Thrice Renewed: Inversions of Triangulated Desire in Charlotte Bronte's Villette and Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White

Abstract

Although Victorian society developed and adhered to rigid ideologies regarding sexuality and gender roles, Victorian novels, like Charlotte Brontë's Villette and Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White illustrate how women may attain power within a patriarchal culture. This thesis uses and significantly revises the theories of triangulated desire developed by René Girard, author of Deceit, Desire, and the Novel and Eve Sedgwick, author of Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire to demonstrate how this empowerment may occur, for the triangulated relationships within Villette and The Woman in White disrupt conventional structures of relationships and desire seen in Victorian society. Furthermore, this study analyzes how the feminine gaze enables women to bond within triangulated relationships. Chapter I discusses how Villette's Lucy covertly connects with Polly and Ginevra while superficially vying for masculine attentions. Similarly, Chapter II addresses how Laura Fairlie of The Woman in White outwardly contends for male attention while attaching herself to Anne Catherick and Marian Halcombe. The Conclusion following these chapters assesses the imperative cultural work performed by novels as they challenge Victorian conventions by depicting triangulated relations that subordinate the masculine and privilege the feminine.