In Mona Caird’s “The Yellow Drawing Room,” Clara is depicted as the archetypal “angel in the house.” This term stems from a Coventry Patmore poem describing the ideal woman as tame, docile, and living to serve men. The main character of this story, Mr. St. Vincent, comments that this ideal woman should be “retiring, unobtrusive, indistinguishable even until you come to know her well, and then she is very much like what every other true woman would be under the same conditions” (103). St. Vincent expresses “Certain suspicions which I had harboured that Clara Haydon was my ideal woman grew stronger as I watched her quiet English face bent over the tea-tray… If I was to give up my liberty, the reins should be handed over to a kind, sensible young woman like Clara, who would hate to make herself remarkable, or her drawing room yellow” (104). In other words, a woman who would not actually take the reigns or distinguish herself in any way.
Though St. Vincent clearly feels that Clara checks all the boxes of his perfect wife, it is not Clara that St. Vincent falls for. It is her total opposite– the wild, “new woman” Vanora, who stands out as much as the bright yellow walls she chose for the drawing room. He is incredibly sexually attracted to her, describing her figure as “robust, erect, pliant” and he expresses feeling “penetrated” by her “glowing atmosphere” (105-106). In sexual contexts, the word “penetrates” is usually an action a man does to a woman. Interestingly, here it is Vanora penetrating him, suggesting that she challenges his power and masculinity (not just through her personality, but also her sexuality). In comparison, Clara is physically described with much more boring terms, with a “straightforward look” and “blue eyes and a fair complexion” (104).
St. Vincent’s contempt for Vanora’s behavior and attitude only seem to increase his sexual attraction towards her. He says, “all the dominating instincts of my manhood roused into activity by this hateful experience,” the sexual connotations of the phrase “my manhood roused” connecting his hatred to his lust (108). Further, this desire to dominate her suggests that he is turned on by Vanora’s disobedience and wants to “tame” her (both emotionally and physically).
Ultimately, St. Vincent confesses that he loves and wants to marry Vanora. Clara, fades into the background of the story, still “gentle” when wounded by St. Vincent’s choice.
St. Vincent’s feelings for Vanora, despite Clara meeting every one of his standards for the ideal woman, implies that as the “new woman” emerged, not only were men challenged, but the “angel in the house” was challenged. St. Vincent’s aggressive attraction to Vanora suggests that some Victorian men were intrigued by the “new woman,” desiring the sexual satisfaction of “taming” these women, presenting conflicting guidance for how women should draw in men.
This double standard continues today, as men are often sexually attracted to archetypes like the “femme fatale” that challenge their control. Simultaneously, they don’t want their power challenged, and also to some extent want “traditional wives.” Which is more appealing: an outspoken woman in a tight dress, or a loving, modest woman doing your laundry for you?
Womaninthewallpaper, this is a great analysis, though I wonder what you make of Vanora’s confession of love for St. Vincent. While you argue that Vanora defies the role of “angel in the house,” I would say she ultimately succumbs to it. Her unexplainable attraction to St. Vincent leaves her “miserably dependent on [him]” (109). Isn’t dependence and submission what St. Vincent craves the most? Vanora orbits around St. Vincent’s glowing personality—please detect my sarcasm—as if he were the sun. His absence affects her so much that she must go “abroad” to escape his influence (110). Do you think we readers are meant to take St. Vincent at his word, or is he an unreliable narrator? Does Vanora just take a trip with her sister and St. Vincent reads too much into it? Or, alternatively, do you think Vanora wants to tame St. Vincent just as much as he wants to tame her? I liked the story, but Vanora’s confession just about ruined it for me. All the prescient feminism was washed away in a schlocky, nonsensical plot twist. Please, change my mind!