Throughout history woman have been portrayed in novels, often with varying degrees of sexism and/ or realism. From the representation of Mary Magdalene in The Bible, right through to J.K Rowling’s Hermione Granger, story tellers and subsequent authors have seen fit to include such characters in their work.Of course one must remember that a lot of such novels would have been written by male authors, as was considered proper and that many female authors- such as the Bronte sisters, who famously wrote under the masculine pseudonyms of ‘Action ,’ ‘Currer’ and ‘Ellis Bell’- were not permitted to write at all and had to do so under false names.It is because of this that much work that dates back to pre- eighteenth century, often objectifies women or indeed write only about women performing in the way which society dictated they behave, because these books also often had a male protagonist, women would mostly only be seen through a male perspective, and sometimes their characters came across as fickle and shallow.Indeed if we examine passage A, we are introduced to the character of Peregrine Pickle, whose own view of a young lady is rather sexist. The first clue we have of this is when he calls the young lady in question ‘…a fine young creature…’ which not only objectifies her, but also to some extent de-humanises her.Once more in passage A current topical issues are brought forward, when Peregrine notes that the escort of the young lady can’t dance with her because he is wearing boots. Which we as the audience must assume is either unfashionable attire to wear to such an occasion or that the escort is not of high enough class to be able to afford to keep up with the latest fashions.The entire second paragraph of this passa…
…e reader directly, almost ‘breaking the fourth wall’ as so to speak to them. Still uncommon in most books today, perhaps it is Inchbald’s act of experimentation with the art of writing which makes her such an endearing author.It is always difficult to compare to texts which bear no relation to one and other except perhaps a loose theme. However, it is clear that with these two extracts, although written no more than forty years apart, that society’s attitudes and beliefs change. Where as in Smollett’s book the woman was objectified, in Inchbald’s the character was given a mind and opinions. It is often easy to forget though how repressed authors like Inchbald still would have been, and though books like hers give us some feeling for the pressures of society on women at the time, it is still near impossible to comprehend in a society in which we live in today.
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