Course Blog

“The Bicycle Suit,” cartoon from Punch, 1895.

“we can make photographs! We have had this studio, with every proper arrangement for light and other things, so that we are not mere amateurs. Why not turn to account the only thing we can do, and start as professional photographers? We should all keep together. It would be a risk, but if we failed we should be very little worse off than before. I know what Lucy thinks of it, already. What have you others to say to it?”

“Oh, Gertrude, need it come to that—to open a shop?” cried Fanny, aghast.

“Fanny, you are behind the age,” said Lucy, hastily. “Don’t you know that it is quite distinguished to keep a shop? That poets sell wall-papers, and first-class honour men sell lamps? That Girton students make bonnets, and are thought none the worse of for doing so?”

“I think it a perfectly splendid idea,” cried Phyllis, sitting up; “we shall be like that good young man in Le Nabab.”

“Indeed, I hope we shall not be like André,” said Gertrude, sitting down by Phyllis on the couch and putting her arm round her, “especially as none of us are likely to write successful tragedies by way of compensation.”

“You two people are getting frivolous,” remarked Lucy, severely, “and there are so many things to consider.”

“First of all,” answered Gertrude, “I want to convince Fanny. Think of all the dull little ways by which women, ladies, are generally reduced to earning their living! But a business—that is so different. It is progressive; a creature capable of growth; the very qualities in which women’s work is dreadfully lacking.” (Levy 9-10).

Amy Levy’s novel The Romance of a Shop can be thought of as proto-feminist at best for its introduction of radical ideas for its time. Women in the 19th century had limited options in improving their class status. Previously, for women to secure a future it was attained through marriage since it was looked down at the time for women to work. Not every woman was afforded the same luck and opportunity to be married thus necessitating an “acceptable” career for women as domestic servants or governess. Levy’s viewpoints can be detected through her introduction to the “New Woman” ideal, a woman who is active in the public sphere and supports herself financially. Although these recently orphaned sisters display radical characteristics in successfully pursuing a hobby in photography to support themselves, they once again return to what is expected of them: marriage.

Gertrude spearheads questions of opening a photography shop to her sisters to financially support themselves. She thinks responsibly and reasons even if they fail, they “should be very little worse off than before” (Levy 9). Gertrude outweighs the possible benefits or consequences and comes to the calculated conclusion any movement forward should be an improvement to their current situation. Fanny, the eldest daughter, laments “need it come to that—to open a shop?” and cries at the thought of being so involved in the public sphere (Levy 9). Fanny acts as an anomaly to her younger, more radical sisters as Fanny is more traditional in her mindset. She symbolizes how women at the time ought to have behaved similarly to their Aunt Caroline who was critical of their modern views on womanhood.

To convince Gertrude’s sister of her new business proposition she argues her ideas are progressive and “all the dull little ways by which woman, ladies, are generally reduced to earn their livings… the very qualities in which women’s work is dreadfully lacking” (Levy 10). Levy utilizes Gertrude to hint at her personal opinions regarding women working and the constraints imposed by society. Opportunities for women to provide for themselves are lacking and Gertrude questions why they should not be allowed to pursue their hobbies to make a living for themselves. The New Woman is to not be confused with the modern woman, this novel only comfortably allows discussion of the emerging new woman and her “masculine” personality for seeking agency and authority. It simply introduces such ideas and though they do succeed in opening a shop, in the end, they all behave as they were originally expected to, which was to seek marriage. Near the end of the novel each sister, disregarding Phyllis’s untimely death, magically ends up in a happy marriage and is well taken care of. Although Lucy continues to work at the shop after marriage the author does not allow either sister to be happy by themselves. They must conform to the expectations of their time to neatly wrap up their story with a bow. This novel allows for the introduction of proto-feminist ideas in its conception but ultimately abides by gender roles applied at the time in ending with submissive wives.

“’Gerty, you have always been good to me; this last week as well. But that is the worst of you good people: you are as hard as stones. You bring me jelly; you sit up all night with me—but you have never forgiven me. You know that is the truth.’… Gertrude’s head drooped lower and lower over the coverlet; her heart, which had been frozen within her, melted. In an agony of love, of remorse, she stretched out her arms, while her sobs came thick and fast, and gathered the wasted figure to her breast. ‘Oh, Phyllis, oh, my child; who am I to forgive you? Is it a question of forgiveness between us? Oh, Phyllis, my little Phyllis, have you forgotten how I love you?’” (177-178).

This is the last interaction recorded between Phyllis and Gertrude, and it is clearly the narrative conclusion of Phyllis’s life, as the next scene simply dully records Phyllis’ death less than a week later, showing that the death itself is less emotionally resonant than the catharsis of this scene, when Gertrude is finally able to let go of her emotional distance and love her sister before her death.

In a material sense, the event of Phyllis’s death harkens strongly back to the same Victorian trope that was the death of poor Lucy Westenra: being a woman who desired. Even more so than Lucy, Phyllis was sexually promiscuous and planned to commit adultery with the married Sidney Darrell. Even after Gertrude’s intervention, it’s already too late: while Phyllis’ three sisters are all allowed to be happily married, she alone sickens and dies. Phyllis’ question to her sister is rooted in this very social convention that she knows she has transgressed against. Gertrude cannot help but

Of course, nothing can save Phyllis at this point. As much as Gertrude may be beyond forgiving her sister, and as much as she may love her, this book will still be published for a Victorian audience, a society that does not forgive the promiscuity of women. Amy Levy cannot escape this convention, and neither can Phyllis. What Levy can do is challenge that convention with Gertrude’s character. Not only does she forgive her sister, she dismisses the notion of Phyllis needing forgiveness altogether—simply because she loves her. Despite Phyllis’ “sin,” Levy has created a character who is a human being and deserves to be loved no matter her virtue. Phyllis may die, but Gertrude at least knows that she doesn’t deserve to.

Gertrude’s fear of loneliness is apparent throughout The Romance of a Shop. At the end of the tenth chapter, Gertrude “wept very bitterly” out of fear that she would be alone once all her sisters were married off (Levy, 127). Her fear is actualized towards the end of the novel when she feels “very lonely” and is “trying to accustom herself in thought to the long years of solitude, of dreariness, which she saw stretching out before her,” after Lucy married Frank (192). Gertrude proceeds to describe her role as “a strong-minded woman” in the rest of the passage, presenting the downsides of being a “New Woman” (192).

For Gertrude, “the world, even when represented by her best friends, had labelled her a strong-minded woman” (192). “Strong-minded” suggests a sense of independence, which is characteristic of the “New Woman.” In this regard, Gertrude seems to be representing the “New Woman” — she is unmarried (therefore independent of a man) and works a job. Levy doesn’t use passive voice here – a choice that suggests a broader social commentary; rather, Levy states that it is the world that gave Gertrude this label of an independent, “New Woman”-like figure. In that regard, Gertrude did not fully choose the position that she is in – society and her circumstances (e.g., death of her father and subsequent lack of inheritance) did.

The notion that society placed Gertrude in the role of the “New Woman” is emphasized when the narrator says that “by universal consent she had been cast for the part” (192). The metaphor of being “cast for the part” immediately removes Gertrude from any position of power to choose the life she wants to lead (192). It is ironic that the idea of the “New Woman” is contrasted with the fact that women, like Gertrude, were perhaps being forced into this new role. That is, it seems counterintuitive for the “New Woman” to be equated with women not having autonomy as to whether they wanted to lead that life.

As Gertrude recognizes her loneliness as an unmarried, working woman, Levy describes her as being “cast for the part, and perforce must go through with it” (192). The use of the word “perforce,” meaning “must” or “inevitably,” signals that Gertrude may feel stuck in the progressive role of a “New Woman,” just as some women feel stuck in the traditional role of having to get married. In this sense, Levy’s descriptions of Gertrude’s struggles suggests that the “New Woman” is just another role that women become boxed into.

In the novel, Romance of a Shop, Gertrude wants to be loved for who she is. While this does not seem too much to ask, apparently it is. The quote that I will mostly focus on for this post is one about respect and love intertwining. “Lord Watergate might have loved her more if he had respected her less, or at least allowed for a little feminine waywardness. Like the rest of the world, he had failed to understand her, to see how weak she was, for all her struggles to be strong” (Levy 294). In this passage, there is the idea that if she was less known by him then she would be loved by him. If this is viewed through the lens of the poem, “In an Artist’s Studio” by Christina Rossetti, it is made clear that men only want women that can provide what they want her to be. The last two lines of the poem state “not as she, but was when hope shone bright; / not as she is, but as she fills his dream” (Rossetti 13-14). The poem is about how a woman is not truly seen, she is nameless and on canvases for men to enjoy and build up an idea of who she is in their own imagination. Much like Rossetti, Gertrude also feels this as she holds onto the idea that Lord Watergate would not love her because he has this respect for her, while he does not know all her weaknesses and struggles, he knows her more than she believes he does. This lens is important because it shows how Gertrude wants to be viewed, part of her wants to be mysterious and not respected so he will love her and the other side of her wants him to know her inside and out and still choose her. However, her story does not end there. Unlike the character in Rossetti’s poem, Gertrude is loved by him, at the end it is important to note that she looks into “the lucid depths of his eyes,” (Levy 297). She finds this depth in him and while it does not say that he also finds this depth, it can be implied in the way that he takes her into his arms. Rossetti’s poem is important because it shows how Gertrude viewed her sisters and herself, as either a painting to be admired or a woman who was too respected to truly love. The new woman and the “old woman” both fail, they both are either left with no love at all or a shallow one. This reflects on the time as the new woman was seen as someone who would never marry, never have children, and be independent. While Amy Levy shows this stereotypical new woman through Gertrude, she adds a sense of humanity and longing for love to her that breaks the stereotype. Levy leaves women who feel like the new woman and also those who want to escape the canvas a seed of hope that they too can be loved as a full person, weaknesses, personality, struggle, and all.

The “New Woman” was a harshly controversial figure throughout the beginning of modern feminism and took many different contending forms. Young, English, author Amy Levy wrote her own way to the New Woman in her 1889 novel The Romance of a Shop. The story explores the relationships between four young sisters as they engage with the world for the first time – each sister takes on a definitive aspect of femininity, and the women are given barely any depth. Through the usage of archetypal understandings of feminism, Amy Levy explores women’s roles in marriage and how it engages with ideas of society and class during the nineteenth century. Because Gertrude Lorimer feels especially trapped by her own propriety and the expectations set for her by herself and society, she is able to grapple with her femininity in a way previously unexplored. 

As the most functional eldest sister Gertrude Lorimer is expected to fix her sister’s mistakes and clean up their messes. She feels the enormous weight of this responsibility and yet is unable to escape it because she feels bound to her duty as the provider. Gertrude must assume “the role of a man” because of the lack of masculinity within the girls’ lives making her a “fountainhead of wisdom” and “a tower of strength” compared to her sisters (Levy 119). Gertrude is constantly being upheld to this standard, and eventually feels trapped by the responsibility she has accumulated. With the end of the novel comes the untimely death of young, beautiful, Phyllis due to an affair, causing her sin to consume her. Out of the tragedy, Gertrude finds herself newly alone and craving external, romantic, love. In a moment of solitude, Gertrude experiences a kind of nervous break, understanding life and love in a new way. The strong, formiddle Gertrude is temporarily disarmed and replaced by the vulnerable young girl she truly is. Dejected by life and consumed by sadness, Gertrude declares that Lord Watergate might have “loved her more if he respected her less” and she begs that he could “understand her, to see how weak she was, for all her struggles to be strong” (Levy 191). Gertrude is desperate for comfort and crumbles within her previously hard shell, no longer able to uphold the expectations of strength, knowledge, and bravery and longs for a man to take those typically masculine responsibilities away from her.

Amy Levy traps Gertrude in a bubble between her understandings of femininity and masculinity which eventually causes Gertrude to break. Throughout the novel Gertrude assumes responsibilities, negotiates and socializes, all new areas for women at the time. Although Gertrude is exposed to the world of new womanhood, she rejects independence and instead chooses to rely on a man to assume her responsibilities. Gertrude Lorimer is a complicated image for the beginning of feminism, because she is a woman who understands what it means to be independent and yet still chooses to find her worth through a man. The breakdown of Gertrude Lorimer is a representational of a woman’s deepest wish, to get married conjoined with the feeling of a lost independence. Gertrude ends the book engaged, fulfilling one wish and ignoring another, which creates the dichotomy of issues the New Woman is made of. 

Although Irene Adler is a minor character in “A Scandal in Bohemia” by Conan Dolye, she is described as a femme fatale archetype, which is a cliche of detective fiction. Ironically, her name means “peace” in Greek, which is not what she is to Sherlock Holmes and Watson throughout the short story as his intellectual rival. Within the first page, she is described as “dubious” and the only woman to oppose Holmes. This single detail establishes the power at play against the detective. Holmes is sure of her strong intelligence and will. He states, “She has the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men.” (Doyle, 8) Two characteristics of a femme fatale are seductiveness and to disrupt the patriarchy, causing men to panic. In this quote, Holmes explicitly states that she is very beautiful and that she is cunning, painting Adler as the stereotypical villain-esc femme fatale. 

 

Mid-way through the story, Adler hurriedly gets married. This action does not align with marriage standards of the time, however the cultural and social expectation that when married, a woman can not own property; therefore the incriminating picture Adler is hiding would technically be her husband’s. Legally, the highly sought after picture is no longer Adler’s after marriage. This is a strategic move on femme fatale Adler’s part; seducing a man to marry her just to use him as jailbait. Also, Adler crossdresses as a man, which is defintutally not the norm in the Victorian Era. Adler’s marriage and crossdressing separates her from any other woman (not that there are any in the stories we read, other than another bride), furthering her as a femme fatale by challenging social concepts. 

Even though Holmes solves the case (which is very Victorian happy ending of him), Adler still gets the best of him, hence her degrading nickname “the woman.” Watson says of Holmes, “He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late.” (Doyle, 19) In this quote Watson tells us that Holmes has a specific image of women and often made fun of women’s intelligence. The seductive, daring Adler broke his image. To Holmes, Irene Adler is a dangerous woman that breaks the mold of what he and most of society believes of women, and is therefore her intelligence (and by extension existence) is a threat to his reputation as a detective and man. 

It is made obvious from the beginning of “Dionea” that the Italian village on whose shores Dionea washed up is intolerant of differences, to say the least. It is immediately clear to the convent and the members of the town that Dionea, simply based on her appearance and inability to speak Italian is different, and she is immediately judged for her clothing as well as her name and skin color. It is stated early on that, “Her (Dionea) 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). This makes it obvious very early on that the locals dislike Dionea, even when she is not harming them and hadn’t begun to cause problems at that point. While a reason isn’t given as to why her companions and the nuns dislike her, this lack of explanation is an indication that Dionea is initially detested simply because of her differences, namely because of her lack of connection to the Catholic church. When the story is read while keeping themes of xenophobia in mind, the idea emerges that the village’s fate at the hands of Dionea was a self fulfilling prophecy, a fate brought on by themselves after the rejection of Dionea.

The onset of the “issues” with Dionea occurs when she is found attempting to try on sacred Catholic garments as well as when she takes a seat on the edge of the altar in the chapel, a spot meant for “the Most Holy Sacrament” (Lee). While these actions may have seemed completely heretical to the nuns and other members of the town, it isn’t taken into consideration that, because Dionea comes from a foreign country and inevitably practiced a different religion if any at all, it could be possible that she simply did not understand how her actions were considered offensive. Even if this was taken into consideration, though, it only would’ve made matters worse as the nuns blindly believed that Catholicism is the one true religion, and would’ve forced it on Dionea no matter what. As someone with no connection to Catholicism, I read about Dionea’s behavior and it seems as though she didn’t understand the sacred nature of the garments, and put them on for fun, like any other young girl dresses up in strange garb. This was not the understanding of the narrator, as he described Dionea’s dress up moment as “… she was about to adorn her wicked little person with these sacred garments” (Lee). Additionally, the narrator and the nuns were displeased about Dionea sitting on the altar, however, Dionea had been oiling the floors and no doubt was tired and simply didn’t realize the importance of the place she had chosen to rest.

It was the village and the nuns as well as the narrator that made the decision to immediately ostracize Dionea because of her differences. Instead of educating her when she went against their beliefs, they criticized her, punished her, no doubt turning Dionea against them all. In the end, that is why Dionea causes the ruckus that she does. The village brought it upon themselves.

In the late nineteenth century, the beginnings of modern feminism were beginning to take root. Some people clung strongly, as is also the case today, to the traditional view that men and women were meant to fill different roles in society, and that women should be subservient to men. Some women, including Amy Levy, agreed with this sentiment, at least to some extent. Others started to promote the idea of a “New Woman,” who was independent and did not rely on men for her needs. Amy Levy did not identify as a feminist, but she seems to have some support for the movement, and she explores these complicated feelings in The Romance of a Shop.

More specifically, Amy Levy uses the characters of Gertrude and Lord Watergate to explore some complex feelings about the burgeoning movement of feminism. Levy writes that Gertrude “had told him not to return and he had taken her at her word. She was paying the penalty, which her sex always pays one way or another, for her struggles for strength and independence” (Levy 294). The use of the phrase “paying the penalty…for strength and independence” indicates a disdain on Levy’s part for women who try to achieve such “strength and independence,” because a woman who even desires such things, much less works for them, is portrayed as someone who must be punished. This is a common trope in literature from this time period, the fin de siècle, for example in Henry James’s Daisy Miller, in which a woman is sent away and ultimately dies, and it is suggested that this is her punishment for being too strong, independent, or acting too much like a man. Therefore, this passage can be read as an extension of that tradition, and as a critique of feminism and women’s emerging independence.

Despite the fact that this passage reads as a critique of feminism, there is one phrase that suggests that it might be something more. Levy writes that “Lord Watergate might have loved (Gertrude) more if he respected her less…” and this is a surprisingly critical phrase that one would not expect to see in a passage critiquing feminism (Levy 294). It seems to critique the idea of heterosexual love by implying that a man must disrespect a woman in order to fully and truly “love” her. It would be expected in a feminist critique for a man to be portrayed as able to love and respect a woman while also keeping her in a subordinate and subservient position. However, in the next half of that sentence, Levy writes that Lord Watergate could also have loved Gertrude more if he “allowed for a little feminine waywardness,” which undermines the point that was just made, implying that all women are naturally unpredictable and disloyal. In this way, therefore, Levy uses The Romance of a Shop to explore complex ideas surrounding feminism.

Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia” didn’t seem particularly gothic on the surface to me, but looking at it more closely, it seems to check a lot of the gothic motif boxes (from the British Library’s website). One of the most noticeable was, like in Dracula, the entrance of an interesting-looking man from eastern Europe into England. Because of this similarity, I was surprised where Holmes’ story went. In Dracula, the Harkers, Seward, Quincey, Van Helsing, and Arthur seek to dispel the foreigner and save England, so when I read that the Bohemian king wanted to steal a photograph from a woman living in England, it surprised me that he was seen as the good guy or victim. But maybe that should not have surprised me given Holmes’ apathetic misogyny toward women, described by Watson in the beginning of the story (1), and the assumptions Holmes makes throughout the story; that “women are naturally secretive ” (14); “a married woman grabs for her baby [and] an unmarried one reached for her jewel-box” (16); and that he immediately takes the side of the king and assumes all the blame falls on Irene. Irene was the young woman, and the king was the sexual transgressor who engaged in a relationship with an inappropriate power imbalance (another gothic motif).  

Holmes taking the side of the king made me think of Moretti’s “Capital Dracula” and his argument about Quincey being a vampire (435-436). Irene is also an American, and she ends up not in England by the end of the story, which effectively happens to Quincey as well, with his death. Moretti mentions the vampiric/American desire to take over the “Old world” (437), which I can see being a message in “A Scandal in Bohemia” as well. Irene’s potential blackmail “‘may have an influence upon European history’” as the king says (5). This seems like an interesting subversion to the idea from “Gothic Motifs” that the past comes back to haunt the present (Clashing time periods), since England is portrayed as the past, being connected to the “history of Europe” and the U.S. as the present/future, being the place where Irene goes off to start a new life. So, in this Sherlock Holmes story, it’s the future that comes to threaten the past instead of the other way around. 

Reading the story with this in mind gave a reason for why Holmes was on the king’s side from the start (why else would he mention that she was born in New Jersey? It doesn’t seem like it should have any importance to the plot). It also seems to sort of excuse Holmes’ failure to solve this mystery, since Irene doesn’t really belong to the society Holmes is used to. She’s a New Woman and an American, and Holmes seems to be stuck in the past regarding his ideas about women. 

 

https://blogs.dickinson.edu/britishlit/files/2023/09/Dracula-Critical-Articles.pdf 

https://edubirdie.com/blog/romantics-and-victorians

For this blog post, I will examine the sharp duality exhibited in two passages of Vernon Lee’s Dionea which occur only one page apart. Just before the climactic ending of the story, Doctor De Rosis describes the imagined form of Waldemar’s wife Gertrude resting peacefully in bed: “I can imagine Gertrude lying awake, the moonbeams on her thin Madonna face, smiling as she thinks of the little ones around her, of the other tiny thing that will soon lie on her breast…” (Lee 25). Throughout the story, descriptions of Gertrude remain consistent in their physicality and allusions. The first mention of Getrude labels her as the “thin, delicate-lipped little Madonna wife of [Waldemar]” (16). A more thorough illustration again mentions “her thin white face” and “her long, delicate white hands,” as well as once again comparing her to “a Memling Madonna finished by some Tuscan sculptor” (19). The three recurring descriptions summarily capture Gertrude’s character: she is thin, white, and delicate, all symbolizing her innate purity. Most importantly, she is repeatedly framed as the Madonna, the holiest female figure of Catholicism. This passage on page 25 in particular reinforces this characterization: Gertrude is bathed in moonlight, emphasizing her whiteness and giving her an almost ethereal quality. Secondly, she is surrounded by her children and is even pregnant with another, explicitly aligning her with the figure of Mother Mary.

This passage is closely followed by a jarring turn in the story when the next morning Waldemar and his wife are found dead at the castle where Waldemar had been working on a sculpture of Dionea. Doctor De Rosis once again describes Gertrude’s body at rest (though not so peacefully) in an eerie echo of her previous positioning: “We found her lying across the altar, her pale hair among the ashes of the incense, her blood – she had but little to give, poor white ghost! – trickling among the carved garlands and rams’ heads, blackening the heaped-up roses” (26). Though Gertrude is still defined by whiteness as she is called a “poor white ghost,” her “pale hair” is sullied by the dark ashes of incense, representing how her purity has been damaged by the unholy desecration of her body. Despite ambiguities in the story, it can be assumed Waldemar, in a fit of insane passion, attempted to sacrifice his wife to the altar of Venus. Not only is the altar related to the Roman goddess of love, but it is also decorated with “carved garlands and rams’ heads,” other symbols of ancient mythology. Since she has been repeatedly posited as the modern manifestation of the Madonna, this marks a sinful misuse of Gertrude’s body in a non-Catholic ritual sacrifice. Even the roses, a hallowed symbol of love, are “blackened” by Gertrude’s blood, symbolizing how the sacred relationship between Waldemar and his wife has been destroyed by this crazed act.

The stark contrast between these two images of Gertrude reveals the story’s implications of the dreaded downfall of modern society itself. Beyond Gertrude’s symbolization of Catholicism, it is essential also to recognize how she serves as a foil to Dionea. While Gertrude is the white, delicate Mother Mary, Dionea is described as having darker skin and a sharp, almost threatening beauty, and is constantly compared to Venus. Even her name implies she may be related to the ancient goddess, as well as her skill with love potions. Throughout the story these characters are constantly at odds, and in the end it is Gertrude who dies, her beautiful pure body desecrated by an archaic pagan ritual, while Dionea disappears. This desecration exhibits the societal fears illustrated by this story through a hallmark of Gothic fiction: the threat of the ancient coming back to the present and endangering modernity. Just like poor Lucy Westenra, Gertrude represents the white, beautiful, vulnerable woman whose purity is defiled by a non-Western, non-modern “other.”