Female Quixotism and Patriarchal Incomplete Education of Women (Proposal)

                According to Cynthia J. Miecznikowski, Dorcasina Sheldon (the protagonist of Tabitha Tenney’s Female Quixotism) “is in some sense on her own in a men’s world; she is her own mother” (The Parodic Mode 38).  Dorcasina’s mother died when Dorcas (her pre-romantic fancy name) was only three years old. Consequently, Dorcasina lacks the guidance she needs in FQ in order to live a life free of romantic delusion. Mr. Sheldon makes sure his daughter is educated, but without a present instructing mother Dorcasina is doomed to be ignorant of “the plain rational path of life” (Tenney 4).  In FQ the reader is confronted with a personified early nationalist American patriarchy in the character of Mr. Sheldon; he recognizes (to a degree) the worth of his daughter’s education, yet the matriarchal voice is absent from Dorcasina’s instruction.  Therefore, Dorcasina thinks and lives according to fancy and tragically deficient reason.  Accordingly, FQ serves as a commentary of the patriarchal incomplete education of women in early national America.

                Lucia McMahon states, “In the decades following the Revolution, the education of women was considered part of a larger experiment, a means of assuring social and political stability during the critical years of nation building” (“Of the Utmost Importance to Our Country” 487).  Early in America there was an emphasis on the education of women in order to build and preserve this nation.  But who was doing the teaching and what was being taught.  In many cases there was a present female voice in the classroom, however, the doctrine often reaffirmed patriarchal supremacy and control.  Through my research and writing on this topic, I endeavor to demonstrate the links between the character of Dorcasina Sheldon and the historical educational context she exists in to present day concerns about the dominant patriarchal voice in education and its possible negative effects in the lives of “educated” women.  Most useful to my endeavor are books and peer reviewed journal articles that take a specifically feminist critical look at education in the history of America and in current academia.  Also useful to my intention is an awareness and consideration of the negative societal effects that dominant patriarchal education has produced and is likely producing.  To put it another way, I plan to uncover how education in America has not provided the complete consideration of “the plain rational path of life” for many female learners.

                The total value of the above mentioned project is its recognition that education can affect society.  Since it is the case that education can produce positive and/or negative effects in a given society, to demonstrate the patriarchal incompleteness of education may inspire a further investment (in every sense of the word) into creating/providing/maintaining a present female voice in academia and consequently, in that society.

Works Cited

McMahon, Lucia. “‘Of the Utmost Importance to Our Country:’ Women, Education, and Society, 1780

                1820.” Journal of the Early Republic 29 (2009): 475-506.

Miecznikowski, Cynthia. "The Parodic Mode and the Patriarchal Imperative: Reading the Female

Reader(s) in Tabitha Tenney's Female Quixotism." Early American Literature 25.1 (1990): 34-45.

Tenney, Tabitha. Female Quixotism: Exhibited in the Romantic Opinions and Extravagent Adventures of Dorcasina Sheldon. New York: Oxford UP, 1992.

               

Miecznikowski, Cynthia J. “The Parodic Mode and the Patriarchal Imperative: Reading the Female Reader(s) in Tabitha Tenney's Female Quixotism.” Early American Literature 25.1 (1990): 34-45.

In this article, Cynthia Miecznikowski argues that Female Quixotism functions as a parody of a parody in which satire is achieved as the reader considers the in-text criticisms of the (mis)readings of Dorcasina Sheldon. Miecznikowski claims that the novel “imitates the romance, working within its boundaries, both including and excluding its conventions, conserving and subverting its form” (42). Through this intertextuality, FQ accomplishes a satirical criticism of the romantic genre. Miecznikowski argues that if the reader will accurately observe these functions in/of the novel, then the reader will not make the mistake of “see[ing] the novel as a ‘female picaresque,’ for to do so is to relegate it to the margins of the patriarchal tradition whose conventions it seems to challenge successfully” (42). For Miecznikowski, the form of FQ enables the novel to break out of the assumption that the story is simply about a foolish rogue woman, but that its main function is to “satirize both contemporary criticism of the novel…and the conventions of the genre from which these criticisms derived” (35).

Often, in “The Parodic Mode and the Patriarchal Imperative,” Miecznikowski works to elaborate on and use some of the ideas of Cathy Davidson[1] and seeks to argue against some of the ideas of Linda Hutcheon[2] yet using some of Hutcheon’s points to buttress her own arguments. Miecznikowski disagrees with Davidson’s analysis which “perhaps secures [the novel’s] position outside the canon of early American literature” by reading it to be a tale of a rogue woman (34). Hutcheon’s definition of parody is useful but lacking the “transcontextualization” that makes FQ function as Miecznikowski claims it does (35). And although “The Parodic Mode and the Patriarchal Imperative” opposes Davidson’s marginalization of FQ, Miecznikowski agrees with Davidson that “the novel is best read as an ‘allegory of reading’” (35). As an allegory of reading, or really a parodic satirical allegory of reading, Miecznikowski is able to gain the transcontextualization that she needs to bring the novel back from the margins.

            This article has added to my thinking process concerning FQ and contextualization in literature in general. Prior to reading this article I was tempted to see only the issue of a woman who appears to be culturally unruly. While Dorcasina Sheldon may be unruly (in fact, in such a way as to harm herself), the text operates on a more subterranean level in order to challenge patriarchal traditions of criticism. I will now consider FQ’s explicit statements and ideas while taking heed to the points that Miecznikowski proposes. This article has proven to be useful for my consideration of Tabitha Tenney’s Female Quixotism, and I believe that it will also be useful as I consider other texts and the combination of forms they may use to challenge the existing patriarchal traditions of criticism.

---

[1]Davidson, Cathy N. “Flirting with Destiny: Ambivalence and Form in the Early Sentimental Novel.” Studies in American Fiction 10 (1982): 17-39

_____, Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America. New York: Oxford UP, 1986.

[2] Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Paraody. New York: Menthuen, 1985.