Conclusions
Arabella's retreat into the world of the historical romance leads to the production of an
alternative reality based on her readings of these texts. Her attempt to subvert or undercut "reality" is a reaction to the confined and passive life that
her father, and society at large, sets out for her. Much like her mother, Arabella reads these romances to pass the
time, but unlike her mother, Arabella is able to translate the reading of these
texts into a much more productive and self actualizing experience. Moreover, Arabella is interested in education and reads these historical romances as "true histories." She survives
her childhood by creating a fantasy life that allows her some reprieve from the uneventful rural life her father has confined her to.
While The Female Quixote is often seem as a parody of the historical romances and Arabella is often ridiculed for her sometimes outrageous conclusions, at the same time "romance reveals is that there can be no narrative without it" (Roulston). Throughout the text, Arabella's invocation of the historical romances attempt to teach those around her about this world that she has created and asks them to take part in it. Her ultimate failure to do so and subsequent "rehabilitation" by the doctor leads not to her idealized, romance-based happy ending, but to the abrupt end of her story. As Roulston states, "in asking Arabella to abandon romance, the pious doctor dismantles both her literary and her social identified, hence effecting the closure of the text. As equally the vehicle for and the product of the romance form, Arabella’s literary self is distinct and yet cannot be separated from her 'actual' self, as the one determines the actualizing of the other” (27).
In what follows, we explore more fully three important ways that Arabella creates her own alternative, feminine space and creates agency for herself through her romance reading. Please click each link for a more thorough explanation of that argument:
1. Arabella is able to create her own identity and develop her own sense of self worth and need for protection.
Read More
2. Arabella is able to control the discourse on love and marriage, through which she challenges patriarchal
assumptions and authority and set standards for the men around her. Read More.
3. Arabella's inability to find and create relationships with women who share her worldview highlights issues with women's social roles in eighteenth-century England. Read More.
While The Female Quixote is often seem as a parody of the historical romances and Arabella is often ridiculed for her sometimes outrageous conclusions, at the same time "romance reveals is that there can be no narrative without it" (Roulston). Throughout the text, Arabella's invocation of the historical romances attempt to teach those around her about this world that she has created and asks them to take part in it. Her ultimate failure to do so and subsequent "rehabilitation" by the doctor leads not to her idealized, romance-based happy ending, but to the abrupt end of her story. As Roulston states, "in asking Arabella to abandon romance, the pious doctor dismantles both her literary and her social identified, hence effecting the closure of the text. As equally the vehicle for and the product of the romance form, Arabella’s literary self is distinct and yet cannot be separated from her 'actual' self, as the one determines the actualizing of the other” (27).
In what follows, we explore more fully three important ways that Arabella creates her own alternative, feminine space and creates agency for herself through her romance reading. Please click each link for a more thorough explanation of that argument:
1. Arabella is able to create her own identity and develop her own sense of self worth and need for protection.
Read More
2. Arabella is able to control the discourse on love and marriage, through which she challenges patriarchal
assumptions and authority and set standards for the men around her. Read More.
3. Arabella's inability to find and create relationships with women who share her worldview highlights issues with women's social roles in eighteenth-century England. Read More.
Areas for Further Research
As most of the scholarship surrounding the historical romances used in this project are from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this is an area needs further investigation. The scholarship that does exist mostly focuses on the way the these texts influence the work after them and less on the way these texts work or critical readings of the texts themselves. The Female Quixote is only one example of the many novels that reference historical romances and as eighteenth-century readers would have bee familiar with these texts, a better understanding of the romances and their use within novels would greatly enhance studies of works like The Female Quixote.