Rebecca at Sea
Rebecca at Sea
Fashioning a New Identity
This chapter shows how Rebecca's journals reveal the transition of her personality from young bride to sea captain's wife. Rebecca's entries illustrate new facets of her relationship with William, which depict his personality aboard ship. Throughout her journey, Rebecca noted both her reliance on and independence from traditional Victorian definitions of womanhood. She became a social commentator on sailors and their lives, as well as the lands she visited, and revealed her sentiments about life on the sea by using language to justify her position away from the defined domestic sphere of traditional womanhood. She cast herself as the protagonist of an adventure story, enjoying and writing down in great detail the experiences of maritime life. Her journals reflect her growing sense of self, as defined by the maritime world of which she had become a part.
Keywords: Rebecca's journals, sea captain's wife, William Burgess, Victorian womanhood, life at sea, traditional womanhood, adventure story, maritime life
NYU Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.