The Notion of Home in Domestic and Neodomestic fiction

Abstract

The present dissertation aims at discussing the notion of Home of domestic and neodomestic novels. Where as opposed to what it should mean – comfort, convenience, stability and security – the long-standing doctrine of home seems to be reversed .By examining Jane Austen’s telling novel Pride and prejudice and Kate Atkinson Behind the Scenes at the Museum The study shows how Their works depicted women’s suffering and their relationship within the domestic sphere. Both Jane Austen and Kate Atkinson’s novels explores daughters struggling to perceive their mothers within the context of the Victorian era and post-war Britain. In this regard this dissertation is divided into three chapters. The first chapter an overview of the domestic and neodomestic genre, its aim is to present the notion of domesticity and family within domestic and neodomestic fiction; the second chapter deals with the notion of motherhood and the nature of relationship the mother-daughter has in one of the works under study ,the aim is to analyze how Jane Austen’s novel Pride and prejudice explores the maternal bonds with their children specially their daughters. Finally the third chapter is concerned with the analysis of Kate’s Atkinson Behind the Scenes at the Museum focusing on the status of women and their attitude toward womanhood and domesticity and how family is no longer a steady foundation but a complex web of marriages