Introduction Female Trouble: Nineteenth-Century Feminism and a Literature of Threat

Abstract

The semantics of power and powerlessness offers infinite surprises and rich opportunities for both personal reflection and reflections on culture — specifically, on performances of subjectivity. ‘I’ll fix you!’ is an interesting case in point. It is a common, angry retort from a position of oppression; in childhood, I resorted to it after I had been pushed around by a bully or felt I had been unjustly punished by an adult. Of course, it was usually muttered so as to be inaudible by the oppressor, but the situation was always banked with others that I was certain would be redressed … one day … if not by me, then by someone. Indeed, never having been particularly convinced by New Testament assurances that the meek would inherit the earth, I was hoping for harsh, Old Testament, lightning-bolt retribution against the stupid, the powerful, the pompous. Clearly thereafter, a happy new existence — the new millennium — would ensue, one in which little boys could do as they wish, could even play with dolls and kiss other little boys if they so desired. Solemn and smug adult men would be a particularly welcome target for the cleansing heavenly fire; the world would be fixed because they would be, well, fixed.