Research Information System
Presentation, pp.18, 2012
Contrary to the expectations from an eighteenth century autobiography, Charke’s text
discloses next to nothing about its author’s interiority or “private character”, but a
multiplicity of subject positions. Yet, the text is clearly informed by the historical
factors and the material circumstances of the times, and in that respect can be read as
a testimony to the liminality induced by the loss of class privileges, since Charke’s
text underscores a subjectivity precariously placed between the rising middle class
and the working class. It is also possible to posit that Charke was declassed because
she was living at a time when men were starting to dominate occupations that
traditionally belonged to women. Then, the text illustrates the imminent relationship
between gender and work, and exemplifies how a woman forges her subjectivity
while collapsing the boundaries between occupation and gender at a time when homes
were fast becoming the designated places for women.