Social marginalization in Susanna Centlivre's the busybody

Abstract EN

This paper aims at studying the idea of social marginalization in Susanna Centlivre's The Busybody.

Such an idea takes a large space in her plays, an idea that is widely held to take a lot of feminist writings.

The playwright explains this subject in terms of love and marriage, which is one of the most frequent themes in the Restoration drama.

She strongly believes that women must be highly respected and valued, because they have their own way of thinking.

Hence, they have to be far from being marginalized by their society.

The perennial aim of feminism is to change women's position, for the advocates of feminism indicate that women are set aside or neglected, an exclusion must be encountered by all possible means.

For this reason, literature functions as a means of assuaging the sense of feminine oppression, and of facing this exclusion.

In actual fact, social marginalization does not take place in a vacuum; rather there are certain factors that lead to have woman marginalized.

It is a phenomenon traceable back to the ancient times, since it is universally shared that men have the upper hand over women