Colour, Dress and Modernism: the Significance of Colour in Representations of Clothing in Modernist Literature by Women

Abstract

This dissertation explores the significance of the colour of dress in modernist literature written by women from the beginning of World War I to the start of World War II (1914–1939). It establishes the closely interwoven connections between fashion, dress and modernist writing, and investigates the ways in which modernist literature written by women uses clothing, with a focus on colour, to represent and interrogate contemporary society and culture. It does this by drawing not only on literary criticism and fashion theory but also historical research and elements of cultural studies. Building upon previous scholarship which has explored the significance of dress and fashion in modernist fiction, this thesis demonstrates that an attentive reading of the non-essentialist nature of colour symbolism and the constant evolution of meaning allows for a still more nuanced, complex understanding of the self, contemporary modernist culture and societal concerns of the time. The thesis concentrates on the novels and short stories of Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield and Jean Rhys published between 1914 and 1939, in addition to Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and Nella Larsen’s two novels Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929). These texts are chosen not only because of their similar stylistic approaches and thematic concerns, but also because they were produced in the three ‘fashion capitals’ of the world at the time – London, Paris and New York – and are particularly attuned to questions of fashion and dress. Although the focus is on these women and their work, I have included, where relevant, reference to their contemporaries, both male and female. Since colour is the primary focus, this dissertation is structured into seven chapters each concentrating on a different colour: brown, yellow, red, green, blue, white and black. For each colour I have identified key items of clothing and discuss their interpretation primarily through the lens of colour. Furthermore, I demonstrate the importance of reading the layers of meaning in dress by an examination of not only the colour but also the style, fabric and finer details of these key garments.