Rebekah Hyneman's serial novella "The Sister of Charity" (1857) gained a wide readership at the time of publication. Nevertheless, since then Hyneman's rich literary opus has been almost totally neglected. This paper aims at redressing this oversight by examining her novella, "The Sister of Charity," a tale which in addition to being a Gothic story appropriates features of the Buildungsroman, and should be studied in light of complex sisterly relationships. The examination of the cultural, political, economic and socio-historical factors, while also referring to psychoanalytic literary models, is vital for outlining the environment in which Hyneman's female protagonists were conceived. Writing the novella in a Gothic genre allowed the writer to explore the element of the double among sisters. The incidence of the double could, on the one hand, be construed as an account for the alienation of human beings and the protagonists' self-estrangement and self-destruction. On the other hand, sisterly relationships may signify the strength of siblings' bonds, allowing the sisters to counter the repressive norms of patriarchal society and to define themselves as individuals within harsh surroundings. This paper also addresses the above-mentioned ambiguity.

中文翻译：

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Rebekah Hyneman的“慈善姐妹”中的姐妹慈善还是姐妹毒液？

丽贝卡·海尼曼 (Rebekah Hyneman) 的连载中篇小说《慈善姐妹》(The Sister of Charity) (1857) 在出版时获得了广泛的读者群。然而，从那时起，海尼曼丰富的文学作品几乎被完全忽视了。本文旨在通过检查她的中篇小说“慈善姐妹”来纠正这种疏忽，这个故事除了是一个哥特式故事之外，还具有建筑罗马的特点，应该根据复杂的姐妹关系进行研究。对文化、政治、经济和社会历史因素的考察，同时也涉及精神分析文学模型，对于勾勒出海尼曼女性主角的孕育环境至关重要。以哥特式体裁写中篇小说使作者能够探索姐妹之间的双重元素。替身的发生，一方面可以解释为人类异化和主人公自我疏远和自我毁灭的原因。另一方面，姐妹关系可能意味着兄弟姐妹之间纽带的力量，允许姐妹们对抗父权社会的压制规范，并在恶劣的环境中将自己定义为个体。本文还解决了上述歧义。