초록 열기/닫기 버튼
In this study I propose that the narrator's sympathy with lower class heroes in Hardy's novels helps him to understand Victorian women's marginalized position but his male identity also makes the heroines sexually objectified and romantically idealized. The narrator in A Pair of Blue Eyes, assuming the identity of a lower class male, takes sides with Stephen, the son of a stone mason, when he encounters class prejudices and discrimination from a higher society. In contrast, he initially reveals strong misogynistic views on Elfride, an upper middle-class lady, and uses belittling terms for her. However, his conventional views on women gradually weaken as he becomes aware of women's marginalized position in society. However, the narrator's male identity also contributes to the sexual objectification and romantic idealization of the heroines, bringing about the dichotomy of the ethereal Avice-type and the fleshly Marcia-type. The ethereal Avice-type is sexually objectified and romantically idealized at the cost of the fleshly real women like Arabella and Marcia who mainly function as the foil for Sue and the three Avices. However, in The Well-Beloved, all three Avices, overtly or covertly, resist being reduced to Pierston's idealized ethereal Well-Beloved. Pierston's quest for beauty and three generations of Avices parodies the Platonic-Shelleyan romanticism and with his final loss of love and artistic creativity Hardy wished to reveal its ludicrousness and emptiness. After having sexually objectified and idealized women throughout his novels, Hardy, like Pierston, seems to finally awaken to the falseness of the dichotomy of women and accept them as they are, with their imperfection and spontaneous sexuality.
