Abstract

This essay explores one version of a recurring pattern in the Victorian novel, the tendency to compare English and French models of national character. While many novelists, including Charlotte Brontë, portray French women as possessing an immoral theatricality, and deploying deceptive "public" personae that contrast with the Englishwoman's devotion to her national and domestic homes, Brontë's Villette endows French theater with the power to question British national gender ideals.

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