Graduation Year
2010
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Granting Department
English
Major Professor
Marty Gould, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Laura Runge, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Elizabeth Metzger, Ph.D.
Keywords
Victorian, Theater, Aphra Behn, Elizabeth Robins, George Bernard Shaw
Abstract
This thesis examines issues of female agency in the plays The Rover and The Widow Ranter by Aphra Behn, Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw, and Votes for Women! by Elizabeth Robins. The heroines of each of these plays work toward gaining agency for themselves, and in order to achieve this goal, they often stray from cultural norms of femininity and encroach on the masculine world. This thesis postulates that agency for women becomes a fluid notion, not statically defined. These plays show a fluctuating and evolving sense of feminine agency.
Scholar Commons Citation
Anderson, Haley D., "Female Agency in Restoration and Nineteenth-Century Drama" (2010). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/1560
