Imprisoned and Empowered: The Women of Edith Wharton's Supernatural Fiction.

• Main Author: Stansberry, Tonya Faye
• Format: Others
• Published: Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University 2003
• Subjects: Social Structures; Edith Wharton; Ghost Stories; Women's Issues; Arts and Humanities; English Language and Literature
• Online Access: https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/792; https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1949&context=etd

By focusing on the status and state of women as represented in selected supernatural fiction by Edith Wharton, we explore the socio-gender relationships, as well as the gender roles of women in general as they existed in the early part of the twentieth century. These associations are discussed, as is the influence Henry James may have had on Wharton’s writing style within the genre of the ghostly tale. The conclusions made within this study lead the reader of the tales to believe that Wharton expressed different feminist perspectives based on how she was developing as a person and as a writer. The resources and scholarship that are strictly allocated to Wharton’s ghost stories are not as vast as they may be for her other fiction; however, more attention is being given to these supernatural works, and this study reiterates the literature’s scholarly importance.