path of virtue by seductive women, Gibbes uses metanarrative wordplay and layers of plotting and scheming by her characters to derail her narrator’s attempt to control the narrative.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- Acknowledgements viii
- Abbreviations ix
- Introduction 1
- 1 The Life and Adventures of Mr. Francis Clive (1764) 21
- 2 The American Fugitive: or, Friendship in a Nunnery (1778, 1784) 72
- 3 Transnationalism in the Anglo-Indian novels: Zoriada, or, Village Annals (1786) and Hartly House, Calcutta 115
- 4 Elfrida; or Paternal Ambition (1786) 154
- Conclusion 208
- Bibliography 224
- Index 234
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- Acknowledgements viii
- Abbreviations ix
- Introduction 1
- 1 The Life and Adventures of Mr. Francis Clive (1764) 21
- 2 The American Fugitive: or, Friendship in a Nunnery (1778, 1784) 72
- 3 Transnationalism in the Anglo-Indian novels: Zoriada, or, Village Annals (1786) and Hartly House, Calcutta 115
- 4 Elfrida; or Paternal Ambition (1786) 154
- Conclusion 208
- Bibliography 224
- Index 234
