Owning a Sense of Perversity in Ellen Wood's East Lynne

Abstract

abstract:This essay contends that Ellen Wood's East Lynne reveals a surprising spatial relationship that a woman can have with a property outside the legal restrictions outlined by mid-nineteenth-century married women's property law. Isabel Vane, the main character, cultivates a sense of perversity in orienting herself in the object world as a response to the fundamental deprivation of the property in question, East Lynne. Isabel's misunderstanding of the ownership of her paraphernalia, sentimental overvaluation of East Lynne, and intentional propagation of disfigurement all constitute her perverse relation with the object world.