Author: mouseinthewalls

Woman’s Eternal Childhood

“Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago; and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days” (Carroll, 104).

The last few paragraphs of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland interestingly do not center Alice herself, but her presumably adult sister, who dreams of Wonderland as a concept and reminisces on Alice’s adventures. This is interesting for starters because how is she to know what Alice dreamed of, emphasizing the other-worldly almost magical nature of Wonderland. But even more interesting and relevant are her musings on Alice’s future as a consequence of her time in Wonderland. The closing sentence of the novel encompasses the sister’s expectations for womanhood, commenting on the childhood innocence that remains for girls as they grow.

The expectation that Alice “keep… the simple and loving heart of her childhood” implicate a mindset of feminine innocence for the Victorian woman. While Alice partakes in adventures throughout her dream and has a sense of independence that allows her to go through Wonderland by herself, having some level of personal influence and power, Carroll makes it very clear in this last sentence that her adventures are imagination. They are only meant to be dreams, and stories, and fairy tales, that as she becomes a woman, shouldn’t aspire to follow but rather pass on to her own children.

Furthermore, the idea that Alice as an adult woman should “find pleasure in all [her children’s] simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days” influences the expectation that women stay in the realm of childhood their whole lives. They are not only relegated to taking care of children, but they should be like these children, as they were children themselves. Therefore, a Victorian woman never really becomes a woman- she is meant to remain childlike all her life.

 

Queen Vanora

In Mona Caird’s “The Yellow Drawing-Room”, Vanora Haydon is placed into the complicated position of queenliness. The protagonist, Mr. St. Vincent, is hopelessly in love with her against what he considers to be his own best judgement. Because, to him, Vanora has “many qualities and ideas that are not suited to [her] sex” (106), and borders on “inevitably ridiculous” (107), she cannot be his ideal woman. He repeats several times that a woman’s true power lies in the “sacred realms where a woman is queen” (106). By this he means the home, as a wife and mother, which Vanora expresses absolutely no interest in. He also means by this that Vanora should be silent, submissive, and unopinionated. For Mr. St. Vincent, Vanora’s true power as queen lies in her giving up her authority and self to him and reigning only over “womanly” areas.  

But Vanora is already a queen in her own right, with a kingdom of her own. Her yellow drawing room serves as her own sacred realm where her authority reigns and her ideas are allowed to exist. In Victorian times, the country’s regent was a queen, and Vanora’s attitude about herself and her agency reflect the attitude that women are not simply wives and mothers, but leaders, and can hold positions of authority. Mr. St. Vincent’s rejection to this attitude because it is not “ideal” reflects the resistance against the “new woman” ideology and women’s liberation movements that were born out of the Victorian era and the extensive reign of a queen.  

The Nuclear Family and its perversions in The Woman in White

Not one family dynamic in Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White fits into any definition of “the nuclear family” – that is, a married mother and father with children, residing in the same home. Laura, Marian, and Mr. Fairlie reside in the same home, unmarried and related to each other more distantly- when Laura marries, she and Sir Percival have no children, and neither do Count and Countess Fosco. After Laura/Anne’s death, she lives unmarried as siblings with Walter and Marian. Mrs. Catherick “raises” Anne as a single mother. And, as we learn about Sir Percival, he is not even really a “sir” at all. In Mrs. Catherick’s letter, she states “his father and mother had always lived as man and wife – none of the few people who were acquainted with them ever supposed them to be anything else” (530), indicating that his parents were not legally married and therefore he was born out of wedlock. Furthermore, she asserts his mother’s familial structure as far from nuclear, recalling “his mother had been living there just before she met with his father – living under her maiden name; the truth being that she was really a married woman; married in Ireland, where her husband had ill-used her and had afterwards gone off with some other person” (531). Thus, Sir Percival’s mother was not only living as a wife to a man she was not legally married to but was engaging in bigamy by being already married.  

The fact that Sir Percival’s history of perversion of the nuclear family dynamic is the “Secret” that serves as the catalyst for the entire novel suggests that the perversions of the family dynamics of every other character are equally important in understanding the novel. The disorder that comes with the establishment of non-nuclear families is a driving conflict of the novel overall; the dynamics between characters because of their relation (or lack thereof) to each other causes problems. For example, Mr. Fairlie’s distancing of Laura because although he is her legal guardian, she is not his daughter, causes several issues in the initial marriage proposal, as well as later, in failing (or refusing) to recognize her after her supposed “death”. Additionally, there is the added layer of members of a family unit having multiple roles within that unit. For example, Walter, Marian, and Laura are living together as siblings, while Walter and Laura are in love; and though Marian and Laura are in fact legitimately sisters, they have a running theme throughout the novel of having a level of intimacy that indicates potentially something more.  

The fact that the majority of these disorderly family dynamics are kept hidden or secreted in the novel harkens back to Freud’s interpretation of symptoms of neurosis in his “Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through”. His perception of repetition comes from the idea that a specific habit is created by the brain and body working together to divert attention from an unsavory secret, memory, or desire (150). Therefore, particularly in the case of Percival Glyde, his neurotic and obessive tendencies to protect his reputation, to find Anne Catherick, to commit to the plot of taking Laura’s inheritance, and to control those around him reflects this need to cover up the Secret that he is hiding, which is the disorder of his family situation. This can also be reflected in Walter, Marian, and Laura’s living situation, as Walter’s paranoia that they are being watched and followed, and fear of their disordered dynamic being discovered, prompts him to obsessively communicate with Marian via letters whilst he is away.  

Walter Hartright Tries to Sigmund Freud His Way into Solving a Mystery

Our first narrator in the novel, Walter Hartright, is completely obsessed with solving the mystery of the Woman in White. Both scenes in which he encounters her involve some level of psychoanalysis on the part of Walter. The motivating factor in his conversations with the woman in white (revealed to be Anne Catherick) involve understanding her past- who she is, where she came from, and what has happened to her to make her act the way she does. In “Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through”, Sigmund Freud outlines the phases of psychoanalytic treatment which lead to the discovery of the point of origin for a patient’s symptoms. This begins by encouraging the patient to remember forgotten memories, which leads to the patient’s repetition of past events or erratic behaviors and finally allowing them time to work through and process these sensations, overcoming the symptoms (Freud). In a way, Walter Hartright practices psychoanalysis in his observations of all characters, but most predominantly in conversations with Anne. By pressing her with questions meant to unlock her memory, leading her to produce repetitive and erratic behaviors, Walter is able to piece together parts of her story.  

Walter’s interest in discovering the mystery of Anne Catherick begins upon their first meeting on the road to London in the middle of the night. Walter immediately wants to know more about her, automatically acting under the assumption that there is a truth beneath the surface that is hidden. He comes to this conclusion by analyzing the way she answers his questions; when he inquires about her destination, she repeatedly asks him “not to interfere with me”, asking five times very quickly “will you promise?”, until he responds with “yes” (26). Walter reads this behavior as mysterious because of its rapid repetition and panicked nature, leading him to dig further into psychoanalysis of Anne’s character as he attempts to discover the source of her panic. When he meets Anne for the second time in the graveyard, Walter further pushes his psychoanalytic investigation, asking more and more pressing questions until Anne begins to exhibit behaviors triggered by memories. When he questions her about Sir Percival Glyde, he reads her reaction to the name as a symptom- “the shriek at the name, the reiterated look of hatred and fear that instantly followed, told all” (105). He believes that his question has triggered some repressed memory of Anne’s, her reaction to which will be able to tell him what he needs to know both about her character and about Sir Percival’s. Walter’s tendency towards psychoanalysis is reflected in his interactions with several other characters, but most prominently towards Anne, emphasizing the intrigue and mystery of her character that creates the sensation of the novel.