Epistolary Surveillance: Power and Voice in "Jean Webster’s Daddy-Long-Legs"

Abstract

This research takes the epistolary form of Jean Webster’s Daddy-Long-Legs published in‎ 1912 as a lens through which to examine the novel’s interplay of power. While it has often been asserted that the novel’s letters serve as unintended gifts of self-revelation to Judy’s benefactor, "Javis Pendleton", whose paternalistic –unclear- objectification is nonetheless resisted by Judy. The argument of this research is that the letter-writing mode functions doubly, both as a vehicle for Judy’s agency and as an instrument of social as well as institutional surveillance and control. Central to the inquiry is the tension between Judy’s personal emancipation and the disciplinary overtures of her guardian, which manifest the structure of epistolary surveillance by demanding her letters as the conditions for his material support. The letters function as both a capitalistic self-creation for Judy, which presents a fluctuating tension between power and powerlessness, places readers close to, rather than at a distance from, an evolving subjectivity, and insistently foregrounds the performative process of self-fashioning for an absent yet assumed audience. In placing "Daddy Long Legs" within the social and literary conditions related to early twentieth-century American literature, the research includes critiques of epistolary style within the structure of women's writing and expository influence.