Clothing and gender assignment/identification in Gabriel and Daisy Miller

Abstract

Dress standards vary with time and culture, but have maintained throughout history a normative and performative character closely linked to gender identification. This article focuses on the articulation between dress and gender identification/assignment developed in the 19th century by the French author George Sand in Gabriel and the American Henry James in the novella Daisy Miller. The comparison is divided into three macro sections and, with the help of Gender and Dress Studies, analyses the representation of women's and men's clothing in the two works in relation to the society and historical context of reference. Emphasising analogies and differences, the investigation aims to highlight how both authors problematise and contest the concept of "gender role" conveyed by social norms through clothing, with particular attention to the position of the female figure in contrast to her male counterpart and to bourgeois and aristocratic dictates.