Course Blog

The idea of sexuality experiences an immense amount of change in the Victorian Era and Christina Rossetti does a great job exploring many of the opinions during this time in her poem, “A Triad”.  Upon my first reading of this piece, I noticed that there are three types of women:   one unmarried whore, one young, love struck married girl, and one married woman who is sad and lonely in her relationship.  I think these three women are great portrayals of the many different types of women and relationships of this century and although the poem is short, Rossetti does a great job in depicting the criticism each woman faced.

The first woman is described as “one with lips / Crimson, with cheeks and bosom in a glow” (Rossetti 1).  The Crimson lips brings us back to color red as a symbol of impurity alluding to the one type of woman during this time period who others judge as a whore because she is not tied down to a man.  The second woman “Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show” (Rossetti 5).  This woman is the type of woman whom all Victorian women were supposed to aspire to be.  She is young and in love with a man who basically uses her as a showpiece.  The third woman is “blue with famine after love” (Rossetti 6) who perhaps started her relationship as the young love struck woman but overtime found herself lonely and heartbroken.  These three women depict the complexities of marriage which is new to this time period.

I think the main message that a reader can take away from this poem is that no matter what path a woman chose; their life always ended in a sort of misery.  Rossetti unites these three woman in that they are all battling to find happiness yet as each woman chooses their path, there will always be criticism from others.  They may stay forever on “the threshold” (Rossetti 14) of life and never be able to cross it to find true happiness but I think these three women helped all women in years to come to challenge the norm and cross the threshold to find the independence they were searching for.

Although all the examples of sexuality in “Goblin Market” are purely ones of metaphor, there is still an extremely prominent theme of sex and female sexuality in the poem. Even though Lizzie stays composed and refrains from the “fruits of the goblins” that come out at night, telling her sister Laura “Their offers should not charm us, their evil gifts would harm us.” Laura is seen as pure, graceful and elegant– how the proper woman during the Victorian Era should be. Laura, on the other hand, while she starts out as pure, ends up becoming very impure and develops an “addiction” to the fruit. Once she is lured into the goblin’s’ market, she began to “suck their fruit globes fair or red, sweeter than honey from the rock… she never tasted such before, how could it cloy with the length of use?… she sucked until her lips were sore… and knew not was it night or day as she turned home alone.” Quite obviously, Laura’s encounter with the goblin’s “fruit” is a metaphor for fellatio and loss of her virginity. From this moment on, there is an obvious divergence between Laura and Lizzie– while Lizzie stays pure, works on her chores, and lives for the day, Laura spends her time pining for the fruits of the goblins, thus craving the night and not getting to her chores at all. While Lizzie yearns for the light (referring to heavenly, good tendencies), Laura yearns for the darkness (referring to sin).

When looking at this poem through the lens of the article “Daughters of Decadence: the New Woman in the Victorian Fin de Siecle”, it can be concluded that Rossetti is against the age of the “new woman”, and hopes for womankind to stick to the strict gender roles established for them. One of the largest factors the “new woman” embraces is her sexuality and need for lust. “Pursuing new sensations” was very important to the “new woman”, and freedom to have sex was one of the sensations women were wanting to enjoy. Rossetti warns in her poem the dangers of premarital sex, declaring that all who do will waste their lives away craving nothing but sex and losing sight in the jobs that women must perform. According to Rossetti, sex (after marriage!) is important, because it is seen at the end that the sisters are married with children (which implies that they have had sex), but ultimately, there is no stronger love and passion than love for a sister rather than a man. This is implied when the two say together “for there is no friend like a sister in calm or stormy weather; to cheer one on the tedious way, to fetch one if one goes astray, to lift if one totters down, to strengthen whilst one stands.”

What I am really trying to say here is that while there were many writers that supported this new Victorian idea of the “new woman”, there were many authors, like Rossetti who condemned it.

Rossetti’s poem, “Goblin Market” demonstrates the danger of overindulgence of sexuality. The Goblins’ fruit is representative of sex or sexual activity in some way, which can be clearly seen through the various ways the fruit is treated, one being Laura’s orgasmic reaction to eating it. Once Laura has eaten the fruit she is totally consumed by it as demonstrated by how she pledges to return the next night to buy some more. She says, “I ate and ate my fill, yet my mouth waters still.” Laura craves the fruit, and in other words she craves sex. It is the only thing that can occupy her mind, yet it is killing her. The fact that her mouth continuously waters for the fruit shows a fear of overindulgence. Laura becomes all consumed with the fruit, which leads to her literally becoming blinded. I think this shows how the Victorians were in some way afraid of sexuality because they believed that it would unleash something within a self. Sex is so taboo, that there seems to be a fear that once someone experiences it, they will turn into a sex crazed person.

After Laura eats the fruit she literally can do nothing else, “She no more swept the house, tended the fowls or cows, fetch’d honey, kneaded cakes of wheat…and would not eat.” It is as if once Laura has this experience she cannot be a good domestic woman. She stops her household chores and her hunger seems to be totally satiated for she ate no more. She only regenerates when she is repulsed by the fruit, “Swift fire spread through her veins, knocked at her heart, met the fire smoldering there and overbore its lesser flames.” It’s almost as if Laura is being exorcised. Her disgust for the fruit overpowers the passion she has for the fruit. And only when she fully recognizes her disgust, is when she regenerates. Rossetti ends the poem by restoring Victorian ideals.

Science and Pseudoscience figure prominently in Dracula because they reflect the confusion that Victorians felt about the mysteries of the modern world.  Throughout the novel, the line between science, pseudoscience, and superstition is blurred.   Although living in a time of modernity, some vestiges of the older times were still part of Victorian life such as superstition, belief in the occult, and seances.  Characters in Dracula  attempt to use science in order to explain a world of chaos and disorder, thereby representing a distinct Victorian anxiety.

Throughout Dracula, characters continually attempt to use science in order to solve their problems with the supernatural.  With the exception of Van Helsing, all of the characters need to be told that supernatural means need to be used to counteract supernatural forces.  For example, despite all of the evidence to suggest that there is no scientific explanation for Lucy’s behavior, her unnatural pallor, and her lack of body decomposition after death, Dr. Seward remains apprehensive.  He asks Van Helsing, “‘But why do it at all? The girl is dead. Why mutilate her poor body without need? And if there is no necessity for a post-mortem and nothing to gain by it, no good to her, to us, to science, to human knowledge, why do it? Without such it is monstrous.’” (Stoker, 236).  Dr. Seward’s sensibilities as a Victorian doctor are challenged by Van Helsing.  He believes that nothing can be gained in terms of scientific knowledge by driving a stake through Lucy’s heart, but he fails to acknowledge what he saw before her death; that there were bite marks on her neck, garlic that had to be put around her neck, a crucifix, and that they had to transfuse blood into her despite the fact that he never saw her bleeding. Throughout Dr. Seward’s time with Lucy, un-scientific phenomena occurred, but he rejected it and refused to believe it because he could not concede that science was not able explain what happened before his eyes.  Moreover, the books that Van Helsing consults in order to treat Lucy’s vampire are all in Amsterdam, that is they are outsides of the confines of England.   

Van Helsing says, “I must go back to Amsterdam tonight. . . There are books there and things that I want” (Stoker, 178) and again later in the novel, as whenever he has to do research about the supernatural, it appears that no resources in England will help him.  One connotation of this is that the intellectual elite of England’s modern society is done with the supernatural superstitions of the past, while foreigners are more reluctant to part with old ways of belief.  This reflects the debate in Victorian society of science, versus religion, versus superstition which is why this science and pseudoscience feature so prominently in the novel.

Overall, science is the first resort of Dracula’s main characters.  This illustrates the changing times in Victorian society, showing that although science was deemed to be the best way to explain phenomena, other forms of belief such as superstition, and religion still had a place in the world.

Dracula as a story may be seen as a classic horror tale of a bloodsucking monster who dines on the blood of the living, an embodiment of Satan himself getting the weak to bow down to him. But an underlying meaning of the character and what he represents is what I feel Bram Stoker was genuinely trying to get across to his readers, the hope to display woman as having the same desires as men through sexuality in his writing. Stoker, by pointing out the sexual repression of women during the Victorian era was hoping to display how during the period they were expected to be pure until marriage and not show or perform any seductive or flirtatious acts around men. An example of how Bram Stoker was attempting to get this message across can be seen in this quote. “In a sort of sleep-waking, vague, unconscious way she opened her eyes, which were now dull and hard at once, and said in a soft, voluptuous voice, such as I had never heard from her lips, “Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come! Kiss me!”(Stoker, 70-71). The context of this quote is from Lucy attempting to seduce Arthur Holmwood in an attempt to kill him to escape what is her apparent demise. The relation to the new woman and this quote is that while Lucy is turning into a vampire, she becomes overly sexualized. Like other vampires around Dracula, her repressed sexuality is finally noticed, and she becomes the sexual aggressor instead of having men flock to her in attempts to gain her hand in marriage.

This piece of text taken from Greg Buzwell’s article Dracula: vampires, perversity, and Victorian anxieties, ties well with what I believe Stoker was hoping to get across, “Some critics have argued that Stoker uses the character of Lucy to attack the concept of the New Woman – a term coined towards the end of the Victorian era to describe women who were taking advantage of newly available educational and employment opportunities to break free from the intellectual and social restraints imposed upon them by a male-dominated society.” These “new woman” were trying to change the game and become the ones who were going after men, or at least add a balance that was unseen before this time. To summarize the main point, I believe Stoker is promoting not primarily sexualization of woman, but the ability to let women feel and do as they please instead of leaving themselves to do what men decide is ok for them to do within this era.

 

 

The Victorian period experienced many cases of authors and artists thinking about and expressing women’s roles in society differently. One fear pertained to marriage and sexuality. During this time young girls were expected to be looking for a husband, but to make sure they were never suggestive of having a sexual appetite. Women desired marriage because it allowed them to become mothers, not because they could pursue their sexual desires. Once married women were inferior to men, women had no say or choice over their life. In most cases men held all the resources and women were dependent on them. The ideal was that women would be under the control of, and in the service of, a man. However, Christina Rossetti’s poem “No, Thank You, John” is a piece of literature that challenges the relationship and power between men and women of the Victorian era.

The poem shows a conflicting love relationship between a male and female. The male is interested in pursuing their friendship further, however, the speaker does not reciprocate those feelings. Throughout the poem, the speaker repeatedly informs the suitor that she does not love him and refuses to be more than friends with him.

You know I never loved you, John;
No fault of mine made me your toast:
Why will you haunt me with a face as wan
As shows an hour-old ghost? (5-8)
[…]
Let bygones be bygones:
Don’t call me false, who owed not to be true:
I’d rather answer “No” to fifty Johns
Than answer “Yes” to you. (17-20)
[…]
In open treat. Rise above
Quibbles and shuffling off and on:
Here’s friendship for you if you like; but love, –
No, thank you, John. (29-32)

Rossetti gives the female speaker power. The speaker can use her voice to get what she wants. It enables her the power to achieve agency, equality, and self-sufficiency. She no longer must be weak and inferior to men, she has the control. This poem goes against the norms of the Victorian era and challenges the ideal of women’s rights and gender relations.

 

Rossetti, Christina. “No, Thank You, John.” Goblin Market and Other Poems. Ed. Candace Ward. New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 2004. Print.

In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the monster Count Dracula is a manifestation of a multitude of Victorian fears and obsessions. Dracula represents the simultaneous fear and obsession with people from other lands. Although it is natural to fear the unknown, such as what could be creeping in the dark, the British population fears lied in the foreign people they knew little about. Dracula represents a common demonization of foreigners seen in other novels such as Jane Eyre, Heart of Darkness, in which non-British people are shown to be subhuman (or in Dracula’s case not human at all) and pose a threat to the pure British characters. Even without his supernatural powers, Dracula is a fearful figure in the sense that he embodies the anxieties of reverse colonization. When Jonathan was going around Dracula’s castle, he came across a myriad of English literature. On these Dracula states, “Through them I have come to know your great England; and to know her is to love her. I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London…” (Stroker 27) Unlike the British, Dracula knows all about the people foreign to him leaving him with the upper hand. At the same time historically, the people who had been colonized by the British were assimilated and taught the Victorian way of life. In the Victorian eye, this left them vulnerable to be colonized in return.

One would argue that Van Helsing’s presence on the good side meant that the depiction of foreigners was not completely negative, but in reality, Stoker painted just as bad a picture of foreigners with Van Helsing as he did with Dracula only he used different techniques to do so. Even if Van Helsing is a protagonist in the story, his depiction still shows a demeaning representation of foreign peoples. Even if he is said to be an extremely learned man, yet Stoker put great effort in making Van Helsing speech choppy and grammatically confusing. On top of this, he rarely went beyond being the superstitious foreigner trope in his characterization.  His presence in the novel serves to praise the British on their “perfection”,  as seen when he praises Mina and Arthur multiple times. Van Helsing serves to reassure the Victorian reader that there are still good, loyal foreigners who knew their place.  The fixation on these representations of different ethnicity stems from the vast brutality of the British Empire.  The Victorian people were exposed to diverse people from all around the world and treated them like specimen rather than human since they first stepped into foreign lands. The fascination with “otherness” is basically the Victorian people trying to hypothesis, examine, and come to conclusions in an attempt to understand “others”,  while doing everything to not have to consider non-British people their counterparts. 

 

In Conclusion,

              With a sharp tongue, willingness to defy gender roles, and a spark of scandal, a “New Woman” has entered Victorian literature. Christina Rossetti explores this New Woman and her connection to gender and sexuality through her poem, “‘No, Thank You, John’.”

              The poem begins with, “I never said I loved you John,” (Rossetti, 1) a blunt declaration that immediately strays away from the definition of an ideal Victorian woman. Rather than being submissive, our speaker becomes authoritative and directly attacks a man with whose views she doesn’t agree with. In the next line, she mentions that John has “tease[d] [her] day by day” (Rossetti, 2). This statement juxtaposes tradition gender roles and takes a stab at masculinity. Normally, it is presumed that women are the ones teasing and taunting men. This theme is seen in our previous poem, “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning, where the Duke’s wife, “thanked men—good!” (Browning, 31) which became the main source of the female downfall. Yet, through the words of Rossetti’s strong, confident, female speaker, we learn that the tables have turned. Therefore, the topic of sexuality is challenged considering the man is now the person pining over his lover, rather than the other way around. This is important for this era because typically females don’t have much power in their marriage or relationships. Browning’s work revealed that women often become the property of their male counterpart once he gives them a “nine-hundred-years-old-name” (Browning, 33) they can’t refuse.

               However, we see a completely different version of women through Rossetti’s poem. In fact, any masculine authority is taken away all together. The only time we hear John’s thoughts are when the speaker is recalling them to the reader. “I have no heart?” (Rossetti, 13) she mentions, bringing up a statement John previously used to undermine her with. By hearing his words coming from her mouth, she completely takes control of the situation, taking his former accusation and making him the victim of the attack instead. Later that stanza, she tells him to “use [his] own common sense” (Rossetti, 16). Here, she commands him and refers to him in a child-like manner. Rather than the male and female being equals, she speaks lower of him as if she is on an elevated plain.   

               The idea of sexuality is perhaps seen best in the endings line, “Here’s friendship for you if you like; but love, –No, thank you John” (Rossetti, 31-32). The speaker asserts that a woman doesn’t have to love a man even though he’s interested in her, she has control over whether or not see wants to love him as well. The ideas of the New Woman ring true through Rossetti’s poem and prove that women are progressing and taking a stand for what they believe.

England’s industrial revolution brought with it expansive colonization in countries like India and Africa, where England sought to conduct extensive trade. England established its colonies along with a network of trade routes, so that products could be shipped to and from England’s shores. With new innovations in nautical technology, such as steamships, England’s 19th century colonization efforts worked in full force. This kind of volume of economic activity also brought with it a significant volume of fears and doubts regarding this new and connected world. Evidence of this fear of colonization is can be found in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
As products flowed through England’s ports, so did people of different nations and of different races. This clearly created much unrest amongst the British population, as elements of other cultures began to mingle traditional British culture. On page 60 in Dracula Johnathan Harker states “this was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons.” Based this quote by Harker, the point can be made that Dracula is viewed as more of an invader than an immigrant. The cultural practices and traditions he may bring to England as an immigrant, disregarding the fact that he is a blood thirsty vampire, posed a threat to traditional English culture in the eyes of many British citizens.
The creation of Dracula as a foreign character with intentions of purchasing property in England played directly into the fears of the Victorian era population, thus making the novel incredibly popular, as it provided exactly what its genre suggested, horror.
Source:
https://www.britannica.com/place/British-Empire

During the Victorian period and as we have seen in many of our text this far  a women’s sexuality tends to define her role in society. Some women use there gender as power such as Lady Audley for example. However there are some women who fall into the trap of letting society dictate what they yearn for and the position that they are suppose to acquire in life. This is not the case in the poem “No, Thank You, John” a young women is vehemently trying to explain to a man named John that she is not interested in him in the most polite way possible. The poem gives the reader the appearance that she has already given him an answer of I am not interested and he refused to let that be her final answer.

The young women’s voice in this poem feels very familiar to the struggles of women in the modern day. Men have still not learned that when a woman expresses she is disinterested the best thing to do is take your rejection and keep it moving! In Victorian times men were under the impression that woman would have to be interested in them if she wanted to have good position in society. She could not do that unless she was wed and John appears to be a man who thought he was the best catch for her.

The young women in this poem seems to be an outspoken woman for her time as she asserts her power to inform John once again that despite his insults and aggression, she still had a lack of interest maybe even more so than before. ” I have no heart?—perhaps I have not;  But then you’re mad to take offence. That I don’t give you what I have not got: Use your own common sense.”

Personally, I am pleased that this poem is showing the importance of woman’s choice and the right to always say no. However, I was surprised because woman’s choice and the right to say no do not seem to be very important factors during the Victorian period. In fact this poem signals a woman who is voicing her right to be independent. She is showing that women have the right to be in control of their decisions especially when it comes to choosing a suitor.

This poem shows that a women can challenge the social norms to be in charge of her sexuality. It defies the argument that a women is around solely for the purpose of men and that if a woman pleases she can choose not to be interested in a man, no matter his position in life.