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Article: Abjection and degeneration in Thomas Hardy's "Barbara of the House of Grebe.".
- Article from:
- College Literature
- Article date:
- March 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 West Chester University. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Thomas Hardy's Gothic tale, "Barbara of the House of Grebe" (1891), dramatizes the horrid consequences of belief in the Victorian myth of degeneration. Only months after writing Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Hardy creates another tragedy in the less well-known "Barbara"; this time tragedy stems from dread of the lower class and of sexually assertive women of any class.(1) The theory of degeneration situates the hatred of the working class and women seen in "Barbara" within the pseudo-scientific debates of the late-Victorian era. Hardy shows how belief in the myth of degeneration could ruin relationships and lives.
Recent studies of degenerationism in history and ...