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Abstract

This essay will explore the extent to which the use of littoral settings in Victorian and neo-Victorian fiction is significant to female protagonists. Both Mehalah Sharland and Cora Seaborne are placed into the setting of the North Essex salt marshes as they rail against the societal expectations placed upon them as women in the late-nineteenth century and I will examine the significance of the coastal setting for both characters. A key difference between the two is revealed as the neo-Victorian, female-authored novel – The Essex Serpent – allows for the liminal marshland to function as a transformative space for the protagonist, whilst Sabine Baring-Gould’s Mehalah¸ written in 1880, confines its non-conforming protagonist to a life and death within the Blackwater, suggesting that there is little space for a woman who is unwilling to adhere to the feminine spheres dictated by Victorian society.
In my examination of the two novels and their protagonists’ journeys, I will consider the impact of the Victorian and neo-Victorian contexts in which the novels were written. The marsh, as an in-between space, serves as a symbol of both Cora and Mehalah’s refusal to adhere to the strict conventions of the societies in which they live, but their outcomes could not be more different.

Course: Victorian Gothic - MA - P2927FTD

Date Deposited: 2024-01-31

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14345.html