Fingersmith
Fingersmith
Basic Info
- Author: Sarah Waters
- Year: 2002
- Type: #primary1
Summary (brief)
Sue Trinder is an orphan raised in a den of thieves by her adoptive mother Mrs. Sucksby, sent to help Richard "Gentleman" Rivers seduce a wealthy heiress; posing as a maid, Sue is to gain the trust of the lady, Maud Lilly, and eventually persuade her to elope with Gentleman. Once married, he plans to commit Maud to a madhouse and claim her fortune; Maud was orphaned at birth, her mother died in a mental asylum, she never knew her father. Her uncle uses her as a secretary to assist him as he supposedly compiles a Dictionary but its actually Victorian erotica. Sue and Maud are gay for each other; Gentleman does the ultimate uno-reverse and throws Sue in the mad house under the name of Maud; it turns out, Maud and Sue were actually switched at birth, and that makes Maud the actually daughter of Sucksby. I can relate this to that one academic text that was about how Victorian adaptations aim to uncover the sexual lives of Victorians. Basically the plot of Villette.
Major Themes
#erotica
#victorianmorality
#neo-victorian
#postmodern-rewritings
#desire
#domesticabuse
#marriage/relationships/friendship
Key Passages / Quotes
Quote 1
quote:: “”
page::
themes:: trans-corporeality
Quote 2
Quote 3
Quote 4
Genre Notes
Historical crime novel
First part narrated by Sue, second part narrated by Maud.
Characters / Concepts (if relevant)
Theory Connections
Related Texts
- Villette
- Mysteries of Verbena House
- Neo-Victorian Adaptations
- Sex and Erotica
- Victorian Afterlife
- The Handmaiden
- Victorian Afterlife
My Argument / Interpretation
Dissertation Relevance
How could this matter to my project?