Simply brilliant' Irish Examiner 'Vividly sensuous, highly metaphorical, full of textures, sounds and smells. The Women's Press, Julie tries hard to be the dutiful daughter, the perfect wife and mother, but underneath she knows the darker, more passionate side of her psyche is struggling to be free. Among so many conventional female roles, can Julie invent one which is truly her own?
The Governess by flopsybunny There are many spanking stories featuring a governess as the key protagonist, either as one who administers corporal punishment to her charges, or who receives it herself from her employers. The governess is depicted as a kind of surrogate mother, expected to suppress any desire for the possibility of her own marriage or motherhood.
Not that there would be any time to pursue her own interests, as in addition to educational supervision, she was responsible for the social and moral development of her charges.
Children carried their experience with their governesses well into adulthood. By then, they might have been either traumatized by cruel and sadistic instructors, or filled with fondness and admiration for the women who were invariably closer to them than their own mothers, based on the sheer amount of time they had spent together during the child's formative years and beyond.
I have often wondered why the erstwhile figure of the governess holds such fascination in the present day. Could it be attributed to the way in which the governess has been portrayed in fiction and film - as a stereotype of a generally impoverished woman, neither servant nor family member, yet who constantly emerges as the heroine, often escaping a prim middle-age by marrying the local curate or the master of the house?
With the help Essay on jane eyre classes an internet search engine, I decided to do some digging.
And this is what I found. Printed publications From to there appeared in fiction every conceivable type of governess. The year marked the arrival of the governess at the very heart of the English novel where a middle-class woman employed to teach the daughters of those better off than herself appeared as the central character in a major work.
In her book The Victorian Governess, Kathryn Hughes looks at the vast array of novels featuring a governess which appeared between andnoting that the way the governess was portrayed in the novel shifted as the century progressed, saying that "The transformation of the governess into a major literary character was inseparable from the wider process of feminisation which the novel had been undergoing since the middle of the eighteenth century.
Such articles illuminate the way in which the tensions which the governess seemed to embody social respectability, sexual morality and financial self-reliance touched a raw nerve with a huge swathe of middle-class Britain. The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine had a reputation for being a respectable publication For example, reader's were invited to write in and give their opinion on the topic of corporal punishment for girls.
Many of the magazine's 'Reader's Letters' which found their way into print had not been penned by readers but had been lifted from more scurrilous sources!
For example, it is doubtful that the following extract published in the December edition was sent in by 'a loving mother'. The eldest was first taken to her dressing room and prepared for the rod, and then conveyed to the boudoir by the governess, who at once administered the discipline.
The younger one was then prepared and received a wholesome flagellation [on the bare posterior], the delinquents being tightly strapped to an ottoman during the castigation, at the conclusion of which they had to kiss the rod and thank the governess, when they were permitted to retire.
Much of the pornography of the period is marked by an obsession with flagellation or the English Vice. The circulation of pornographic material concerned with spanking, flogging and whipping reached epidemic proportions during the Victorian era - and many were the tales of schoolroom spankings.
In this case the setting was either a girls' boarding school or a private classroom and the plot typically involved a governess whipping her pupil, who might be an adolescent girl or boy, for some petty misdemeanour such as sullenness.
Such women acting out the role of a strict governess made a good living by administering vigorous discipline to their clients. During this period, governesses were sometimes linked with fallen women. Because like the prostitute, many a governess was propelled into the domestic heart of the upper and middle classes from the world of financial desperation and reduced circumstances.
Perhaps raised initially as a lady with prospects and groomed to expect a life of leisure, some of these women subsequently deprived of adequate funds were then obliged to descend the social ladder all the way down to the schoolroom. This difficult transition involved falling from their previous genteel state whilst continuing to cling to the social forms of behaviour which marked their former state.
These women were also expected to discipline their charges, given that an unruly or badly-behaved child reflected badly on the governess; as such, they clearly would not wish to appear incompetent and lacking control as this would pose a threat to their continued employment. Thus the governess would step in to correct any bad or immoral behaviour.
The rod was seldom spared and even petty acts of mischief were dealt with diligently. A firm belief of the time was that obedience was the highest of all the virtues.
With a regular dose of corporal punishment, children were made to learn obedience at a very early age. Between the s and the early part of the 20th century she aimed to encourage best practice in the training of governesses and the education of young women by creating a network of like-minded governesses and others who who were trying to set-up some sort of academy to further their aims.
They supposedly "advocated corporal punishment of young women over the age of 16 and unmarried ladies up to a late age. The Governess Today It is no surprise that today's lifestyle disciplinarians and dominatrixes often masquerade as a governess who invites her clients into her world of very strict corporal punishment, using their prerogative to remove adult privileges and apply any number of strict measures.
I have it on good authority that clients pay a handsome fee to be spanked, caned, whipped, paddled and humiliated by a stern governess! Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret were taught at home by a governess but their children and grandchildren attended school. It would seem that the governess has mostly died out as a profession, yet the image she leaves behind continues to spark interest.
Contemporary Spanking Stories Various authors of contemporary spanking fiction have written a number of stories featuring the governess. Here are a few extracts from some of the governess stories available in the Library of Spanking Fiction.
Many of us appreciate stories where the tables are turned, resulting in the disciplinarian being in a position of chastisement. In The Governess by Flogmaster, the boy Bobby delights in spanking his governess.Pygmalion (AmazonClassics Edition) - Kindle edition by George Bernard Shaw.
Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Pygmalion (AmazonClassics Edition). Built for secondary and high schools, Questia School is the premier online research library, featuring thousands of digital books, millions of academic articles and .
Get access to Jane Eyre Social Class Essay Essays only from Anti Essays. Listed Results 1 - Get studying today and get the grades you want. Only at. "I won't take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth.".
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