{"id":429,"date":"2020-09-03T16:41:01","date_gmt":"2020-09-03T16:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/?p=429"},"modified":"2020-09-05T00:49:05","modified_gmt":"2020-09-05T00:49:05","slug":"nancys-womanhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/2020\/09\/03\/nancys-womanhood\/","title":{"rendered":"Nancy’s Womanhood"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe\u00a0<\/span>girl\u2019s life had been squandered in the streets<\/span>…<\/span>b<\/span>u<\/span>t\u00a0<\/span>there was something of the woman\u2019s original nature left in her still<\/span><\/i>… (<\/span><\/i>Dick<\/span>e<\/span>ns 225<\/span>, my emphasis<\/span>).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dickens, at the opening of Chapter XL,\u00a0<\/span>enters into<\/span>\u00a0an examination of Nancy as she\u00a0<\/span>begins\u00a0<\/span>her epiphanic<\/span>\u00a0meeting with Rose Maylie<\/span>. He explains that\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>t<\/span>he girl<\/span>\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0[Nancy\u2019s]<\/span>\u00a0life had been squandered in the streets…<\/span>but there was something of the woman\u2019s original nature left in her still<\/span><\/i>…\u201d (225, my emphasis). Dickens\u2019s two major\u00a0<\/span>and c<\/span>ontrasting\u00a0<\/span>portraits of womanhood are in Rose Maylie and Nancy, and here they collide–understanding the significance of having his Eve and Mary in the same room with one another, he opens the chapter immediately onto <\/span>the heavy implications\u00a0<\/span>of \u201cwoman\u2019s original nature\u201d<\/span>\u00a0(225). His suggestion, in this sentence, is that \u201cthe streets\u201d (<\/span>more specifically\u00a0<\/span>\u201cthe stews and dens of London\u201d) have worn Nancy\u2019s innate\u00a0<\/span>womanly nature down to almost nothing. T<\/span>his \u201cwoman\u2019s original nature\u201d is distinct from femininity or sex appeal, from dress or general comportmen<\/span>t; rather, \u201cwoman\u2019s original nature\u201d must be an impulse towards Dickens\u2019s own ideas of morals, goodness, and doing-good. <\/span><\/p>\n

He suggests that\u00a0<\/span>Nancy is a \u201cgirl\u201d but that she retains some degree of \u201cthe woman\u201d within her. This is the reverse of the general transition between girlhood and womanhood which comes with age, experience, and identity. To find \u201cthe woman\u2019s original nature\u201d in \u201cthe girl\u201d, then, is to<\/span>\u00a0suggest a fundamental and indelible mark upon the soul and \u201cnature\u201d of women which makes them distinct from men and from th<\/span>eir own e<\/span>arthly\u00a0<\/span>experience<\/span>\u00a0(<\/span>all of the<\/span>\u00a0complex<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>gender and sex\u00a0<\/span>implications of that suggestion are beyond the scope of <\/span>my post).\u00a0<\/span>It is something that women are born with and which they carry as far as they can into the world, something that can be \u201csquandered in the streets\u201d via prostitution and coarse manners,\u00a0<\/span>male society and crime.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Notably, Christianity teaches that all human beings are born with Original Sin\u2014the sin of Eve, the first woman, in trusting the snake in the garden of Eden and leading humanity (and, perhaps more import<\/span>antly to the Church, mankind) to Fall and lose the paradise and everlasting life which they originally possessed. <\/span>As a\u00a0<\/span>result<\/span>\u00a0all children are born sinners, and women\u00a0<\/span>are<\/span>\u00a0additionally<\/span>\u00a0punished for this with the pain of childbi<\/span>rth.\u00a0<\/span>Dickens would have been intimately familiar with this mythology, yet he suggests that the innate impulse of women is not towards sin and the fall, but towards good-doing and morality. We see this when he suggests that, in giving in to her own\u00a0<\/span>ethical imperative of informing Rose Maylie about Oliver\u2019s past and potential future, Nancy is giving into what is \u201cleft\u201d of \u201cwoman\u2019s original nature\u201d within he<\/span>r. Though she is a \u201cgirl\u201d rather than a \u201cwoman,\u201d she has the germ of womanhood within her, and it is this womanhood which inspires the good deed which effec<\/span>tively kills her (<\/span>the implications of the fact t<\/span>hat Rose Maylie, unquestionably the pinnacle<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>of th<\/span>e novel\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>innate womanly goodness, is the person Nancy reveals her knowledge to, and that she dies after revealing it, is again beyond the scope of my post).\u00a0<\/span>Dickens is making a profound argument about gender, about women, and about the potential for redemption in th<\/span>is fragment of a sentence<\/span>, which\u00a0<\/span>inform<\/span>s not only how we should read the femininity (and masculinity!) of this book, but how he intends to influence the moral makeup\u00a0<\/span>and religious influence\u00a0<\/span>of<\/span>\u00a0and over<\/span>\u00a0his readers.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe\u00a0girl\u2019s life had been squandered in the streets…but\u00a0there was something of the woman\u2019s original nature left in her still… (Dickens 225, my emphasis).\u00a0 Dickens, at the opening of Chapter XL,\u00a0enters into\u00a0an examination of Nancy as she\u00a0begins\u00a0her epiphanic\u00a0meeting with Rose Maylie. He explains that\u00a0\u201cthe girl\u2019s\u00a0[Nancy\u2019s]\u00a0life had been squandered in the streets…but there was something of the … Continue reading Nancy’s Womanhood<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3323,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138877],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2020"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3323"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}