ABSTRACT
Textiles exist in an intimate relationship to the body and personal space, often operating as a language. According to the anthropologists Annette Weiner and Jane Schneider, they have 'an almost limitless potential for communication', and words such as 'fabric', 'woven', 'sewn', 'knit', 'clothe', 'drape', 'warp', 'woof', 'spin' and 'thread' have a global currency as metaphors. Rigby's review and Charlotte Bronte's later response constitute a queer exchange in which two female writers writing as 'men', possibly believing that their opponent is male, spar with each other on the basis of their knowledge of women's clothes. Although Bronte is equivocal about the value of women's sewing and their interest in clothing, many recent critics of Shirley have dismissed as trivial the textile work done by the heroines, particularly Caroline Helstone. Penny Boumelha has referred to sewing as 'the very emblem of futility and the trivialisation of women's talents'.
