Dwelling fiction as a mode was predominantly written for ladies and youthful women by women writers, and the type grew exceedingly customary and flourished inside the nineteenth century, notably in the midst of the mid to late nineteenth century. Dwelling fiction, typically referred to as ‘sentimental fiction’ (on account of its sentimental plotlines and characters) or simply ‘women’s fiction’, turned the dominant type for ladies in every Britain and America and the overwhelming majority of house writing upheld and supported the restrictions of the female place. Many novels of house fiction have thus been criticised for not attempting to downside these limitations and empower youthful women to reside a fuller and additional rewarding life, reasonably than merely reinforcing the idea women ought to exist solely inside the house sphere. This dissertation will discuss three utterly completely different texts of the house fiction type – Elizabeth Wetherell’s The Giant, Giant World (1852), Charlotte Mary Yonge’s The Clever Woman of the Family (1865) and Louisa May Alcott’s fundamental story Little Girls (1868) – and may take a look at whether or not or not literature aimed towards women and youthful women inside the nineteenth century began to empower women and present them with the idea of a life away from the restrictions of the house sphere, or whether or not or not the type of house fiction merely enforced the rules and restrictions of the female place.
Introduction
By way of the nineteenth century, the influences upon the lives of youngsters and youthful adults had been only some and far between. Whereas kids of the twenty-first century are nonetheless undeniably influenced by literature, these kids reside inside the age of television, intensive selling, communication, the net and classy know-how, and have an eclectic range of influences at their disposal reasonably than merely literature, one in every of many predominant and fundamental influences for youths in the midst of the nineteenth century was the literature that was written notably for them. Literacy, and literature itself elevated considerably in the midst of the reign of Queen Victoria, and this can be attributed to loads of parts – one of many important parts being the enlargement of normal coaching. Kids and the idea of childhood had begun to be thought of and dealt with as a state which was completely put apart from maturity, and the child was considered to be rather more innocent, and possess a way more malleable ideas than the grownup. As John Once more observes in his analysis Within the route of a Sociology of Coaching:
‘Each factor to do with kids and family life had grow to be a matter of worthy consideration. Not solely the child’s future, nevertheless his presence and actually existence was of concern: the child had taken a central place inside the family.’
The Victorians of the nineteenth century created an an increasing number of sentimental view of childhood which could develop to grow to be broadly accepted. Queen Victoria herself and Prince Albert set an occasion for a ‘prim and proper’ family by which the youngsters had been vastly favored and tenderly cared for. Furthermore, Victorian mom and father had been steered to be company with their kids, nevertheless to deal with them with an even bigger diploma of tenderness than before now, and adults an increasing number of seen childhood as a interval by which the child wished to be protected towards the tough grownup world and its points. Due to this altering view, coaching for youths turned paramount, and rising concern was positioned upon guaranteeing that kids had been appropriately taught. As Judith Rowbotham writes in Good Ladies Make Good Wives: Steering for Ladies in Victorian Fiction;
‘The child was the daddy of the particular person, and it was important to adults to make it possible for kids, who represented the next expertise, have to be accurately taught. The question that occupied many minds nonetheless, was of what did a ‘right’ coaching consist?’
Boys bought ‘penny dreadfuls’; low-cost novels which steadily featured violent journey or crime and had been issued in month-to-month instalments. Nonetheless, a well-educated female for the time being was assumed to have been fruitfully instructed inside the significance of her house and social duties and obligations, along with in academic subjects. Due to this assumption, women had been provided with the house novel. Youthful women and women had been deemed to be further ‘suited’ to life inside the house sphere, and the intention of house fiction and ‘woman’s tales’ was to justify the boundaries of the female place inside society and to influence the female, notably the impressionable youthful woman, of the necessity to evolve to the roles of the house sphere. Didactic writing of this sort was positively not a current phenomenon – tutorial and instructive books for youthful minds had been moreover featured carefully inside the eighteenth century. These nonetheless, had been supposed for an upper-class market and had been revealed inside the kind of essays reasonably than as books. The contribution that women manufactured from their dwelling was essential, nonetheless it have to be well-known that that their lives weren’t always solely made up of house duties and obligations – it was pretty frequent for ladies to be as correctly educated as boys, and to be achieved and taught in experience and abilities corresponding to paintings and music. Nonetheless further genteel than what their brothers had been taught, however there was life away from the duties of the home. Public schools had been obtainable to the lower and heart programs, although they weren’t however made essential, and women had been educated most steadily from the age of six until they reached fourteen or fifteen. Nonetheless no matter this, women had been nonetheless discouraged from pursuing an coaching, as this might intervene with their duties contained in the dwelling. The July 1848 model of the publication The Mother’s Journal featured an article entitled ‘Female Coaching, which impressed mothers to restrict the time that their daughters had been in coaching, claiming that their accomplishments could be rendered pointless after they married. The article states that youthful women ought to remain centered on their duties contained in the dwelling:
‘[…] let her search an intensive wise understanding of those guidelines of which she would possibly as a partner, mother and housekeeper, be known as to make every day use.
We’re advocates for an intensive scientific coaching; nevertheless on the same time, for an coaching for the peculiar […] duties which females, as wives, daughters and mothers, may be known as upon to hold out. The piano, and the comb, should certainly not take the place of the needle.’
Dwelling fiction for the time being was renowned for sentimental and predictable plotlines, exceedingly dramatic scenes and weak, weepy female characters, and this attribute earned the type its description as a result of the ‘language of tears’. This was a time when the biggest ambition of youthful women was to be married and to marry correctly – for a lady to remain single was considered not solely to be a misfortune, nevertheless a travesty and however a number of the authors who wrote these books had been themselves single women. These books had been on of the only some methods by which youthful women could take into consideration a life apart from their very personal and subsequently ought to have a long-lasting and environment friendly impression on how they thought of themselves, every with regard to society and personally. Furthermore, the writers of house fiction had been sometimes utterly women, and for a lady to be a creator was at this degree a model new notion, and furthermore, if their works had been considered ‘unseemly’ or inappropriate supplies for youthful women, no one would purchase them. On account of the reality that for these female authors writing was their solely provide of income, the sale and recognition of their creations was paramount. Consequently, it was terribly unusual that house fiction for ladies inside the nineteenth century would perform a persona who would step exterior of society’s restrictions upon youthful women, and who pushed the boundaries of ‘acceptable’ female behaviour. For this, the type has expert many kinds of criticism. The early kinds of house fiction, conceived by authors corresponding to Maria Edgeworth and Mrs. Sherwood, achieved popularity and social standing and these tales whereas being bettering, had been moreover considered to be entertaining. Alison Adburgham has commented that:
‘the novels had been handbooks to the language of the beau monde, to the etiquette of chaperonage, to permissible and impermissible flirtations, to extra-marital affairs, to all modish attitudes and affections.’
The literature was instructive and the characters unrealistic and wooden – house fiction was dealt with as the right gadget to point out youthful women how they should behave and present themselves. Nonetheless, writers corresponding to Charlotte Mary Yonge and Louisa May Alcott nonetheless managed to write down down characters who did enterprise previous the boundaries of assumed stereotypes in understated and refined strategies, and in distinction to authors corresponding to Elizabeth Wetherell, these writers managed to present an alternate life for ladies through their characters, and succeeded in upholding society’s limitations upon women inside the course of. As a substitute of doing nothing to downside these stereotypes and being criticised for this issue, these writers someway had been able to empower their female viewers to maneuver previous the restrictions of their house sphere and reside a way more stimulating life, or in several cases if their female characters did lastly conform to the institution of marriage and a house oriented life-style, they may nonetheless deal with to deal with the qualities which some readers might need deemed ‘undesirable’ and inappropriate. Moreover, with the publication of Little Girls in 1863, Alcott challenged and succeeded in altering what it was to be a youthful woman inside the Victorian age, and for a few years to return.
Because of large popularity of the house fiction type inside the nineteenth century, it is positively indisputable that the type had good affect on its readers, whether or not or not it was the impressionable and innocent little women which be taught them or the mothers who be taught them to their kids. Nonetheless an underlying question of this express type is whether or not or not the affect was constructive by the use of the occasion of women’s rights and their prospects in life and the enlargement of their place contained in the social development, or whether or not or not these novels merely upheld and supported the outdated and strict boundaries set upon women of the nineteenth century and earlier, and supported the stereotypes positioned upon them with out attempting to make modifications to this. I am going to attempt to reply this question inside the chapters that adjust to.
Chapter 1:
The embodiment of the feminine ideally suited: Elizabeth Wetherell, The Giant, Giant World (1850 – revealed in Britain in 1852)
The girl of the mid-nineteenth-century spent the overwhelming majority of her time inside the agency of various women and middle-class women notably spent their time with their mothers, their sisters and female servants or nannies who might need lived with them of their houses. Their experience was majorly influenced and centred spherical a feminine group, by which domesticity and the house place which they may pursue of their futures was central to their lives. As a result of the time interval implies, house literature provided the home and the family as among the finest context and ambiance for the character establishing and moral reformation. Drawing carefully on the ‘Sunday college’ movement, the type embodied kids with the idea they’d been able to transform and save others spherical them through charity, prayer and devotion. Dwelling fiction sometimes tended to evolve to 1 main plot line, which featured the story of a youthful woman (in all probability newly orphaned, or separated from her mom and father) deprived of help she had beforehand relied on and is thus confronted with the responsibility of establishing her private means inside the uncommon and unfamiliar exterior world. Her ego on the outset of the novel is usually damaged or is simply non-existent, and she or he believes that her guardians will always be there to protect and ‘coddle’ her; nonetheless she learns painfully that this is not the case as she turns into acquainted with the true world. It’s a world by which she is awfully inclined – positively not immune to loss, ache or hardship as she might need beforehand been, and she or he is surrounded by individuals who discover themselves far a lot much less virtuous than her. The failure of the world to exceed her expectations awakens the youthful woman to her private potentialities, and what she herself is ready to on account of her overwhelming good nature and spirituality. By the climax of the novel, the youthful woman would usually come to understand and think about in her private worth and most importantly, will come to understand an particularly necessary Christian price that each half in life, even whether or not it’s harmful, is introduced on by God and may lastly lead to one factor good. Commenting on house fiction, Nina Baym describes the type of the house novel in Girls’s Fiction as ‘the story of a youthful woman who’s deprived of the helps she had rightly or wrongly relied on to keep up her all by means of her life and is confronted with the necessity of worthwhile her private means on this planet.’ Written by Susan Warner and revealed beneath the pseudonym Elizabeth Wetherell, The Giant, Giant World is argued to be the novel which first established the type of youngsters’s house fiction, and one which positively embodies these traits of the house novel.
The Giant, Giant World is no doubt one of many earliest and best examples of what would develop to grow to be essentially the most well-liked type of nineteenth century fiction – the house (or sentimental) novel and furthermore, it is considered to be America’s first ‘best-seller’ novel. Warner was an American evangelical creator of religious and children’s fiction and, the truth is, house fiction. Nonetheless, as novels had been considered by some to be ‘sinful’ and damaging to moral coaching, Warner described her novels as tales. Product sales of the ‘story’ had been unprecedented in the midst of the time of its publication as in just about a yr, The Giant, Giant World provided over 40,000 copies and this amount would rise to 225,000 on the end of the 1850’s. Her works had been amongst quite a lot of the most well liked of house fiction written inside the nineteenth century, and plenty of featured storylines by which every moral and spiritual messages had been woven. Warner’s novel featured an right portrayal of what life was like in the midst of the Victorian interval in America and that’s one trigger for its good popularity. Although the novel is written and set in America, the characters of the story are well-born English and Scottish, they often act in step with their stock and upbringing, and a interval on the end of the novel takes place in Scotland itself. Consequently, no matter this being an American textual content material, The Giant, Giant World was wholly associated and related to English readers. Mid-nineteenth century readers of the novel recognised and appreciated its relevance to their very personal lives and women seen themselves and their situations mirrored inside the state of affairs of the protagonist Ellen Montgomery, and the people she meets all by means of the story. Although this e guide was written by a woman for women, it was not notably aimed towards kids. What items it aside as a kids’s textual content material and additional importantly a woman’s textual content material is the reality that the protagonist is a youthful woman.
Printed in 1850, the novel went through fourteen editions in merely two years, and the novel was lastly revealed in Britain in 1852. It maintained its large popularity all by means of the nineteenth century; nonetheless it waned in popularity in the midst of the early part of the 20th century, notably throughout the 1920’s at a time when non-domestic kids’s literature began to flourish. In What Katy Study: Feminist Re-readings of ‘Primary’ Tales for Ladies by college students of nineteenth century women’ fiction Shirley Foster and Judy Simons it is acknowledged that Warner’s textual content material ‘served as a bridge between the pious Sunday college tales of the 1830’s and the child-centred adventures of the latter half of the century’ and furthermore the novel featured an ‘unprotected heroine overcomes struggling and tribulations to achieve religious perfection and moral maturity’, and this might grow to be the archetypal plot which dominated the house fiction type.
As talked about inside the introduction, house fiction in some cases had grow to be usually referred to as the ‘language of tears’, and Warner’s novel positively conforms to this description, as we’ll see at many elements all by means of the textual content material. The novel begins with the disruption of Ellen’s comfy life, as her mother is dying and her father has misplaced his fortune and upon medical docs’ recommendations, her mom and father journey to Europe, and it is unknown how prolonged they’ll be absent. Ellen leads a satisfying and pampered lifestyle in New York, and on account of her mom and father’ departure, she ought to go away her dwelling with a objective to reside collectively together with her Aunt Fortune, her father’s sister (who seems to share his temperament) inside the countryside. Ellen makes an try to be brave for the sake of her mother; nonetheless she finds little comfort and is clearly devastated at her departure and Ellen, crying, flings ‘her arms around her mother, and hiding her face in her lap gave strategy to a violent burst of grief that appeared for a few moments as if it can rend soul and physique in twain.’ Along with being a fundamental occasion of the house novel, The Giant, Giant World is taken under consideration to be a little bit of ‘sentimentalist’ literature, and the novel unquestionably portrays how sentimental Warner’s mannequin is. The movement of the story is introverted inside Ellen, and we’ll see that she is a weepy character at many elements all by means of the novel. As an example; ‘Dressing was sad work to Ellen proper now; it went on very carefully. Tears dropped into the water as she stooped her heard to the basin,’ is an extract from a four internet web page stretch of the novel, and inside these pages Ellen is portrayed to be crying on 5 separate occasions. On frequent, Ellen sheds her tears just about as quickly as every two pages, and it is clear that her readers are anticipated to cry collectively together with her, and plenty of most probably did.
The Giant, Giant World is described as a result of the quintessential house novel, and plenty of feminist critics have centered on analyzing the novel’s portrayal of gender dynamics. Warner’s characters conformed to the stereotypes of ideally suited youthful women. Ellen Montgomery, the heroine of the novel, is the epitome of what society desired a youthful woman to be inside the nineteenth century; her ‘behaviour is always modest, indicative of unselfish submission to those in due authority over her, corresponding to her mom and father. Elizabeth Wetherell was an early provider of the stereotype of an incredible woman on in all probability essentially the most ideally suited traces.’ Her conduct is totally ladylike and all by means of the novel she pursues self enchancment, and although she is descended from luxurious and money, she discovers recommendations on how one can grow to be ‘house’ and to deal with every the household and herself, and as well as commenting on this issue, Rowbotham goes on to say;
”The message of didactic fiction all by means of the nineteenth century was that feminine have an effect on was further necessary to the every day moral nicely being and vitality of the family unit and of the nation than that of an individual. It was a woman’s first accountability in life subsequently, to grow to be as expert in her sphere as an individual in his; to cultivate her feminine abilities inside the emotional realm with a view to maximise their usefulness inside the house orbit’
Together with this, it was believed that self-sacrifice versus self-sufficiency was what marked women as professionals, and Ellen positively conforms to this notion and it is clear that she sacrifices her private needs for the benefit of those around her. We observe Ellen’s completely good and self-sacrificing nature at many elements inside the novel, notably when her Aunt Fortune turns into sick. Although her Aunt has dealt with Ellen badly since she arrived in her care, Ellen ought to cast this reality aside and take over as head of the household, as a result of it was necessary for an ideal nineteenth century woman to grow to be adaptable and to keep up her composure in troublesome situations. All by means of the novel, Ellen experiences and learns self-sacrifice and unassuming nature and learns to do with out the luxuries she has been used to, and it might presumably be suggested that Ellen is the right embodiment of the Victorian feminine ideally suited, typically referred to as ‘The Angel inside the Dwelling’. The image of ideally suited womanhood, as outlined by Barbara Welter in her well-known article The Cult of True Womanhood choices feminine virtues corresponding to:
‘Piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity. Put them collectively they often spelled mother, daughter, sister, partner – woman. With out them, not matter whether or not or not there was fame, achievement or wealth, was ashes. With them she was promised happiness and vitality.’
Girls had been desired and largely required to embody these traits and to grow to be the house ideally suited, and this Victorian image of one of the best partner and one of the best woman bought right here to be usually referred to as ‘The Angel inside the Dwelling’. The ‘angel’ was powerless, passive and devoted to her husband, and completely pure. The expression ‘Angel inside the Dwelling’ originates from the title of the terribly customary poem by Coventry Patmore of the similar determine, by which he presents his partner Emily- the ‘angel’ of the title – as a model for all womankind, beneath the impression that his partner Emily was completely the ideally suited Victorian partner. Warner’s novel is a textual content material which choices women, most notably Ellen’s mother and Alice Humphreys who conform to the beliefs of ‘The Angel inside the Dwelling’ and it is from these women that Ellen realized to grow to be the right and exemplary middle-class Victorian woman. As Signe O. Wegener observes in James Fenimore Cooper Versus The Cult Of Domesticity,
‘Whereas [authors such as] Child and Sedgewick marginalize the mother, Warner permits her further prominence and have an effect on, all the time emphasizing the just about symbolic attachment between mother and daughter. Mrs. Montgomery, although an invealid, is a really highly effective particular person inside the heroine Ellen’s life, fastidiously shaping her daughter into an angel within the house – and a mirror of her pious and self-sacrificing self. As befits a mother from the hey-day of the cult of domesticity, she has the “right priorities”.
Ellen’s mother is submissive to her husband, however is conflicted as she would not want her daughter to be despatched away and positively would not must go to Europe. Nonetheless, since every her doctor and her husband (who’re every dominant males) demand that she do, she ought to obey them and the narrator observes, ‘Captain Montgomery added the load of authority, insisting on her compliance.’ And naturally, the submissive angel within the house, Mrs. Montgomery is required to succumb to the separation. Mrs. Montgomery has utterly no vitality in her husband’s household however she certainly not voices her complaints, even when she is to be separated from Ellen whom she loves and adores – Ellen learns and demonstrates quite a bit all by means of the novel from her steering and it is evident that that’s what her mother needs, and we’re provided with this reality upon her mothers departure when Ellen is obtainable with a bible and workbox, necessary objects for one of the best Victorian woman. The rationale for these things, her mother explains, is that these will current each half necessary for sustaining good habits, and that this may help Mrs. Montgomery to rest assured that Ellen will:
‘be always neat, and tidy, and industrious, relying upon others as little as attainable; and cautious to boost your self by every means […] I am going to go away you no excuse, Ellen, for failing in any of these duties. I perception you may not disappoint me in a single express.’
Furthermore, beneath her the steering of her mother (albeit, her invalid mother) Ellen learns to grow to be the ‘the angel within the house’, and one event by which we’ll see that’s the objective at which Ellen ‘experiments’ in poking the hearth in her dwelling. As Mrs. Montgomery is unfit for home duties, Ellen learns to acknowledge the unspoken settlement by which the household duties are transferred onto her:
‘The room was darkish and cheerless; and Ellen felt stiff and chilly. Nonetheless, she made her strategy to the hearth, and having found the poker, she utilized it gently to the Liverpool coal with such good effort that a shiny ruddy blaze sprang up, and lighted the whole room. Ellen smiled on the outcomes of her experiment. “That is one factor like”, she talked about to herself; “who says I can’t poke the hearth? Now, permit us to see if I can’t do one factor else.”‘
Ellen is usually unsure of her skills inside the house sphere, and this ‘experiment’ with the poker provides her some idea of what she could also be able to perform, and what outcomes they may current for the house and for others around her and that’s clear as she continues ‘experimenting’ contained in the room. This implies, pretty really, that her labours could gentle up and produce warmth to a cold, darkish and cheerless dwelling. She could grow to be the ‘angel within the house’ or the ‘gentle of the home’ and via her house labour, as we’ll see, Ellen herself turns into happier and rather more contented. Furthermore, it can appear that her mother’s instruction and have an effect on was not in ineffective and Ellen has seemingly fulfilled her mother’s wants, as we’ll see by buddies describing Ellen as:
‘”[…] a most extraordinary infant!” talked about Mrs. Gillespie.
“She is an efficient infant”, talked about Mrs. Chauncey.
“Certain mamma, I don’t suppose she could help being nicely mannered.”
“It is not that, […] mere sweetness and politeness would certainly not give quite a bit
class of technique. As far as I’ve seen, Ellen Montgomery is a splendidly well-behaved infant.”
“That she is’ talked about Mrs. Chauncey; ‘nevertheless neither would any cultivation or occasion be ample for it with out Ellen’s through good principle and good sweetness of temper.”‘
The embodiment of ‘the angel within the house’ seems to be a dominant theme all by means of Warner’s textual content material, nonetheless one in every of many women inside the forefront of Ellen’s life who should primarily perform a sort of substitute of Ellen’s mother, is the exact reverse of this feminine ideally suited. Ellen, no matter all that her mother has left her with to make an ideal life for herself in her absence, finds little solace collectively together with her father’s sister, Fortune Emerson. Described in What Katy Study as:
‘In terms of the paradigmatic fairy-tale development of the novel, she is the wicked stepmother. Apparently incapable of affection and bearing deep grudges, she tyrannises over Ellen: she cheats her of her mother’s letters, she refuses to make it attainable for her to attend the native college, and with a objective to vindicate herself inside the eyes of Mr. Van Brunt, her farm supervisor, she makes her niece confess to faults of which she is not accountable. […] In gender phrases, actually, she seems not solely further male than female, nevertheless embodies a domineering and aggressive masculinity.’
Ellen’s Aunt Fortune appears to be the precise reverse of her mother. Unkind and callous, she reveals Ellen no affection by any means, and in a letter to her mother, it is clear merely how uneasy Aunt Fortune makes her, even in components previous her administration corresponding to her look and technique:
‘I need there was any particular person proper right here that I’ll love, nevertheless there could also be not. You may wish to know what sort of particular person my aunt Fortune is. I imagine she is great making an attempt, or she could be if her nostril weren’t pretty so sharp: nevertheless, mamma, I can’t let what sort of feeling I’ve about her: it seems to me as if she was sharp all through. I’m optimistic her eyes are as sharp as two needles. And he or she doesn’t stroll like completely different people; on the very least usually. She makes queer little jerks and begins and jumps, and flies about like I don’t know what.’
In her new life collectively together with her aunt who’s neither a ‘woman’ nor a Christian and who positively would not behave in a familial technique within the route of Ellen, Ellen is clearly superior. Furthermore, Aunt Fortune blatantly denies Ellen the extra coaching that her mother desired. Solely when Ellen meets Alice Humphrey, a refined Christian woman (who’s positively paying homage to her mother) does she uncover consolation in such an unforgiving and seemingly hopeless place. Alice is a pious and idealistic woman and since the daughter of a minister, she is a reliable churchgoer – not like anyone else inside the area. Alice primarily takes Ellen beneath her wing and with this new found companionship, and Ellen receives the training and moral instruction that her Aunt Fortune has denied her. Alice and her problem John, who is usually away studying at school, save Ellen from the unkind and impious ambiance her aunt has created and this act of rescue by Alice helps the idea and instruction that women should not affirm their very personal needs, nevertheless sit up for a fellow Christian to behave as a saviour and to intervene and naturally in this sort of house novel, this was always the case.
Along with supporting one of the best of the angel within the house and creating characters that appear to embody the whole traits of the Victorian feminine ideally suited, The Giant, Giant World moreover promotes the Christian idea that the great and virtuous die youthful, nevertheless no matter an early demise their deaths are seen as being religiously important nonetheless untimely. Due to these deaths, completely different characters are able to acknowledge the failure of their very personal morals. Although Aunt Fortune is gravely sick, Warner would not allow her a major dying as she is not non secular or non secular enough to be worthy of it. Nonetheless Alice Humphreys enters Ellen’s life as an ideal place model and positively the embodiment of the feminine ideally suited, and her completely good and pure nature primarily signifies that she is not for this world:
‘She is able to mount a rescue mission and take over Mrs. Montgomery’s duties. Nonetheless, Alice Humphrey’s is such a super Angel inside the Dwelling that it isn’t beautiful that Demise had already marked her for his private. Sooner than she dies, Ellen learns from her how best to combine coaching, accomplishments and domesticity, taking on Alice’s place as daughter and provider of comfort inside the Humphrey household.’
Every
