The Rhetoric of Women’s Humour in Barbara Pym’s Fiction

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Naghmeh Varghaiyan. The Rhetoric of Women’s Humour in Barbara Pym’s Fiction

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Preface by Orna Raz

1 Characteristics of Women’s Humour

1.1 Myth of Women’s Lack of a Sense of Humour

1.2 Undermining Women’s Wit

1.3 Women’s Language and écriture féminine

1.4. Difference between Irony and Humour

1.5 Necessity of a Humour of One’s Own

1.6 Humour: A Female Device?

1.7 Misreading Women’s Humour and Images of Women

1.8 Lack of Ending in the Works of Women Writers

1.9 Differences between Conventional Humour and Women’s Humour

1.10 Women’s Humour and Socio-Cultural Restraints

1.11 Ideology of Domesticity and Domestic Comedy

1.12 Characteristics of Women’s Humour

1.13 Major Areas and Tactics of Female Humour

1.14 Self-Irony

1.15 Women Writers’ Humour in the Nineteenth Century

1.16 Humour as a Device of Sympathy

1.17 Female Humour and Narrative Structure

1.18 Rhetoric of Humour in Pym’s Novels

2 Some Tame Gazelle: Construction of Women’s Veiled Humour

2.1. Role of Rhetorical Strategies in the Construction of Women’s Humour in STG

2.1.1 Subversion of the Romantic Plot and the Discourse of Trivia

2.1.2 Belinda’s Double Text Discourse

2.1.3 Function of Gossip in the Construction of Humorous Narrative

2.1.4 Understatement and Self-Deprecation

2.1.5 Sympathetic Bond between Narrator and Heroine and among Characters

2.2. Function of Themes and Motifs in the Construction of Humorous Plot. 2.2.1 Subversion of Female Stereotypes

2.2.2 Subversion of Male Images

2.3 Women’s Humour as Social Critique: Undermining the Institution of Church and Clergymen

3 Excellent Women: Humour of Mildred Regarded as an Excellent Woman

3.1 Rhetorical Strategies in the Construction of Women’s Humour

3.1.1 Understatement and Self-Deprecation

3.1.2 Mildred’s Double-Voiced Discourse

3.2 Themes and Motifs in the Construction of Humorous Plot

3.2.1 Subversion of the Stereotype of Excellent Woman

3.2.2 Subversion of Male Images

4 Jane and Prudence: Unconventional Wife and Satisfied Spinster

4.1 Jane’s Subversion of the Image of Conventional Clergyman’s Wife. 4.1.1 Jane’s Creation of a Fantastic World

4.1.2 Jane’s Reversal of the Role of Serving Female

4.1.3 Jane’s and Prudence’s Use of Double-Voiced Discourse

4.2 Subversion of the Image of the Spinster and Prudence’s Creation of a Romantic World

4.3 Subversion of the Male Image by Exposure of Men’s Indolence and Self-Indulgence

Conclusion

Works Cited