A Topography Plagued by Marginality in Victorian Novels

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Our survey unfolds the complexity of the marginalization experience of the Victorian Others, their individual or collective mentality and their agency. Drawing on Otherness from six Victorian novels, our book takes an interpretative approach to spaces which reveals how the positionality of women or orphans or labourers in social hierarchies of gender, race and legal status influences and even affects their legitimacy or access to a superior position. Their agency has not always overcome their marginalization embedded within the structure of society, but at least temporarily and gradually it has improved the women?s living conditions by being rewarded with a beautiful family or by earning a living thus eluding the dependency on a man. By contextualizing the six novels into the Victorian Age, our survey will hopefully contribute to the understanding of women and of their attempts at emancipation by demonstrating how their positionality impacts their agency and their personality