Proceedings of the 2022 4th International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2022)

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Desire and Madness: The Construction of Female Narrative Subjects in Fingersmith from the Perspective of Foucault’s Theory

Authors
Jiaqi Lu1, *
1School of Foreign Studies, East China University of Political Science and Law, Shanghai, 201620, China
*Corresponding author. Email: 190606020017@ecupl.edu.cn
Corresponding Author
Jiaqi Lu
Available Online 13 February 2023.
DOI
10.2991/978-2-494069-97-8_53How to use a DOI?
Keywords
Fingersmith; Sarah Waters; Foucault; Desire; Madness; Narrative Subjects
Abstract

Fingersmith, the final book in British novelist Sarah Waters’ Victorian trilogy, is dedicated to Victorian lesbians through multiple narratives, depicting a history of a marginalized community forging their own identity. Adopting Foucault’s theory, this thesis examines their suppression of desire, their confinement due to the accusation of madness, and their self-recreation through loving each other, which reveals how masculine power discourse suppresses feminine discourse of expressing loving desire by linking female desire to female madness. When the relationship of two female narrative subjects progresses from misunderstanding to mutual dependence, the patriarchal logos and order based on a single value are deconstructed. Therefore, an open text is constructed, which rewrites the patriarchal narrative of desire and madness as well as offering a dialogue with postmodern feminine consciousness.

Copyright
© 2023 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 2022 4th International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2022)
Series
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research
Publication Date
13 February 2023
ISBN
10.2991/978-2-494069-97-8_53
ISSN
2352-5398
DOI
10.2991/978-2-494069-97-8_53How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2023 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Cite this article

risenwbib
TY  - CONF
AU  - Jiaqi Lu
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/02/13
TI  - Desire and Madness: The Construction of Female Narrative Subjects in Fingersmith from the Perspective of Foucault’s Theory
BT  - Proceedings of the 2022 4th International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 416
EP  - 424
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-494069-97-8_53
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-494069-97-8_53
ID  - Lu2023
ER  -