Working-Class Women's Autobiography

Date
2014-09
Authors
Petty, Sue
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Publisher
De Montfort University
Peer reviewed
Abstract
This research project highlights the emergence and evolution of working-class women’s autobiography, where I am not only interested in past autobiographies but some present ones as well. As such, this project is divided into two parts. In Part I, the focus is on The Autobiography of Mary Smith, Schoolmistress and Nonconformist, a Fragment of a Life; with letters from Jane Welsh Carlyle and Thomas Carlyle; Autobiography, Poems and Songs of Ellen Johnston, the “Factory Girl”; Lucy Luck, Straw-Plait Worker and Annie Kenney’s Memoirs of a Militant. These four texts span the period from the onset of the industrial revolution during the early nineteenth century, up to the advent of certain women in society gaining the vote in 1918. In Part II, the focus is on two contemporary texts: Jeanette Winterson’s recently published autobiography Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? and Maxine Peake’s life story, which currently emerges specifically in online articles and interviews, via the internet. In each chapter, I focus on three particular aspects of each autobiography. In the first section, I look at the text from the perspective of social history, where I discuss the ways in which the autobiography adds to or challenges conventional historical representations. In the second section, in an exploration of the relationship between fact and fiction, I highlight the literary influences and other significant mediations that are evident in the narrative. In section three, I identify discernible models of identity appropriated by the author in their self-representation. The chronological gap separating the two parts of the project means that life is very different for the contemporary women than it was for their historical counterparts and, with this in mind, I address the changing structure and form of autobiography, as well as ideas about class and identity.
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Keywords
Autobiography, working-class women, Mary Smith, Ellen Johnston, Lucy Luck, Annie Kenney, Jeanette Winterson, Maxine Peake
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Research Institute
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