Figure of the flirt in American fiction from 1868 - 1928
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Date
31/07/2021Author
Conway, Juliet
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Abstract
This thesis examines depictions of the flirt figure in American fiction from 1868-1928, a
period where flirtatious femininity was increasingly becoming a subject of social concern.
The flirt has often been ignored in literary criticism or else she has been amalgamated with
other female types such as the ‘fallen woman’ or ‘coquette’. My thesis argues for the flirt to
be read as a specific character with a distinct literary lineage who represents a particular set
of challenges in turn-of-the-century America. Positioned between traditional models of
‘good’ and ‘bad’ femininity, the flirt is a transgressive and socially disruptive figure. Often
ambiguous, evasive and interpretatively unstable, she represents a type of femininity which is
difficult to categorise and therefore control. As a result, flirtatious heroines in this period
must pay a price for this rebellion. Whether through social ostracisation, loss of reputation, or
even death, the flirt’s controversial nature is revealed in the harsh punishment imposed on
her.
By foregrounding the figure of the flirt, I highlight how her ambiguous morality and
innocence was imagined to be so disruptive that she is treated even more harshly than
traditionally ‘bad’ female characters. Furthermore, I argue that her liminal position outside
the dichotomy of pure and sexualised womanhood allows her to disrupt, subvert and
undermine gender politics and cultural mythologies. Given that so little critical work has been
done on this subject, this thesis covers works by a wide range of authors: Henry James,
Frances Hodgson Burnett, Louisa May Alcott, Susan Coolidge, Edith Wharton, Booth
Tarkington, Elizabeth Weston Timlow, Anita Loos and Ernest Hemingway. Through close
readings of these authors’ approaches to this slippery literary figure, I suggest that the flirt’s
treatment across this sixty-year period reflects a deep-rooted fear of transgressive femininity.