Cover image for Framed: The New Woman Criminal in British Culture at the Fin de Siècle
Framed: The New Woman Criminal in British Culture at the Fin de Siècle
Title:
Framed: The New Woman Criminal in British Culture at the Fin de Siècle
Author:
Elizabeth Carolyn Miller
ISBN:
9780472070442

9780472024469

9780472050444
Personal Author:
Publication Information:
University of Michigan Press 2008
Abstract:
Framed uses fin de siècle British crime narrative to pose a highly interesting question: why do female criminal characters tend to be alluring and appealing while fictional male criminals of the era are unsympathetic or even grotesque? In this elegantly argued study, Elizabeth Carolyn Miller addresses this question, examining popular literary and cinematic culture from roughly 1880 to 1914 to shed light on an otherwise overlooked social and cultural type: the conspicuously glamorous New Woman criminal. In so doing, she breaks with the many Foucauldian studies of crime to emphasize the genuinely subversive aspects of these popular female figures. Drawing on a rich body of archival material, Miller argues that the New Woman Criminal exploited iconic elements of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century commodity culture, including cosmetics and clothing, to fashion an illicit identity that enabled her to subvert legal authority in both the public and the private spheres.
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