Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• FLINT, AZELINA

Titel

"Do you want to throw yourself into the jaws of death. . . . you obstinate, ungovernable piece of marble!": Self-Sacrifice as Self-Affirmation in Augusta Jane Evans's Macaria; or, Altars of Sacrifice

Ist Teil von

• The Mississippi quarterly, 2016-09, Vol.69 (4), p.457-480

Ort / Verlag

Mississippi State: College of Arts and Sciences of Mississippi State University

Erscheinungsjahr

2016

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Augusta Jane Evans's Macaria is premised upon a central paradox. Although written in defense of the Confederacy, the novel simultaneously contests one its most fundamental values: the subordination of women to paternal authority. First published in 1864, before the end of the Civil War, by Confederate publishers West & Johnston, the book was dedicated to "the army of the Southern Confederacy" (frontispiece). However, Evans composed the novel while working as a nurse in Camp Beulah (Riepma 100)--a role that had been widely considered to be improperly masculine for the southern woman (Faust, "Altars" 1215-16). Macaria's defense of the Confederacy requires Confederate women to transform society through their superior moral values. Faust notes that at the outbreak of the Civil War, the passive role of women, who were required to transform Confederate soldiers from "vagabonds" into "gentlemen of honor," became increasingly unsatisfying for women. Evans fails to resolve the conflict between feminine self-autonomy and self-sacrifice in Macaria because her attempt to transform the slaveholding system through the elevated influence of women proves untenable.