The Enemy Within: the Housekeeper in Victorian Fiction
The introduction in the 1851 census of the new category of ‘housewife’ as distinct from the paid post of ‘housekeeper’, suggests that the Victorian cult of domesticity had created its own gendered ethical economy. This paper explores some of the ways in which the figure of the housekeeper in Victori...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée
2005-12-01
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| Series: | Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/cve/14179 |
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| Summary: | The introduction in the 1851 census of the new category of ‘housewife’ as distinct from the paid post of ‘housekeeper’, suggests that the Victorian cult of domesticity had created its own gendered ethical economy. This paper explores some of the ways in which the figure of the housekeeper in Victorian fiction became the site for the expression of a series of class and gender anxieties and why Victorian writers were particularly alive to the potential threat posed by a servant whose role was that of understudy. |
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| ISSN: | 0220-5610 2271-6149 |