{"id":1195,"date":"2023-10-19T23:38:04","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T03:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/?p=1195"},"modified":"2023-10-19T23:38:04","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T03:38:04","slug":"gertrude-the-lonely-new-woman-with-no-bicycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/2023\/10\/19\/gertrude-the-lonely-new-woman-with-no-bicycle\/","title":{"rendered":"Gertrude: The Lonely New Woman (with no bicycle?)"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Gertrude\u2019s fear of loneliness is apparent throughout The Romance of a Shop<\/em>. At the end of the tenth chapter, Gertrude \u201cwept very bitterly\u201d 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 \u201cvery lonely\u201d and is \u201ctrying to accustom herself in thought to the long years of solitude, of dreariness, which she saw stretching out before her,\u201d after Lucy married Frank (192). Gertrude proceeds to describe her role as \u201ca strong-minded woman\u201d in the rest of the passage, presenting the downsides of being a \u201cNew Woman\u201d (192).

For Gertrude, \u201cthe world, even when represented by her best friends, had labelled her a strong-minded woman\u201d (192). \u201cStrong-minded\u201d suggests a sense of independence, which is characteristic of the \u201cNew Woman.\u201d In this regard, Gertrude seems to be representing the \u201cNew Woman\u201d — she is unmarried (therefore independent of a man) and works a job. Levy doesn\u2019t use passive voice here \u2013 a choice that suggests a broader social commentary; rather, Levy states that it is the world that gave Gertrude this label of an independent, \u201cNew Woman\u201d-like figure. In that regard, Gertrude did not fully choose the position that she is in \u2013 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 \u201cNew Woman\u201d is emphasized when the narrator says that \u201cby universal consent she had been cast for the part\u201d (192). The metaphor of being \u201ccast for the part\u201d 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 \u201cNew Woman\u201d is contrasted with the fact that women, like Gertrude, were perhaps being forced into this new role. That is, it seems counterintuitive for the \u201cNew Woman\u201d 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 \u201ccast for the part, and perforce must go through with it\u201d (192). The use of the word \u201cperforce,\u201d meaning \u201cmust\u201d or \u201cinevitably,\u201d signals that Gertrude may feel stuck in the progressive role of a \u201cNew Woman,\u201d just as some women feel stuck in the traditional role of having to get married. In this sense, Levy\u2019s descriptions of Gertrude\u2019s struggles suggests that the \u201cNew Woman\u201d is just another role that women become boxed into.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gertrude\u2019s fear of loneliness is apparent throughout The Romance of a Shop. At the end of the tenth chapter, Gertrude \u201cwept very bitterly\u201d 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 \u201cvery lonely\u201d … Continue reading Gertrude: The Lonely New Woman (with no bicycle?)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125361],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5365"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}