Class Blog

In the Victorian Web’s article, “The Femme Fetale As Object” by Elizabeth Brown, she describes the portrayal of these Victorian women in artwork. In many paintings, women aren’t shown in their true form, but rather versions of themselves with altered proportions. For example, women would be shown with a more elongated spine or longer legs, so they were not always anatomically correct in their portraits. Through these alterations, these women were reduced to a version of themselves based mostly on “pleasing arrangements of shapes and light.” (Brown). The idea of a woman being dismembered in such a fashion reminded me of Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess.” The speaker in the poem doesn’t refer to the duchess as an entity, but rather reduces her to her features, and talks specifically about parts of her, but never describes the entire painting. Through the freedom of artists to alter their paintings to idealize proportions, the woman is not only anatomically incorrect, but her value and individuality are diminished.

The first line in “My Last Duchess” that struck me was when the speaker took note specifically of Fra Pandolf’s hands. By switching the subject of the sentence from the artist to his hands, it dehumanizes him and reduces his creativeness to the tools of his creation-his hands. This is consistent with his descriptions of the duchess, as he goes on to describe the way she blushes. He doesn’t say the word blush, however, which connotes charm and modesty. Instead, the word he uses to describe the flush in her cheeks is “spot.” A “spot of joy” was not a positive description to me as a reader. Instead, it made me think of a stain or something unwanted and undesirable. He does not describe the rest of her face or ever discuss the description of her image as a whole, but he does talk about her mouth and her “smiles” that she wears too often in his opinion. He expresses here his distaste in her flirtatious nature, and his jealousy and unpleasant demeanor become evident. The “femme fatale” is often defined as “a very attractive woman who causes trouble or unhappiness for the men who become involved with her,” which is consistent with the description of the duchess and the husband that survived her.

The imagery present in “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning is fragmented and oftentimes focuses only on specific snippets of images. I found the parallel of the style in which Victorian women were painted and the structure of this poem to be really interesting. The idea of using fragmented parts to create a more appealing whole is consistent in both mediums.

In “Goblin Market” by Christina Rosetti, there are several allusions to female sexuality, even though historically it is a tale about sisterly love. The numerous references to fruit and flowers, to me, served as a metaphor for sexuality and a loss of virginity. Specifically, in the passage where the maidens refer to Jeanie, whose demise serves as the cautionary tale steering the women away from the goblin merchants, I felt as though there were several blatant hints at sex or repeated sexual encounters. The women say, “Do you not remember Jeanie,/How she met them in the moonlight,/ Took their gifts both choice and many,/ Ate their fruits and wore their flowers/ Plucked from bowers/ Where summer ripens at all hours.” (147-152). The choice of words, and the structure of this passage is what made it stand out the most to me in its references to a potential sexual relationship with Jeanie and the goblin men.

The first word that stood out to me here was “moonlight.” I found it interesting that a young woman was going to a market that sells fruit in the nighttime, instead of during the day. The moon is also a repeating image in the poem, as it has several connections with danger and temptation. It is also interesting to note that after Laura eats the goblin fruit in the moonlight, she becomes in sync with the moon’s changing phases. She starts to “dwindle” when the moon changes out of its full phase. The moon and the nighttime are often associated with danger and the unknown, and, since Lizzie and Laura are Victorian women, they have been advised to stay out of anything that causes potential harm or could lead them to lost purity. The theme of purity and its importance was highlighted for me in the fourth and fifth lines of the passage I chose, where Jeanie “Ate their fruits and wore their flowers/ Plucked from bowers.” Here, the use of “fruit” and “flowers” together in a line suggested to me the image of the female reproductive system. A flower is delicate and pure, and the following line “plucked from bowers” suggests that the purity is no longer there and significant. Since a woman’s bowers are her private room or bedroom, I felt as though this line meant that her purity was plucked from her through sexual acts.

Even though the poem “Goblin Market” contains a powerful anecdote of sisterly love, I think through the excessive sexual imagery and the violence of the men towards Lizzie later in the poem, it suggests a darker theme. In the passage introducing Jeanie, I felt as though the words chosen were very deliberate, and allowed the reader to see the sexual undertones present.

   I have chosen to write about the musical version of The Woman in White by Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Zippel. Although I was unable to find the entire musical online, I was able to find bits and pieces, as well as read the summary, reception, and more. Putting aside the fact that the writers had to edit out many parts of the novel in order for the musical to be of acceptable length, I want to address what main parts they did leave out, as well as what the writers changed. First, the entire storyline regarding Pesca’s history with Walter, as well as his involvement with Fosco’s demise is completely omitted. More importantly, Fosco’s death does not even exist in the musical. This lessens Fosco’s involvement in his and Glyde’s manipulation of Laura and Marian, as well as his involvement in the entire storyline as a whole. Second, Glyde’s secret is completely altered. Instead of being a bastard child, it is revealed that he had raped Anne and then drowned the child that was created from the act. This creates Glyde to be more despicable than ever, because there is practically nothing more terrible than killing children in the eyes of the public. These two substantial changes portray Glyde as the true villain in this interpretation instead of Fosco.

   This causes a decreasing importance of Fosco’s character, as well as depicts him as less dishonorable than his character in the novel. Perhaps the sole purpose of these deletions and adjustments were simply to shorten the story, but most likely they were also to simplify it. It appears that having two antagonists, one obvious but the other more subtle, is too complicated for a modern audience. Back in the Victorian era, people were expected to know others’ names without asking, as well as memorize family trees and ties of those around them. These social expectations are no longer in place for our generation, but even so, what does that say about society today if we can’t even keep a storyline of a classic novel the same for our own convenience?

The portrayal of the nameless lady in Christina Rossetti’s poem In an Artist’s Studio evokes, in many ways, Laura’s representation in the Woman in White. These two female figures are, in fact, similarly objectified and described as the center of male desires and of their own projections.

Portrayed differently in each painting, as “a queen in opal or ruby dress”, “a nameless girl”, “a saint” or “an angel” (Rossetti 5,6,7), the woman of Rossetti’s poem has been completely deprived of her real identity in order to become a mere reflection of the painter’s desires. This description seems to match almost perfectly Laura’s in Collins’ novel. The last verse of the poem, in fact, could be easily referred to her character, since Walter shapes Laura in the same way the painter depicts his lady: “not as she is, but as she fills his dream” (Rossetti 14).

Walter’s objectification of Laura, although veiled, can be seen since the beginning of the novel, when on their first meeting he describes a water colour drawing he made of her instead of describing her directly. Walter therefore portrays Laura as he sees her and as he wants her to be, while the real Laura is silenced. A perfect example of how he makes Laura “even more hazy and less individualized” (Donaghy, 393) can be seen a few pages later when he says “think of her as you thought of the first woman who quickened the pulses within you that the rest of her sex had no art to stir…Take her as a visionary nursling of your own fancy; and she will grow upon you, all the more clearly, as the living woman who dwells in mine” (Collins, 52). Laura is here generalized and her emptiness of character is seen as necessary, since she functions as a center of projection of the other characters’ desires.

Therefore, the two figures of Laura and of the nameless woman in Rossetti’s poem, seem almost to overlap, as both their identities, although in different ways, have been completely annihilated by a male figure. In fact, both the painter, through his work, and Walter, through his actions and narration, objectify the two women whose role is merely reduced to “a blank to be filled by male desire” (Donaghy, 393).

She cried, “Laura,” up the garden,

“Did you miss me?

Come and kiss me.

Never mind my bruises,

Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices

Squeez’d from goblin fruits for you,

Goblin pulp and goblin dew.

Eat me, drink me, love me;

Laura, make much of me;

For your sake I have braved the glen

And had to do with goblin merchant men.”

“Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti, lines 468-474

    In Christina Rossetti’s poem, “Goblin Market,” she interprets sisterly love. On the surface, the poem tells the story of Lizzie and Laura’s strong bond of sisterhood and how it conquers anything. However, just below lies the sexual language shared between the two characters. After getting covered in fruit juice, Lizzie runs home and begs her sister to drink it off of her body so that she may hopefully be satisfied. “Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices / eat me, drink me, love me” (Rossetti 468, 71). Here, Lizzie lists all the different ways Lizzie could attain the fruit juice from off of her body. These action verbs are very demanding, giving off a sense of desperation. Lizzie, desperate to save her sister’s well-being, demands that Laura drink. This idea that Lizzie would do anything for her sister is what children are supposed to learn from this poem. However, the language Rossetti uses is overtly sexual. Because of this sexual language, readers get the idea that perhaps Lizzie and Laura cross the line between sisters and lovers. Due to earlier language—as well as the subject matter of the poem in general—about forbidden fruit, a famous tale from the Bible comes to mind. These Biblical themes include sin, and, if lovers, Lizzie and Laura would be breaking multiple rules. Incest, pre-marital sex, as well as sex with the same gender are all considered sins. This theme of blurring the line between sisters and lovers is common among Victorian literature. Perhaps this says something about this particular time period’s desires, repressed so much by popular culture that they think about taking them out on other close members of their lives.

“If there ever comes a time when the women of the world come together purely and simply for the benefit of mankind, it will be a force such as the world has never known.” Matthew Arnold

The image displayed above is a snapshot of a larger painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti that illustrates a bride and her four bridesmaids.  The painting is probably most famous for its exoticism, but for the purpose of this post I will be focusing on the two women above.

Throughout many of our texts, sisterly bonds prove to be very powerful and withstanding of all outside pressures and evils.  Our first duo, Laura and Marian, are so intimate that Carolyn Dever writes, “the union of Laura and Marian is […] a union based on emotional depth, mutual trust, and the presumption of permanence” (114).  In spite of Sir Percival’s plot to embezzle their family fortune and install Laura into an asylum in lieu of her phenotypical twin, the sisterly bond between these two half sisters maintains its resilience throughout the Woman in White.

More recently in the course we’ve been introduced to a new couple of sisters, Laura and Lizzie.  In her poem “Goblin Market,” Christina G. Rossetti describes the two, “like two pigeons in one nest” and “two blossoms on one stem” (478, 6, 2-5).  And in the face of “the haunted glen,/The wicked, quaint fruit merchant men” the women survive a near death.  And in its sum, the last few lines of the poem praise the strength of sisterly bonds: “‘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 one if one totters down,/To strengthen whilst one stands’ (488, 26, 21-26).

If we return to the painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the bride and her closest bridesmaid, most likely her sister, seem like a particularly potent pair.  There is a clear sexual tension present and both the women make bold eye contact with the gaze of their audience, suggesting their fearlessness.  But if you examine the two women separately:

their individual expressions maintain the innocence and purity of the ideal Victorian woman seen in many of the paintings by the Pre-Raphaelite artists.

And so it appears that the company of another woman or a group of women is what gives them their power.  This is something that Matthew Arnold clearly understood and I think it is also an underlying fear, perhaps, of other Victorian authors and painters.  For both pairs, Laura and Marian and Laura and Lizzie, possess a virtue, competence, and strength that suggests “a force such as the world has never known.”

 

 

The femme fatale is beautiful and powerful—and constantly oppressed. She is viewed as dangerous and because of this is tamed in a variety of ways. As Laura Mulvey argues in her article “The Femme Fatale as an Object”, one of the many ways in which the femme fatale is weakened is through representation in art. She explains that the painted woman has been reduced to “a type of formula of rotund pieces of flesh, hair and facial features. They weren’t portraying individual women, but an idealized composite of recognizable parts”(citation). This argument comes to life in a handful of Victorian works, a good example being Manet’s famous “Olympia”.

This piece is one of many works of art that depict the woman as an object to gaze at and admire. Like Mulvey argues, she is not an individual but an idealized woman. Her tiny feet, daintily covered genital area, stylized breasts, and outward gaze are all details that turn our subject into an object of male pleasure as opposed to a powerful sexual figure. Although the powerful sexual woman in art is elusive, she does in fact exist. Moreau’s “The Apparition” is a perfect example of the unrestrained femme fatale.

Unlike the vulnerable naked figure in the previous piece (and so many others), this woman is not vulnerable in the slightest. She is both naked and powerful—using her own sexuality to her advantage. This piece tells the story of Salome (the woman) who danced so beautifully and sensuously she was granted anything she desired, which happened to be the head of John the Baptist. Salome is sensuous, powerful, and quite obviously dangerous. She is the femme fatale unchecked.

Salome is the free femme fatale for two main reasons. First of all, she stands out. The entire painting focuses on her and her victim. In artworks that repress the femme fatale, the woman is objectified and stripped of her own identity. Salome’s possession of her own name is the possession of her own identity. She is not another woman to look at and gaze upon but a woman to revere. But you couldn’t gaze into her eyes even if you desired to. The objectified femme fatale cannot consent to give her gaze to others for it is always on display at the leisure of the man. But Salome is turned away, almost as if she is dismissing those trying to gaze upon her.

Salome is the reason why the femme fatale is oppressed, restricted and objectified. She wields the unchecked sexual power than men are so afraid of…and maybe this fear is for good reason. Who knows whose head she’ll want next.

In his essay Why Are Women Redundant? William Rathbone Gregg discusses what he saw as a great problem facing the Victorian age: Single women.  Single, working women were not fulfilling their womanly duties, (to be married to men and care for the home and children) and instead were wasting their lives working and remaining unmarried.

“There are hundreds of thousands of women…who, in place of completing, sweetening, and embellishing the existence of others, are compelled to lead an independent and incomplete existence of their own….In great cities, thousands, again, are toiling in the ill-paid métier of sempstresses and needlewomen, wasting life and soul, gathering the scantiest subsistence, and surrounded by the most overpowering and insidious temptations” (Gregg, 158).

This particular quote from Gregg’s article brought to mind the poem The Lady of Shalott by Lord Alfred Tennyson, specifically the first stanza of the second section of the poem.

In the first stanza we are told that, “No time hath she to sport and play:/ A charmed web she weaves alway.” (II. 37-38). Here we are introduced to the Lady of Shalott in a similar manner to how Gregg describes the single women; She is alone (single) and spends her days working with no time to  do anything else for her own enjoyment and with little in return. Similar to these single, working women, the Lady of Shalott is also surrounded by temptation. “A curse is on her, if she stay/ Her weaving, either night or day,/ To look down to Camelot” (II. 39-41). I believe that this line takes what Gregg is saying a step further, and that while the temptations are present, it is indulging in them that would lead to a single woman’s end, (and similarly the Lady of Shalott). Additionally, because later in the poem the Lady of Shalott does give into temptation, single women cannot be trusted to have the strength of will to stay away from such dangerous temptations.

What I interpreted the repercussions to be for giving into these temptations is that the woman becomes unmarriable, and just like the Lady of Shalott they are doomed to die alone as a single woman. In a way, this poem can be viewed as a warning to single women, that they must marry to avoid this terrible fate the Lady of Shalott was left to.

   

 

Both Christina Rossetti’s poem Goblin Market and the Illman Brothers’ etching The Fair Dreamer engage in a long artistic tradition of placing females in idyllic settings. In both texts, nature is associated with sexual desire and seduction.

While The Fair Dreamer may appear like an innocent portrait of a sleeping female figure, a closer look suggests salacious undertones. The bend of the tree on which the woman rests draws attention to the sensuous S-curve of her body. Although her body remains covered, the shadows and highlights on her skirts create the impression of stretched fabric and consequently suggest that her knees are spread apart provocatively. Reinforcing this sexual position, the tension in the clenched hand that tightly grips the tree branch suggests the ecstasy of climaxing, rather than the relaxation of sleeping. The propriety signified by her parasol and hat is cast carelessly aside as she basks in the wood by a brook on a lush summer day.

In a similar way, Goblin Market also posits nature as the site of sexual desire. For example, the poem repeatedly locates the goblin men selling their fruit in a “glen” (474, 477, 488) by a “brook” (474, 479, 488). This emphasis on sexual threat, represented by the goblin men, within a natural setting is emphasized by the parenthetical line “(Men sell not such in any town)” (488), “such” referring to “fruits” two lines previously. The populated “town” is free of corrupting fruit, but the “haunted glen” (488) is fraught with temptation. Like the etching, which suggests the fertility of summer by depicting a thick canopy of green leaves and tall reeds, the poem sets the action in “summer weather” (480). The “warm” wind suggests the heat of desire and passion (474).

Just as the curves of the woman’s figure are mirrored in the contour of the tree trunk in The Fair Dreamer, Goblin Market frequently compares the sisters to trees. For example, a simile likens Laura’s “gleaming neck” to a “moonlit poplar branch” (475), and later in the poem her “fallen” nature is compared to “a wind-uprooted tree” (487). Lizzie, too, is compared to a tree to emphasize her simultaneous strength and vulnerability:

“Like a fruit-crowned orange-tree

White with blossoms honey-sweet

Sore beset by wasp and bee” (484).

The stingers associated with “wasp and bee” here suggest a phallic metaphor, as does the earlier description of the “Their hungry thirsty roots” (474). In the poem, the antecedent of the pronoun “they” is ambiguous, referring to either “goblin men” or “fruits”; the phallic image of “roots” is paralleled in the skinny tree branch that the woman grips in The Fair Dreamer.

As these two texts demonstrate, sexual desire is often juxtaposed with nature because of its fertility, seclusion, and phallic associations. Yet the texts muddy the exact relationship between nature and women: are women one with nature, or does nature pose a particular threat to them?

Having viewed the painting of The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse before reading the poem that it was originally inspired by, I already felt struck by this incredible painting. After examining both the poem and the painting, it is evident to see how both poet and artist reject traditional Victorian ideals, while even furthering the ideologies of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. There is a constant struggle in the poem between the indoor and outdoor life, which reflects these difficulties for women in Victorian society. In Part I, it is explained that she is inside “Four gray walls, and four gray towers, / Overlook a space of flowers.” The gray color of the enclosing walls paired with an removed view of outside emphasize the contrast between the dull, trapped life of many 18^th century women who were only ever considered a domestic figure. When the Lady of Shalott ventures to explore Camelot and the outside world, this is what leads to her fatal demise. Her attempt to traverse societal lines and explore what a woman should not explore is the ultimate deviation from the rigidity of Victorian society.

 

The poem, though, is not what intrigues me most. I found Waterhouse’s artistic interpretation of this poem intriguing in what he decided to include or not include. He incorporates the gray walls as a backdrop of the painting, an element that seems to be completely forgotten about. The stairs and the walls are also the only geometrically aligned elements to the painting, which reflects the rigidity of the life she has literally turned her back on. Waterhouse includes the lilies in the pond as well as the “willowy hills and fields among,” making sure to include the natural details that so characterize a majority of this poem. He also includes the tapestry, which was a major focus during the duration of her “entrapment” until this escape. He adds three candles, in which the last of them is about to be blown out, reflecting her soon impending death.

 

As we have in detail discussed this idea of the femme fatale, this painting seems to abandon this idea altogether, portraying the focal female in the virginal white, reflecting what is in the poem, but also through her physical appearance, which is not as detailed in the text. Waterhouse’s choice to depict her with long red hair, red lips, and an open chest with a tilted back head reflects her repression, and more so than just her domestic repression but the sexual repression that was so prevalent during this time. Over everything, though, it is her facial expression, which seems to be so distinctive to Waterhouse’s work over the rest. Her sorrowful, mourning countenance so clearly depicts a pained woman, on her final journey to end her suffering. However, in evaluating how she might represent the whole of Victorian female society, I think back to “In an Artist’s Studio” by Christina Rossetti and I wonder if, for the male audience, “she fills his dream,” or the opposite, because of her expression and the fact that she is not looking outwards. Did this painting intend on a sort of exposition into the repression of women and their depictions in art as well? In my opinion, I would say yes. Perhaps this is why I found it to be such an incredible piece.