Resource Post 10

Alright, I want to get one more quick post off before I head to class. One or two more will be posted after. This post will focus on "Alice Arden’s Freedom and the Suspended Moment of Arden of Faversham," written by Julie Schutzman and published in Studies in English Literature issue 36.2.

In this essay, Schutzman argues that Alice Arden displays a female autonomy within Arden of Faversham in that she manipulates the traditional social structures of both the domestic space of her marriage and the social space of the town in which the play takes place. This manipulation, she contends, presents a threat to the patriarchal order of these societal structures, and in this way she is able to achieve such autonomy. Of particular interest to my posted research topic is Schutzman’s discussion of Alice’s manipulation of Arden, wherein the states that “Arden chooses to remove his gaze from the scene of his wife’s adultery” (304). Schutzman argues that this shift makes Arden the surveyed rather than the surveyor in his marriage (a reversal of the traditional structure), but I plan to use this point to note that Arden’s decision to ignore his wife’s adultery and instead spend his time with Franklin allows, as Schutzman argues, the reversal of the social order which leads to his end.


This is a great article for those of you with feminist interests, as Schutzman pays close attention to the female agency that Alice achieves by challenging the patriarchy. This article is thus also good for those of you looking for articles relating to the treatment of women and the construction of the patriarchy in early modern England, since this essay explores Alice's interaction and engagement with these aspects of Renaissance English society. While the usefulness of this article is hit or miss for my topic, I feel that it would be incredibly useful for those of you who are looking for sources dealing with any of the issues that I have mentioned above.