The archive of modernity contains countless tales of tragic women. Anna Karenina falling under the wheels of a railway carriage. Emma Bovary coughing up puddles of black bile as her dreams fade into oblivion. Cio-Cio-San impaling herself on a sword after singing the final aria of Madame Butterfly. A defiant Hedda Gabler exploding her skull with her father's pistols. Edna Pontellier walking calmly into the whispering sea. The late nineteenth century is especially rich in tales of tormented femininity, though the annals of female tragedy reach all the way back to Medea and Antigone and all the way forward to Beloved.