“The lady’s complexion was almost swarthy, and the dark down on her upper lip was almost a moustache. She had a large, firm, masculine mouth and jaw; prominent, piercing, resolute brown eyes; and thick, coal-black hair, growing unusually low down on her forehead. Her expression—bright, frank, and intelligent—appeared, while she was silent, to be altogether wanting in those feminine attractions of gentleness and pliability, without which the beauty of the handsomest woman alive is beauty incomplete.” (Wilkie Collins Project Gutenberg)
The Victorians love phrenology almost as much as they love tea and biscuits. The idea that the way a person looks determines who they are is an insidious idea that is inherently racist because it holds traditionally white features in higher esteem and demeans and dehumanizes everyone else. This pseudoscience can be seen here as Walter Hartright demeans the woman’s features for not being European and Aryan enough. Large features as well as coarse black hair are seen as signs of ugliness. Additionally, this passage shows just how invested Walter is in the traditional ideas of masculinity. The intelligent features, which again is simply phrenology and there is no such thing as looking intelligent that isn’t built off of societal stereotypes that are built around the idea that rich white men are smart and capable which leads us to the ideas of social Darwinism which while I don’t believe has been put into explicit terms yet the idea of “the rich are just better” has been around since forever, are unbecoming to a woman because a woman’s role, in the mind of this fucking jackass, is to be silent and submissive which we see as he says, “while she was silent, to be altogether wanting in those feminine attractions of gentleness and pliability,” a woman’s role is to be silent, pretty, and most importantly, to fit into the cishet white patriarchy.
So long and thanks for all of the fish,
Carmine
I like this take on the pseudoscience of it all, but I do wonder if perhaps physiognomy might be more applicable to the excerpt you analyze here. Personally, I love a good bit of physiognomy dropped into a Victorian novel because it makes me feel like the characters are written in a contextual code that I have to decipher. I agree that the negative connotations used to describe Marian rely upon racial stereotypes that ultimately serve to disparage her appearance. I think this is a theme that we see mirrored in the negative descriptions of Count Fosco’s “yellow-white” skin in comparison to the fair, pale beauty of Laura.
I really agree with and like your assessment of the passage that you pulled from the book. I think you can definitely see this theme throughout the novel, even using what somebody is wearing to make judgements. For example, Hartright sees Anne Catherick and Laura wearing white as a symbol of purity and good intention. It feels like he is even seeing Marian as almost less of a woman because of the way that she looks which is very interesting.