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Fingersmith and Its Literature Review

Fingersmith  has  been  acknowledged  as  Waters‟  most  distinguished  novel  and received  considerable  compliments  since  its  publication.  For  instance,  Los  Angeles Times praised it as “Deliciously brazen … A smart and seductive enchantment” (Waters 2002a: n. p.). In USA Today, it was acclaimed as “Wonderfully evocative … Fantastic and foggy atmospherics … A strong literary work with memorable female characters, à la  Moll  Flanders  or  a  Brontë  heroine  …  Superb”  (Waters  2002a:  n.  p.).  Fingersmith involves  an  intriguing  and  complicated  story  intertwined  with  fraud,  betrayal,  secrets, love as well as murder. The story was set in London in 1862. Susan Trinder, an orphan and petty thief, was brought up by the baby  farmer Mrs. Sucksby and her “family” in Lant Street in London. She was told her mother had been a murderess who died on the gallows because of theft. 

Upper-class mistress Maud Lilly, another orphan, was abandoned in a madhouse where she was brought up by nurses. When she was eleven, she was claimed back and treated cruelly by her peevish eccentric uncle Christopher Lilly, who trained her as an  amanuensis to assist him in copying and cataloguing collections of pornography at Briar manor,  which  was  in  the  outer  suburb  of  London.  Enlisted  in  an  evil  conspiracy  to defraud  Maud  of  her  inheritance  through  marrying  her  to  Gentleman,  a  somewhat elegant  con  man,  Sue  was  sent  to  Briar  and  acted  as  Maud‟s  maid  in  convincing  her. The  scheme  was  as  long  as  Maud  and  Gentleman  got  married  legally,  she  would  be confined in a madhouse. However, being together day and night at the gloomy isolated Briar,  an  unexpected  intimacy  gradually  grew  between  the  even-aged  young  mistress and maid. When Maud successfully eloped with her from Briar at night and got married with  Gentleman  in  a  small  out-of-the-way  and  broken-down  church  immediately,  Sue believed their plan has succeeded, but she found herself was incarcerated in the private lunatic asylum in Maud‟s place. 

Chapter Two Fingersmith as a Contemporary Female Gothic

The Heritage of Traditional Female Gothic

The female Gothic belongs to “a major strand of Gothic literature that expresses sympathy for a female protagonist who is oppressed by a villain or patriarchal authority figure through stalking, abusive relationships, or outright persecution” (Snodgrass 115). Therefore,  it  is  undebatable  that  the  female  Gothic  novel  embraces  its  own  certain figures, that is, a villain or patriarchal “father” figure and an oppressed heroine. As far as Fingersm本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。