Author: Joyce Carol Oatmeal

Mona Caird’s short story, “The Yellow Drawing Room,” paints a powerful portrait of the New Woman. The New Woman, according to the Victorian Web, “departed from the stereotypical Victorian woman” and “was intelligent, educated, emancipated, independent and supporting.” Caird’s depiction of Vanora Haydon shows the complexities and multifaceted-ness of the New Woman, raising questions about the role of women and marriage.

Told from the perspective of Mr. St. Vincent, “The Yellow Drawing Room” attempts to understand the innerworkings of a man’s mind and questions the logic he might use to justify the subordination of women. St. Vincent describes himself as “old-fashioned” when it comes to his understanding of sex and gender roles, yet despite this apparent self-awareness, he refuses to reconsider his preconceived notions about women and their role in Victorian society (106). When introduced to Vanora Haydon, St. Vincent is alarmed by his attraction to her as she does not fit into any of his boxes about what a woman should be like. Rather than rethink his view on women, he desires Vanora to change and become “‘a woman in the old sweet sense, for [his] sake’” (108). He repeatedly tells himself that “[Vanora] shall love [him], and she shall learn, through love, the sweet lesson of womanly submission” (108). Here, St.Vincent’s refusal to adapt to a changing world is made clear. By suggesting that he can coerce Vanora into loving him, and through that love convince her that she should submit to him as he believes that is her role, he becomes the living embodiment of the patriarchy.

St. Vincent’s need to control Vanora in order to re-establish his own sense of masculinity and power is explored repeatedly throughout the text. St. Vincent explicitly states that “[he] had the burning desire to subdue [Vanora]” (108). He even goes so far as to say that “[he] would make her proud of her subordination; [he] would turn the splendid stream of her powers and affection into the true channel” (108). St. Vincent’s desire for dominance over Vanora highlights the power imbalance between men and women during the nineteenth century, and yet, the dynamics were obviously beginning to change, too. George Inglis remarks on this change, claiming that “‘the contest is a typical one; if one could imagine the Eighteenth Century as a lover wooing the Nineteenth Century, this is the sort of angular labyrinthine courtship we should have!’” (108) When St. Vincent overhears Inglis say this, he states that he has no idea what Inglis could mean by it. However, the personification of the two centuries and their fraught courtship seems to directly reflect the same sort of fraught relationship (I use that term loosely) that St. Vincent and Vanora have.

The strained relationship between St. Vincent and Vanora is displayed fully in their final heated argument. St. Vincent declares his love for Vanora and accuses her of not loving him in return. However, Vanora disputes his accusation, saying “‘Ah! That is the horrible absurdity of it! . . . You enthral one part of me and leave the other scornful and indifferent . . . yet to the end of time I should continue to shock and irritate you, and you would stifle, depress, and perhaps utterly unhinge me” (109). Here, Vanora points out how strict gender roles and patriarchal social practices hurt both men and women, as they cause great strife in relationships and do not adequately engage with the complexity of human thought and feeling. Through the story of St. Vincent and Vanora, Caird seems to suggest that the dismantling of patriarchal social practices is necessary for men and women to be able to participate in equitable romantic and platonic partnerships, and that a woman’s role has the potential to go beyond only being a wife and mother.

Sweets are constantly consumed in George Eliot’s short story, “Brother Jacob.” In the opening chapter, Mr. David Faux convinces his brother, Jacob, that he is able to turn the guineas he has stolen from their mother into candies. David does this in order to keep Jacob from revealing his secret: that he intends to take their mother’s money and use it to help him create a new life for himself in the West Indies where he believes he can improve his lot in life and become something more than a confectioner. Though “David chose his line [of work] without a moment’s hesitation; and with a rashness inspired by a sweet tooth . . . the tooth lost its relish and fell into blank indifference; and all the while, his mind expanded, his ambitions took new shapes” (49). By stating that David was “rash” when making his decision to become a confectioner, the narrator implies that there was a certain level of immaturity on David’s part. However, now the narrator seems to suggest that David has outgrown his sweet tooth, and with his maturation, his life as a confectioner no longer suits. Why is this? Why is sugar and its consumption controversial in the nineteenth centruy?

Laura Eastlake provides answers. She claims that by midcentury, “sugar and sweet-eating were associated with juvenility, femininity, and the domestic sphere” and were considered “antithetical to adult British manliness” (516). If sugar and sweets were associated with youth, femininity, and the domestic sphere, David’s desire to change his life begins to make more sense. As a young British man, his work as a confectioner provides him with no means to elevate himself within society. His maturation and loss of his sweet tooth seem to imply that he wants to become the epitome of British manliness; however, because of the work that he does and the negative way that sweet-eating is viewed, he is unable to do so. Instead, he is forced to stay in this perpetual state of juvenility and unseriousness. Thus, the tension between the life that David wants to leave behind and the one that he wants to create becomes clear. If he is to be a “real” man, he must give up sweets on all fronts.

Eastlake also claims that in addition to being associated with juvenility and unmanliness, the “seemingly domestic acts of sugar consumption became highly politicized and were made analogous to the consumption not only of slave labor but of human bodies and blood” (516). As someone who makes his living on the selling and consumption of sugar, David’s connection to sugar plantations is established. Taking Eastlake’s claims into account and the narrator’s suggestion that David wants to create a new life for himself outside of being a confectioner, I wonder if perhaps Eliot is critiquing both what it means to be a British man and the practice of slavery simultaneously. If British men who are the epitome of manliness should not consume sugar and sweets, then it would seem that sugar plantations should not hold value to them. By extension, I would argue that Eliot suggests that British men who are the epitome of manliness should therefore not support slavery and the way that sugar plantations are managed.

Wilkie Collins regularly explores binaries in The Woman in White. During Walter Hartright’s initial encounter with Miss Marian Halcombe, one such exploration is depicted as Miss Halcombe lists the ways that she and her sister, Laura Fairlie, differ from each other:

My father was a poor man, and Miss Fairlie’s father was a rich man. I have got nothing, and she has a fortune. I am dark and ugly, and she is fair and pretty. Everybody thinks me crabbed and odd (with perfect justice); and everybody thinks her sweet-tempered and charming (with more justice still). In short, she is an angel; I am—Try some of that marmalade, Mr. Hartright, and finish the sentence, in the name of female propriety, for yourself. (37)

The picture that Marian paints of herself is admittedly bleak. She is “dark and ugly” while her sister is “fair and pretty.” She grew up “poor” and remains so now while her sister “has a fortune.” Unlike Laura, Marian is thought to be “crabbed and odd” and decidedly unpleasant while Laura is “sweet-tempered and charming.” Marian even goes so far as to say that Laura “is an angel” while intentionally refusing to outwardly state what Laura’s presumed “divinity” would make her based on the binary that she has presented thus far: a demon. The negative way that Marian views herself when placed up against her sister seems to suggest that she has internalized society’s views of what it means to be the perfect lady (as embodied by Laura), and she has found herself decidedly lacking according to society’s standards. Marian’s internalized negative self-image is emphasized by the asides she includes in her speech, where she argues that the dispositions that she and Laura have been labeled with are perfectly justifiable. However, what I find so interesting about Marian’s introduction is that she does not attempt to share this view with Hartwright to garner sympathy; rather, she treats her perception of herself and her sister as fact. Here, Collins seems to present the tension between the complexity of feelings and the narrative structure that he has chosen for his text (that of a strict recording of facts, much like a court document). Marian elaborates on this tension, explicitly stating that despite the reason for it appearing to be “unaccountable,” she and Laura “are honestly fond of each other” (37). Thus, Marian makes clear that despite the way that she and her sister seem binarily opposed to each other, they are in fact as close as two people can be. Therefore, I would argue that implicit in Marian’s assertion is the notion that perhaps the binaries that Collins presents in The Woman in White are not as clear-cut as they seem, and by extension, neither are the characters that they attempt to categorize.