Gendered Perception of Urban and Rural Environment in the Consciousness of the Victorian Era
https://doi.org/10.26907/2658-3321.2024.7.1.85-94
Keywords:
Gender, binary, masculinity, femininity, Gaskell, Victorian eraAbstract
This article analyses the language means used in the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell «North and South» when describing urban and rural areas. The relevance of thе study is due to the growing role of gender studies in the language, within which the linguoculturological analysis of gender associations in the minds of natural language speakers becomes important. The study is based on the understanding of gender as a binary construct that actualizes the oppositional perception of masculinity and femininity. The consciousness of England in the Victorian era is characterized not only by the binary perception of gender-role relations, but also by the symbolic opposition of urban and rural areas, formed as a result of the industrial revolution. In order to determine the associative relationship between gender and the urban/rural environment, 349 original contexts were selected that describe the realities of life in one of the spaces. The result of the study showed that the urban environment in the minds of the Victorian era is associated with several categories of masculinity, while the countryside has feminine qualities. The study revealed the deconstruction of some gender stereotypes and oppositions, which indicates a more multifaceted perception of gender structures that goes beyond the bipolar.
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