As this semester comes to an end and my capstone project is complete, I would like to offer a few words that reflect on the project itself but also how completing my capstone project can showcase the range of interdisciplinary coursework and experiences that have been an influence over the past three years. For instance, within my English courses, I have taken four courses that based on their themes and course materials count for my minor in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies – ENG 216 on Women and the Law in Victorian England, ENG 237 Women of the West in U.S literature, ENG 200 on Writing, Resistance and Revolution in U.S Literature, and ENG 326 on Patient Narratives — especially women’s experiences in healthcare. As one of the essential aspects of my revision project is to ask what other forms of writing and discourses outside of literature considered the oppression women faced by the law, I think it is significant to note how my work in English has provided me with a range of perspectives on this topic. 

As I explain briefly in my introduction, the course that inspired this project, ENG 216, was an eye-opening experience for me in learning how literature like Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall could be an entry point into debates on legal reform. In other English courses like Writing, Revolution, and Resistance in U.S. Literature, I had the opportunity to see some of these same issues discussed in an American setting. I drew connections from my past work to deepen my knowledge of the subject of how literature can act as a powerful tool for social change. Going back even further to the first semester of my first year of undergrad, I took a History course HIS 276 Women in the Ancient World, and in my final project and research paper I decided to reorient the classical patriarchal dominated Roman Law of the Twelve Tables. This set of laws was one of the first examples of how society began to formulate ideas on what justice, equality, and fairness should be and has influenced our legal system ever since. Even as a freshman, I knew that there was something significant about raising women’s experience within the law – which in this example was virtually wiped from the historical record. 

Looking back now that I have completed my capstone project where I expanded my knowledge of political theorists, reform writers, archival material from Parliamentary debates, and actual case law, it has shown how my humanities education has supported me in pursuing my passions and interests while at the same time providing me with the skills I needed to complete this project. While not every English course was on Brontë and law and literature, every course challenged me to engage in literary texts, closely analyzing the explicit themes and significance. They have also to make note of how authors might be subversively challenging the status quo, raising minority perspectives, and promoting discussion that signifies the importance of literature in engaging in historical and cultural contexts. 

As I mentioned previously, I had hoped to make my choice of a capstone project as a way to show both my longstanding interest in women and the law and also to showcase my interdisciplinary array of disciplines like my double major in English and Political Science and minors in Writing and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. In selecting a past work to extend upon I selected an essay that I was very proud of and came from that English course on women and the law in Victorian England as the framework for my project. This felt like a way for me to engage again in Brontë’s novel to highlight how my literary skills have developed over two years and also to show that I can engage in political issues from political philosopher John Stuart Mill from my work in Political Science. I have also become more familiar with analyzing case law from law courses which I also felt could be well utilized in my extension into case law from the same period of Brontë’s novel for added depth to my argument. Overall, my past essay was just the beginning of my interest in law and literature and I felt that I had more to say than what that past assignment required. 

In revisiting what I could do to extend my capstone project from a past essay, I was able to make the case that Brontë’s novel can go even further than just a fictional example of women’s inequality within marriage and a critique of romanticized ideals of marriage – it can influence real change in the laws. I had a chance to expand my knowledge by looking into archival material from Parliamentary debates and reform bills and digging into political theory with figures like John Stuart Mill. I also took a feminist lens in looking at the work of Frances Power Cobee and raising how these early feminist movements could be placed into conversation with the literary achievements of women like Brontë. I think that these changes showcase how my work outside of English, like Political Science and my minor in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, has made me more aware of the multitude of things that can influence society. Through that, I wanted to test that theory and see what can emerge when one piece of literature, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, is placed in a more expansive discourse of social progress in Victorian England.

One aspect of my project that I feel begins to illustrate how I am extending my past project is my first section which discusses how literature as a practice can be used as a powerful tool in exploring social problems and cultural phenomena. Here I engaged with a framework from Rosemarie Bodenhimer in her piece on “The Politics of Story in Victorian Social Fiction” where I could then assert that by reading Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, she has linked herself with a much larger era of social progress in Victorian England. This then creates an avenue for me to dig into her preface where a female author, although still restricted by her time in publishing under an alias, directly addressed her readers regarding the reception to her novel. As Brontë’s preface speaks to how she wishes literature could become a space where a more honest experience of what difficulties women face, this made way for my extension into those other branches of Victorian writing that dealt with similar issues. For instance, I added a section on John Stuart Mill and his political essay The Subjection of Women, a section on Frances Power Cobbe and her possessive essay on the necessity of reform for laws concerning women, and a section that digs deeper into actual case law from the Victorian era. Another aspect of my project that I think showcases my better understanding of feminist legal theory is how I can propel my project into the contemporary by way of the scholar Robin West and her discussion of the ‘literary woman’ which can draw a line from today back to 1869 when Mill discussed the emergence of the literary woman. I am alleging that this newfound connection proves that we must look to the same opportunities today to draw from the empathetic and humanistic nature of literature to address our contemporary political, feminist, and legal theorists to question and force the uncomfortable realities of the law’s shortcomings.