Beautiful Boredom: Idleness and Feminine Self-realization in the Victorian Novel

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This volume explores boredom as a possible force for good in the Victorian novel. Boredom in these works is an important means through which female characters are able to achieve a greater sense of self-awareness. In her discussion of Charlotte Bronte’s
Jane Eyre
(1847), George Eliot’s
Middlemarch
(1871-72), and Henry James’
The Portrait of a Lady
(1881), the author examines both the deleterious and restorative aspects of boredom and shows how this subtle theme has continued to be used by more modern authors.