Feminist Readings of Trollope's Women

Ellen Moody

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[This document is a note to the author's Trollope's Comfort Romances for Men: Heterosexual Male Heroism in his Work — GPL.]

This is not the place to, nor do I have room to discuss feminist readings of Trollope's women. My paper is indebted to two especially: first, Nardin's He Knew He Was Right, where despite Nardin's manifest well-intentioned desire reveal Trollope as an original analyser, daring, and feminist, most of the book is taken up with showing how limited is his depiction of women through much of his career, pp. 1-175. His subversions are all very subtle. Second, Markwick's Trollope and Women, 144-56. Markwick's analysis of male sexuality in Is He Popenjoy? is central to my analysis of that novel. I am not the first person to argue in print that Trollope's depictions of women are limited in central ways. See Anthony Powell, The Soldier's Art, Autumn, A Dance to the Music of Time (1964; rpt. New York: Popular Library, 1976):46-48 ("women don't analyse their own predicaments as there represented ... ").

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Last modified 9 August 2006