In Vernon Lee’s “Dionea,” the majority of the factors that cause Dionea to be seen as a dangerous ‘other’ stem from her interactions and preferences rather than from her mysterious past. Reading “Dionea” through Henderson and Sharpe’s “The Victorian Age” from The Longman Anthology of British Literature helps us see how many of these actions and preferences are undesirable because they oppose the established values of the “ideal Victorian woman” (Henderson and Sharpe 1061).
According to Henderson and Sharpe, the “ideal Victorian woman was supposed to be domestic and pure, selflessly motivated by the desire to serve others rather than fulfill her own needs” (Henderson and Sharpe 1061). Within this desired domesticity is the expectation of acquiring “’female accomplishments’ such as needlework, sketching, or flower arranging” (Henderson and Sharpe 1062). Dionea is intended to learn these skills at the school and convent, as “the accomplishments of young ladies are taught at a very moderate rate at Montemirto” (Lee 6). Doctor Alessandro De Rosis writes, however, that “poor Dionea has no skill” and condemns her to uselessness (Lee 6). The Mother Superior furthers this condescension by insisting that she and the other sisters “will pray to the Madonna and St Francis to make [Dionea] more worthy” (Lee 6). In other words, not only is Dionea incompetent because she can’t learn the trivial “accomplishments” expected of well-bred women, her deficiency marks her as unworthy of the care and education she receives.
Dionea is bad at the “accomplishments of young ladies” and despises them as well. Doctor De Rosis writes that “[Dionea] hates learning, sewing, washing up the dishes, all equally. [He is] sorry to say she shows no natural piety” (Lee 6). Her lack of “natural piety,” in addition to her hatred of activities she’s expected to enjoy, seems to cause the assumption that she is, again, not worthy of the investment of her patron, Lady Savelli. This lacking also seems to automatically mark her “character” as “not so satisfactory,” and makes “[h]er companions detest her, and the nuns, although they admit that she is not exactly naughty, seem to feel her as a dreadful thorn in the flesh” (Lee 6). The nuns’ concession that Dionea “is not exactly naughty” highlights that Dionea doesn’t have to do anything malicious to be treated with scorn; the mere fact that she isn’t like the rest of the women at the convent designates her as an object of hate.
Dionea’s deviation from her expected role as a woman continues from her days at the convent to after she leaves. Henderson and Sharpe note that while “[o]nly a small portion of the nation’s women could afford to remain at home… the constant celebration of home and hearth… made conspicuous domesticity the expected role for well-born and well-married women” (Henderson and Sharpe 1062). Whether or not Dionea is well-born is questionable, but she is constantly called the protégée of Lady Evelyn Savelli, Princess of Sabina, by Doctor De Rosis. This sponsorship elevates Dionea’s status and grants her the education of a woman of higher status, so that Doctor De Rosis expects to be able to marry her well. Even her beauty, however, “does not bring her any nearer getting a husband” due to her poor reputation (Lee 10). Doctor De Rosis writes that Dionea’s “ostensible employment is mending nets, collecting olives, carrying bricks, and other miscellaneous jobs; but her real status is that of village sorceress” (Lee 16). As “[i]t is love-philters that Dionea prepares,” it is known that Dionea works with and prompts matters of love and desire (Lee 17). Dionea’s “evil trade,” as Doctor De Rosis calls it, can be compared to that of the “so-called ‘redundant’ women who could not find husbands or work” and were driven “into prostitution” because of the common subject of socially unacceptable dealings with desire (Lee 17, Henderson and Sharpe 1062) Dionea’s occupation is further from acceptable, though because she chooses it and incorporates the other-worldly variable of sorcery into it.
By defying the social norms she is expected to adhere to while in the convent and living as an adult, Dionea models the characteristics of the new Victorian woman that is considered to be of lesser value than the “domestic and pure” “ideal Victorian woman” (Henderson and Sharpe 1061).