'May I disturb you?': British women writers, imperial identities, and the late Imperial Period, 1880--1940.

摘要

During the late Imperial Period, 1880–1940, the ways in which the identity category “British” was understood created the possibility for fluidity in both personal and collective identity construction. Because the period saw both the greatest expansion of the Empire and the federation of many discrete colonies into national entities, the issue of national versus British affiliation became an important one. Given the particular historical circumstances, budding national identities could be elided into Britishness and Britishness into the budding national identities. And this potential for fluidity influenced the ways people could and did use their British, English, or other colonial identities when negotiation the enormous social, political, economic, and cultural changes of the era. Using Julia Kristeva's notion of the “subject-in-process” and her theory of female individuation, the study examines the writing of four British women writers of the period and its relationship to modern Britishness: “Lucas Malet” from England, “Somerville and Ross” from Ireland, and Rosa Praed from Australia. Though they were all white, middle-class, British women writers, and though they all addressed the complexities and possibilities created by the inter-connected, trans-nationalist slippages of the imperial system, their responses are inflected by the particular relationship of their home place to the culture of the “center.” Lucas Malet understood that, in order to unseat what she considered the “dullness” of the English middle class, she needed to question the legitimacy of the narratives being used to knit women into the English social fabric. For Somerville and Ross, the difficulties women faced in their quests for individuality were compounded by competing narratives of Irish national identity, narratives which often seemed to overpower the thoughtful, intelligent voice of the Anglo-Irish woman. The trauma Rosa Praed experienced in her youth on the Australian frontier is reflected throughout her work in her preoccupation with experiences that are difficult to articulate, can be enormously inspiring, and yet can also be a threat to her heroines' physical and spiritual integrity.