Nursery of the Nation: Mothers, Midwives and National Identity on the Eighteenth-Century Comedic Stage
Savage, Elizabeth Anne
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/81439
Description
Title
Nursery of the Nation: Mothers, Midwives and National Identity on the Eighteenth-Century Comedic Stage
Author(s)
Savage, Elizabeth Anne
Issue Date
2008
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Suvir Kaul
Department of Study
English
Discipline
English
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Literature, English
Language
eng
Abstract
The fifth chapter explores the alternative representation of parental influence provided in Aphra Behn's Sir Patient Fancy (1678). Sir Patient, an absurd patriarch, falls victim to two mother figures who subvert his control in order to secure happiness for their families. In doing so, they ensure the perpetuation of a more appropriate version of masculine authority. These positive representations of female authority challenge popular beliefs about women's duplicity by presenting strong female figures who responsibly fulfill their maternal roles without the tyranny that characterizes men in similarly powerful positions. Behn also reverses common representations of the female body as weak and permeable by making Sir Patient a hypochondriac who displays the fallibility of his own body. His ailing body, in turn, symbolizes his lack of fitness to rule. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).
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