Abstract

Abstract:

British girls' periodicals presented contradictory models of behavior for adolescents during the second half of the nineteenth century. While the magazines printed articles encouraging girls to honor and obey their elders, they also offered lengthy serialized stories that depicted disobedient heroines dismissing their parents' demands and being rewarded for bad behavior. This division between nonfiction and fiction pointed to a paradox at the heart of Victorian adolescence: girls were viewed as being simultaneously mature and immature, rebellious and conformist. By embodying this contradiction, girls' periodicals pushed back against societal controls just as adolescents wished to do.

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