Truths not yet believed: Florence Nightingale’s Cassandra as a social autobiography of Victorian women

Abstract

This article examines Cassandra, an autobiographical essay written by Florence Nightingale, in its various experiments with the autobiographical form and its implications about representation and individuality. It demonstrates how Cassandra blurs the distinction between autobiography and political tract. Nightingale’s autobiography makes us rethink characteristic features of the autobiography form like the retrospective structure, the conversion narrative, and moments of self-reflection, when viewed from the position of women. Cassandra emerges as a work of persevering intellect from within a social space that had denied women the ability to articulate a critical understanding of their constricted lives, and demands a more meaningful role for women outside the family. Cassandra takes the shape of a collective autobiography bordering on a feminist tract that envisions a change in society on behalf of all women.