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‘Body And Soul’ – Emotional Labour in Margaret Harkness’ Fin-De-Siècle Fiction and Journalism

Rosemary Archer (Loughborough University)

Published In:
Published Date:

January 2025

Keywords:

Margaret Harkness, Emotional Labour, Working-Class Women's Labour, Emotional Proletariat, Intersectional Disadvantage, Socialist Fiction

Abstract:

This article seeks to uncover a political reading of Margaret Harkness’ writing by applying late-twentieth-century sociological theories of emotional labour, especially those of Arnie Russell Hochschild, to Harkness’ fin-de-siècle fiction and journalism. I consider the novellas Connie (1893-94) and Roses and Crucifix (1891-92) as well as a series of investigative articles for the British Weekly (later published as a collection, Toilers in London), reading them through the critical lens of emotional labour. Using this approach, I argue that Harkness’ protagonists can be seen as belonging to the ‘emotional proletariat’.1 I examine the various ways in which these texts present the requirement for working-class women to undertake emotional labour which, in turn, subjects them to the intersectional disadvantage of class and gender. I ultimately argue that it is Harkness’ recognition and discussion of this that positions her writing as political activism, giving her a distinctive voice in both contemporary slum fiction and socialist writing.

Published in:
ISSN:

2517-7850

Pages:

84 - 104

Date of Publication:

January 2025

About the author

Rosemary Archer (Loughborough University)

Rosemary Archer is a third-year PhD researcher at Loughborough University. Her doctorate, provisionally titled ‘Writing Women’s Work’, considers how various facets of working-class female labour at the fin de siècle are represented in Margaret Harkness’ fiction and journalism. Rosemary holds a BA (Hons) from Reading University and an MA in Victorian Studies from the University of Leicester where her dissertation on infanticide in the Victorian novel won the Waddington MA Prize for English. She presented a paper on working-class women’s emotional labour at the Romance, Revolution and Reform conference in 2024.

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Romance, Revolution and Reform is an interdisciplinary PGR-led journal specialising in the long nineteenth century and run in association with the Southampton Centre for Nineteenth-Century Research.

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