"Something at Least Human": Transatlantic (Re)Presentations of Creole Women in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
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Throughout the nineteenth century, Creole women were consistently idealized, exoticized, and demonized in literature and culture on both sides of the Atlantic. While the term Creole is still hotly contested even today, in its most basic sense it refers to people raised in colonial territories and originally meant someone of foreign ancestry who was locally born. Creole women were frequently depicted as blurring boundaries of race and nationalism, while they subverted traditional gender roles. Focusing on the representation of Creoles in Jamaica and Louisiana, this dissertation investigates both the constraints and categories used to define the Creole woman and conducts case studies on the representation of her as a monstrous, sexualized, being. It uses an analysis of literature, art, newspaper articles, and periodicals to construct an interdisciplinary assemblage of sources that highlight inequity in the treatment of Creole women. This study illuminates what is meant by “Creole” in nineteenth-century culture, how Creoles were categorized, and why Louisiana and Jamaica are so ripe for comparison. It also examines the lives of two women, one fictional, Harriet Brandt, and one real, Delphine Lalaurie, to see how the ideals and stereotypes about Creoles were used in their depiction. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that transatlantic representations of Creole women were a flash point for nineteenth century ideas and anxieties about the female body, sexuality, race, gender, and national and imperial identity.
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Introduction -- "The fullness of empire and the emptiness of elsewhere": the transatlantic world and the definition of Creole identity -- Classifying the Creole: disease, difference, and domesticity -- "Shall I always kill everybody I love?": Gothic inheritance and the femme fatale in Florence Marryat's The Blood of the Vampire -- Devil in the shape of woman: Delphine LaLaurie, the haunted house, and the power of public spectacle -- Afterword
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Ph.D.