The Caustic Pen Is Mightiest: A Tradition of Female Satire in the Novels of Jane Austen, Ivy Compton-Burnett, and Muriel Spark

Female satirists have long been treated by critics as anomalies within an androcentric genre because of the reticence to acknowledge women's right to express aggression through their writing. In Pride and Prejudice (1813), A House and Its Head (1935), and The Girls of Slender Means (1963), Jane Austen (1775-1817), Ivy Compton-Burnett (1884-1969), and Muriel Spark (1918-2006) all combine elements of realism and satire within the vehicle of the domestic novel to target institutions of their patriarchal societies, including marriage and family dynamics, as well as the evolving conceptions of domesticity and femininity, with a subtle feminism. These female satirists illuminate the problems they have with society more through presentation than judgment in their satire, which places them on the fringes of a society they wish to educate, distinguishing their satire from that written by male satirists who are judging from a privileged height above the society they are attempting to correct. All three women create heroines and secondary female characters who find ways to survive, and occasionally thrive, within the confines of a polite society that has a streak of savagery running just beneath its polished surface.

Rock 314: A Novel

During this Capstone project, the author composed and revised the introductory chapters of the novel Rock 314. This Capstone is comprised of the first four of those chapters and also includes a reflective essay that explores the many influences and inspirations that led to its creation. Rock 314 is a story about a lonely young artist who is unexpectedly taken away from the world he knows and finds himself flung across the cosmos in search of his kidnapped grandfather. This novel uses humor as a literary device to satirize contemporary society. In addition to an explanation of influences and story conception, the essay includes all cognitive decisions and discoveries made by the author throughout the evolution of this project.