The intersectionality and otherness of female protagonists in fiction of the late modern period

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the intersectional issues of class and gender present within patriarchal society of the Late Modern Period. The effects of intersectionality are not the same for every person who experiences it. Therefore, categorising it as a theory with a set list of reactions is impossible as each individual reacts to intersectional issues differently. That is precisely what the aim of this dissertation is. By close reading three different novels; namely, Daisy Miller: A Study in Two Parts, Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Lady Chatterley’s Lover, this dissertation aims to illustrate these different reactions. As such, each of the three main chapters present within this dissertation focuses on a different text to better differentiate between the circumstances that each female protagonist finds herself in and its effect. Hence, the three chapters endeavour to show how intersectionality is not a circumstance which is experienced by a set few, but it is their reactions to their individual set of experiences. Each protagonist reacts to the issues which she is faced with in her own unique way. Hence, the end of the journey differs as well. Their only commonality is that they are all women who are expected to conform to society, everything else which transpires is wholly their own individual experience.