The Dangerous Potential of Reading: Readers & the Negotiation of Power in Selected Nineteenth-Century Narratives (Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory)

202 Pages·2003·0.89 MB·English

by  Aliaga-Buchenau

L C A C
ITERARY RITICISM ND ULTURAL
T
HEORY
Edited by
William E.Cain
Professor of English
Wellesley College
A ROUTLEDGE SERIES
L C A C T
ITERARY RITICISM ND ULTURAL HEORY
WILLIAM E.CAIN, General Editor
WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN? DEATH, MEN, AND MODERNISM
Family and Sectionalism in the Virginia Trauma and Narrative in British Fiction from
Novels of Kennedy, Caruthers, and Tucker, Hardy to Woolf
1830–1845 Ariela Freedman
John L.Hare
WRITING THE CITY
POETIC GESTURE Urban Visions and Literary Modernism
Myth, Wallace Stevens, and the Motions of Poetic Desmond Harding
Language
Kristine S.Santilli THE SELF IN THE CELL
Narrating the Victorian Prisoner
BORDER MODERNISM Sean Grass
Intercultural Readings in American Literary
Modernism REGENERATING THE NOVEL
Christopher Schedler Gender and Genre in Woolf, Forster, Sinclair,
and Larence
THE MERCHANT OF MODERNISM James J.Miracky
The Economic Jew in Anglo-American
Literature, 1864–1939 SATIRE AND THE POSTCOLONIAL NOVEL
Gary Martin Levine V.S.Naipul, Chinua Achebe, Salman
Rushdie
THE MAKING OF THE VICTORIAN NOVELIST John Clement Ball
Anxieties of Authorship in the Mass Market
Bradley Deane
THROUGH THE NEGATIVE
The Photographic Image and the Written
OUT OF TOUCH
Word in Nineteenth-Century American Literature
Skin Tropes and Identities in Woolf, Ellison,
Megan Williams
Pynchon, and Acker
Maureen F.Curtin
LOVE AMERICAN STYLE
WRITING THE CITY Divorce and the American Novel,
Urban Visions and Literary Modernism 1881–1976
Desmond Harding Kimberly Freeman
FIGURES OF FINANCE CAPITALISM FEMINIST UTOPIAN NOVELS OF
Writing, Class, and Capital in the Age of Dickens The 1970s
Borislav Knezevic Joanna Russ and Dorothy Bryant
Tatiana Teslenko
BALANCING THE BOOKS
Faulkner, Morrison, and the Economies of DEAD LETTERS TO THE NEW WORLD
Slavery Melville, Emerson, and American
Erik Dussere Transcendentalism
Michael McLoughlin
BEYOND THE SOUND BARRIER
The Jazz Controversy in Twentieth-Century THE OTHER ORPHEUS
American Fiction A Poetics of Modern Homosexuality
Kristin K.Henson Merrill Cole
SEGREGATED MISCEGENATION THE OTHER EMPIRE
On the Treatment of Racial Hybridity in the U.S. British Romantic Writings about the
and Latin American Literary Traditions Ottoman Empire
Carlos Hiraldo Filiz Turhan
T “D ” P O
HE ANGEROUS OTENTIAL F
R
EADING
Readers and the Negotiation of Power in
Nineteenth-Century Narratives
Ana-Isabel Aliaga-Buchenau
Routledge
New York & London
Published in 2004 by
Routledge
29 West 35th Street
New York, NY 10001
www.routledge-ny.com
Published in Great Britain by
Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane
London EC4P 4EE
www.routledge.co.uk
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
Copyright © 2004 by Taylor and Francis Books, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form
or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permis-
sion in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Aliaga-Buchenau, Ana-Isabel.
The ‘dangerous’ potential of reading : readers and the negotiation of power in nineteenth-
century narratives / by Ana-Isabel Aliaga-Buchenau.
p. cm.—(Literary criticism and cultural theory)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-96833-X (alk. paper)
1. American fiction—19th century—History and criticism. 2. Books and reading in litera
ture. 3. Books and reading—United States—History—19th century. 4. French fiction—19th
century—History and criticism. 5. Books and reading—France—History—19th century. 6.
Literature, Comparative—American and French. 7. Literature, Comparative—French and
American. 8. Power (Social sciences) in literature. 9. Narration (Rhetoric) I. Title. II. Series.
PS374 .B67A45 2003
813’.309355—dc21
2003010600
ISBN 0-203-48608-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-57935-6 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-96833-X (Print Edition)
To Jürgen, Nicolas, and Julia

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
INTRODUCTION xi

CHAPTER ONE
Reading and Power in the Nineteenth Century 3
CHAPTER TWO
“The Pathway from Slavery to Freedom”: Frederick Douglass’s
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass 13
CHAPTER THREE
The Passage to Middle-Class Respectability: Horatio Alger’s
Ragged Dick
23
CHAPTER FOUR
The Road to Revolt: Emile Zola’s Germinal 33
CHAPTER FIVE
Women, Reading, and Power 45
CHAPTER SIX
The Demonic Underneath the Angelic Little Woman: Louisa May
Alcott’s Little Women 69
CHAPTER SEVEN
A Little Woman Gone Astray: Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary 97

vii
viii Contents
CONCLUSION 125
NOTES 129
BIBLIOGRAPHY 167
INDEX 183
Acknowledgments
T
his project has been made possible by the help of many individuals who
gave generously of their time to aid me in my efforts. My thanks go to all of
them. My friend and advisor, Lilian R. Furst, taught me comparative litera-
ture, helped me through the various stages of becoming a comparatist, provided
invaluable advice, read the many incarnations of this study, believed in me and
always found words of encouragement. My warmest thanks go to her. My thanks
also go to Joy Kasson, Stirling Haig, Susan Navarette, and Eric Downing for serv-
ing on my dissertation committee. I would also like to thank Everett Emerson, the
first to introduce me to American literature in the United States. His thoughtful
advice on my master’s thesis kindled my desire to continue as a scholar. I must go
further back in time to thank Armin Paul Frank, who was the first to encourage me
in the study of literature and who would not let me abandon a piece of work—
teaching me never to give up. I would like to thank him for his constant encourage-
ment and help—even from afar.
Among my colleagues and friends whose advice and friendship were invalu-
able, I would like to mention Rosalba Esparragoza Scott, whose friendship, un-
wavering faith in my abilities and countless hours of babysitting have contrib-
uted greatly to this project. I would also like to thank Carol Hartley, whose great
ability and willingness to listen, insightful comments and strong moral support
have been invaluable during my years in Charlotte. I would also like to mention
Tom Cole, Laine Doggett, Paul Worley, Gavin Sundwall, Hans Boas, Tolu
Odugbesan, Ann and Roger Waldon and Ida and Jack Morgan. I also wish to
thank my colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and espe-
cially Martha Miller, Paul Youngman, Tracy Guzmán, Colleen Culleton, Michele
Bissière, and Katherine Stephenson for their support. I am particularly thankful
for a course release, which made the completion of this project possible. Among
my former colleagues at Davidson College, I am especially grateful to my friend
ix