In Mona Caird’s “The Yellow Drawing-Room,” Vanora is initially described by the narrator, Mr. St. Vincent, as “a headstrong and probably affected young person” (Caird 103). She is everything that St. Vincent hates in a woman; she is too loud and independent, and he detests her before he even meets her. However, his opinion of Vanora is immediately confused when he meets her for the first time. It seems that the last thing he expected to see in Vanora’s appearance was femininity, yet, “She was supremely, overpoweringly woman” (Caird 105). St. Vincent is bewildered at the fact that Vanora’s feminine beauty could exist at the same time as her headstrong personality. Surely a woman with a lovely figure and beautiful golden hair could never be anything but quiet and amenable.
A very similar instance occurs in Wilkie Collins’ “The Woman in White.” When Walter Hartright sees Marian for the first time, she is turned around, and Hartright marvels at the beauty and femininity of her body. However, the second that he sees Marian’s face, he is at once struck with the same confusion as Mr. St. Vincent. To Hartright, Marian’s masculine face completely contradicts the femininity of her body. Additionally, he makes judgements about her personality in a way that mimics St. Vincent’s judgements about Vanora: “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” (Collins 35).
In these two instances, St. Vincent and Hatright both have a hard time grappling with the contradiction of the women’s ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ attributes. Hatright states it plainly, saying “to see such a face as this set on shoulders that a sculptor would have longed to model […] was to feel a sensation oddly akin to the helpless discomfort familiar to us all in sleep, when we recognize yet cannot reconcile the anomalies and contradictions of dreams” (Collins 35). The reactions of both men likely represent the general public’s views on gender roles. There is a very narrow definition of what a woman or a man can be, and anything that deviates from this is difficult to understand and accept.
I love your comparison of Hartright and St.Vincent. I think it definitely connects with the idea of the New Woman, I think the article we read about them talked about how they are presented in this liminal space and are both masculine and feminine, etc. I think it’s also interesting to compare Marian and Vanora’s views of themselves. If we’re to trust Hartright’s narrative, Marian kind of wants to distance herself from femininity or the way other women are viewed, while Vanora seems to be proud of her femininity as it is and recognizes that not all woman are the same
I really enjoyed reading about the connection you drew between “The Yellow Drawing Room” and “The Woman in White.” Both women may not be what the men expected, but nonetheless they can not help but desire them. I liked your comparison of these men’s reaction to the reactions of the public as a whole. This seems to be true as even Vanora’s female family members are disgusted with the color she has chosen for his drawing room. The societal ideals that run so deep in men’s minds also take over the majority of the women who want to be at their husbands beck and call, and disapprove of anyone who wants to do anything different.