Double jeopardy women who kill in Victorian fiction /
Virginia B. Morris.
- Lexington, Ky. : University Press of Kentucky, (c)1990.
- 1 online resource (193 pages)
Includes bibliographies and index.
Introduction: Twice Guilty: The Double Jeopardy of Women Who Kill -- The Worst of Women: Sisters in Crime -- Women and Victorian Law: A Curious Chivalry -- Charles Dickens: The Fiercest Impulses -- George Eliot: My Heart Said, "Die!" -- Mary Elizabeth Braddon: The Most Despicable of Her Sex -- Wilkie Collins: No Deliverance but in Death -- Thomas Hardy: A Desperate Remedy -- Arthur Conan Doyle: Vengeance Is Hers.
Murder fascinates readers, and when a woman murders, that fascination is compounded. The paradox of mother, lover, or wife as killer fills us with shock. A woman's violence is unexpected, unacceptable. Yet killing an abusive man can make her a cultural heroine. In Double Jeopardy, Virginia Morris examines the complex roots of contemporary attitudes toward women who kill by providing a new perspective on violent women in Victorian literature. British novelists from Dickens to Hardy, in their characterizations, contradicted the traditional Western assumption that women criminals were ""unnatural.
9780813163765
English fiction--History and criticism.--19th century Women murderers--Public opinion--History--Great Britain--19th century. Detective and mystery stories, English--History and criticism. Women murderers in literature. Trials (Murder) in literature. Murder in literature.
Detective and mystery stories, English History and criticism English fiction 19th century History and criticism Murder in literature Trials (Murder) in literature Women murderers Public opinion Great Britain History 19th century Women murderers in literature