Book review: A topography plagued by marginality in Victorian novels

Abstract

The building of spaces based on the stereotypical gender roles was widely discussed in many Victorian novels. Other concepts frequently used in the 19th-century novels are those of ‘marginality’ and ‘Otherness’ which are illustrated by Cătălina Bălinișteanu-Furdu through the marginalized individuals who strive to climb the social ladder or to preserve the newly acquired social status. We read this survey because it mainly focuses on women who seem to be enclosed in marginal positions and because it differentiates the perspective of a male author from the one of a female writer. The author, however, tries to emphasize the marginality of different individuals from different social classes, regardless of their race or gender. In her book, A Topography Plagued by Marginality in Victorian Novels (2022), Cătălina Bălinișteanu-Furdu lets herself be guided by the existentialist mantra “essence precedes existence” which Simone de Beauvoir transformed into a feminist phrase: “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman” (The Second Sex, 1998, p. 267) suggesting that gendered stereotypes influenced the construction of spaces and of conventional norms which is an idea generally transmitted to readers in order for them to follow a specific set of values. __________________________