Category: 2025 Posts

When we read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass, I had recently seen my high school’s production of Peter Pan. In Peter Pan they transport to a similar type of world, Neverland. While Peter Panromanticizes the fantasy of eternal childhood and the refusal to grow up, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland portrays the fantasy as confusing, frightening, and emphasizes the importance of growing up and understanding the real world.

         In Peter Pan, Neverland is a place where children never grow up. In the musical, there is a whole song called, “I Won’t Grow Up” where the characters agree to “stay boys forever” and never grow old. Peter is the leader of this philosophy. He is the one who convinces Wendy, John, and Micheal to go to Neverland and tries to encourage them to stay there forever. Peter resists adult responsibilities and social complexities. He forgets things easily, including people and experiences, which reflects his desire for eternal childhood. He is scared and resistant of change.

         In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Wonderland is chaotic and nonsensical. Alice is often confused and frustrated by the logic of the world. She is frequently trying to remember poems, lessons, or rules from the adult world and questions her own identity. She experiences frequent changes in her size, which may reflect her confusion with growing up. Reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland through Peter Pan highlights how Alice doesn’t celebrate her youth and childhood the same way. Instead, Alice values curiously and always seeks to understand the world around her, while Peter is more willing to just appreciate the moment and accept things that may not make sense.

Comparing these two stories shows how these fantasy worlds function differently. For Peter, he is permanently trying to escape his adult responsibilities and desires an eternal childhood. Alice understands the confusion around growing up but still desires to grow up and understand herself and the world. Peter resists change, while Alice embraces it.

Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland explores the dream-world experiences of seven-year-old Alice, where she is constantly pulled around into different hectic situations and physically changed in order to match each one of them. In the first two chapters alone, she shrinks and grows and shrinks again. Alice’s physical body goes through so many disorienting changes, and throughout them, her young mind can’t seem to keep up. Once she grows large, she begins to cry out of frustration before scolding herself, saying “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a great girl like you to go on crying in this way!” (Carroll 9). This way of speaking to herself shows the confusion Alice is experiencing, because she’s both upset at the circumstances and yelling at herself for being upset. She cannot keep up with what’s been happening, thus dividing herself into functionally two beings: the more mature, responsible, “big” Alice, and the emotional, immature, “small” Alice.

This idea of her identity as tied to her physical form continues with her growing and shrinking. When she meets the caterpillar, he asks her who she is, to which she replies, “I hardly know, Sir, just at present––at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then” (34). Even though nothing has actually changed Alice’s mind, she finds herself unable to believe that she is still the same Alice because of the changes in her physical size that she has experienced in Wonderland. Her body as her identity is also reinforced with her interaction with the pigeon, who tells her that because of her long neck, a consequence of eating the size-changing mushroom, she cannot be a little girl any longer. Rather, he decides that she must be a serpent (40). This is upsetting to Alice, because now she is not just unsure of her identity but is being adamantly told that she cannot be herself. By literally, physically growing up in size, Alice is becoming a different person, someone who she does not recognize, nor do those around her.

The biblical Eve is regarded as the temptress, the mythical whore who created sin.  As “the inventor of female sexuality,” she is responsible for the world’s first sexual acts (Tumanov, 507).  Well-known from Genesis, she ate the “pleasing… and also desirable” fruit giving into the “obvious phallic” serpents’ seductions (Genesis 3.6) (Tumanov, 513).  This created sin.  After being punished and outcast from Eden, Adam “made love to his wife” and “made love to his wife again” populating the Earth (Genesis 4.1, 4.25).  What makes sexual acts in Eden ‘bad’ and those afterward ‘good’?  Eve is expected to be the “mother of all the living,” and yet is also considered the “embodiment of the whore” (Genesis 3.20) (Tumanov, 507).  Why?  The sin in the garden is not sex in and of itself, but specifically the sin of woman’s sexual agency and desire.  “Because she is the first one to disobey the divine interdiction, Eve represents not just female sexuality but specifically female sexual choice—the real source of masculine anxiety” (Tumanov, 512).

The erotica poem “The Origin Species” uses the characters Adam and Eve to imagine the first sexual encounters.  In a deviation from the times sexual norms, the poem depicts Eve not as the recognized sinner; instead, it supports her sexuality and depicts her as Adam’s equal.

In the poem, Eve is the first to engage in a sexual act, with Adam following immediately after (line 9-10).  He does not have more authority than she does.  The first time they have sex happens before they both eat the fruit, which occurs in the fourth stanza.  Any actions prior to eating the fruit would be considered innocent and pure; they are not yet able to sin.  The poem presents pleasurable, non-penetrative sex as something that is sinless.  This goes against the Victorian and Biblical ideals of ‘good’ sex, as previously mentioned.  The Victorians would see the only good sex as “productive” sex.  Bluntly, penetrative intercourse for the purpose of pregnancy.  The final stanza again positions men and women as sexual equals.  All Eve’s children are “filled with desire” for men (line 25-26).  Adam’s sons have a similar lust: “For where is the man who can live without cunt” (line 28).  Typical of the genre, the sexuality of the characters is supported.  In perhaps the poem’s most notable alteration, Adam is described as being made for Eve.  Genesis tells the story of Eve’s origin, where she is created to be an ideal companion for Adam.  “The Origin Species” modifies this story, adding that “Adam’s thing was just formed any maiden to please,” (line 7).  Additionally, his penis is referred to in the poem as “Adam’s root” (line 14).  This word choice links Adam’s penis to his origin or source (Root).  Just as Eve was created for Adam, Adam was created for Eve.  The poem presents Eve’s autonomy and sexuality as equally valued.

“The Origin Species” frames pleasure and women’s autonomy positively, deviating from the sexual norms of the time.  With the use of well-known characters and stories from Genesis, this deviance is brought to the forefront of the reader’s attention.  Because the poem exists in the pornographic genre, these deviant ideas can be discussed.  Works of this genre do not have to meet the same standards as something more mainstream; it is already condemned.  But this also condemns any content discussed.  Including concepts of women’s autonomy in pornography associates these ideas with the perverse or obscene.

 

 

Works Cited

NIV The Holy Bible. New International Version, 2011 Edition.

“Root.” Merriam Webster Dictionary, 30 Apr. 2025, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/root.

“The Origin Species.” The Pearl, July 1879.

Tumanov, Vladimir. “Mary Versus Eve: Paternal Uncertainty and the Christian View of Women.” Neophilologus, vol. 95, no. 4, 2011, pp. 507–21, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-011-9253-5.

The 19th century witnessed a dramatic expansion of the British Empire, bringing with it not just military and economic power, but also a fascination with the cultures of the conquered territories often referred to as the “East”. This fascination found substantial space in the arts, where Orientalist painting emerged as both a reflection of imperial ambition and an imaginative reworking of exotic “otherness.” One powerful example of this is Fête of the Prophet at Quad-el-Kebir by Fredrick Arthur Bridgeman, a richly detailed work that encapsulates the Orientalist gaze.

Orientalism, as defined by Edward Said, refers to the depiction of Eastern societies as exotic, mysterious, and often inferior to the West. In this painting, Bridgman portrays a religious festival emphasizing the exotic nature of the scene. The composition, featuring richly adorned figures and elaborate architecture, caters to Western fantasies of the East as a land of mysticism, particularly as it pertains to women in their cultural clothing. 

Relating this idea to the artist, Bridgeman, an American, travels to North Africa in 1872 and marks a pivotal moment in his career. He journeyed through Algeria and Egypt, producing approximately 300 sketches that would serve as the foundation for many of his subsequent paintings. These works, characterized by their depictions of Eastern life, earned him recognition in both Europe and America. 

While based on a real event, the celebration of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, Bridgeman amplifies its suspense to create a visual experience steeped in drama. The viewer is invited not to understand the meaning of the ritual but to consume it as exotic entertainment. This is further supported with the women in the background of the painting, fading into one another, lacking individual identity. Bridgman’s depiction of these figures supports the Orientalist narrative of Eastern society as a faceless, homogenous mass, especially in regard to gender roles. In this context, Muslim women are not portrayed as active participants in their own cultures, but rather as passive, decorative elements in a scene interrupted by the Western gaze. This marginalization reflects a broader Western tendency to view Muslim women as silent, oppressed, and mysterious

Here, Bridgeman projects Victorian fantasies onto the Islamic world. In the painting, there are no hints of colonial interference, creating a fixed world, stuck in the past, thus needing Western guidance. Additionally, there is little theological focus in the figures, showing that religion in the East is portrayed not as a moral system but rather as ecstatic, tribal, and emotionally charged. Ultimately, beauty, strangeness, and emotional intensity are prioritized over cultural understanding making it an example of the Victorian orientalist imagination.

Reading between the lines and walking across intersections,

JAY WALKER

 

Mona Caird’s The Yellow Drawing Room is less about a room and more about a woman who refuses to stay within one; socially, intellectually, or ideologically. Through the character of Vanora, Caird crafts a subtle but powerful portrait of the New Woman: a figure who, by the fin de siecle, had come to symbolize both possibility and threat in a rapidly shifting cultural landscape.

Vanora is introduced in a way that immediately sets her apart from the other women in the story. While the other female characters uphold the “feminine traditions admirably,” Vanora declines to participate in what she sees as a performance of outdated gender roles. She remarks, “They are keeping up the feminine traditions admirably. Don’t you think it would be a little monotonous if I were to go over exactly the same ground? It seems to me that the ground is getting rather trodden in” (Caird 107). This statement strikes at the heart of the New Woman ideology. This “trodden ground” is a metaphor for the repetitive actions women are forced to follow, generation after generation, without space for reinvention (or pants for that matter). 

According to the Victorian Web’s overview of the New Woman, this figure was “intelligent, educated, emancipated, independent and self-supporting.” Vanora embodies each of these qualities, yet her nonconformity is not embraced. The narrator remarks, “I suppose I must have been in love with her, yet all the time I seemed to hate her” (Caird 108). This admission speaks volumes. His love-hate feelings encapsulate what scholars describe as ambivalent sexism: the simultaneous idealization and hostility directed at women who refuse to conform. Vanora is not dismissed or ignored; she is desired and resented in equal measure. This emotional whiplash reflects the cultural climate of the Victorian Era. Just as Vanora provokes confusion and discomfort in the narrator, the New Woman unsettled Victorian society by refusing to play her part quietly. In this way, Vanora exposes the systems of power and control of sexuality that the New Woman threatened to undo.

In The Yellow Drawing Room, Vanora does not need to make a grand speech or stage a revolution. Her very existence, the way she speaks, thinks, and refuses to “go over exactly the same ground”, is an act of resistance. And through her, Caird has us reconsider the price of nonconformity and the courage it takes to claim one’s individuality in a world that demands quiet conformity.

Wondering through words,

JAY WALKER

“Jack: …You have seen me with it a hundred times, and you have no right whatsoever to read what is written inside. It is very ungentlemanly thing to read a private cigarette case.

Algernon: Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and one shouldn’t. More than half the modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read” (Wilde 124-130).

In this scene, Algernon confronts Jack about the inscription inside his cigarette case that reveals Jack’s true identity and status as Cecily’s uncle. A point of importance in scene is how the judgement of their actions reflects Victorian values of the time but also sets up the hypocrisy and double standards that exist. This moment demonstrates how Wilde structures his criticisms of Victorian double standards.

For instance, Jack calls out Algernon for not being “very gentlemanly” by snooping on his private cigarette case while not being the exact picture of perfect gentlemanliness himself. Jack emphasizes the need for privacy and implicitly connects it with the moral alignment of gentlemanliness. While Jack is enforcing the standards of Victorian society, he is simultaneously being made as of example of the hypocrisy that exists. He calls on Algernon to behave in acceptable manner while carrying out a deception of his identity and name to carry out frowned upon behavior and actions.

A conduct guide for men like Mrs. Humphrey’s Manners for Men demonstrates the kind of expectations placed on Victorians but more specifically men. Humphrey writes that men must be mindful of the needs of the women in tea time. They should “rise every time a lady enters or leaves, opening the door for her exit if no one else is nearer to it” (Humphrey 171). These rules provide insight into the structure and expectations that rules are set on. For the Victorian values, there is an expectation of control and awareness as demonstrated in the rules around tea time. The emphasis on instant reaction leaves no space for a freer sense of self. There is much focus on strict, instant adherence to expectations of propriety, a minor mistake can be seen as indicative of a larger moral failing. This strict dichotomy makes little space for nuance or forgiveness.

Wilde continues the criticism of Victorian society and expectations through Algernon’s remark in response to Jack. He resists the idea that there are things acceptable to read and things that are not, essentially arguing against Jack’s offense. He states that much of Victorian society is defined by what should not be read. This reflects a continuous theme of talking about certain topics through taling about the avoidance of it. By remarking about these rules, Algernon points out the larger contradictions that exist in Victorian values and the enforcement of them.

Wilde levels his criticism of Victorian societal values and expectation on 3 levels. He uses the contradictions within character values and behavior, contradiction on a larger cultural context along with ones that exist in specific settings like tea time. Through this, he is able to create a multiple faceted critique and demonstrates on how these contradictions and hypocrisy exist in real life situation. By not just using a straight forward critique (like Algernon’s statement in the last line), Wilde is able to show how these ideals are integrated and enforced on the levels of  large, medium and small scale rather than a general overall critique that does not show the complexities that lie in expectations existing on multiple levels. The existence of multiple levels emphasizes the impossibility of the numerous expectations and how overwhelming dominant they are in determining the social experience of people.

Eugene Lee-Hamilton’s poem “To The So-Called Venus of Milo” explores the famous sculpture from the Hellenistic period of Ancient Greece, depicting Aphrodite, the goddess of love, sex, and beauty. The Venus de Milo is a beloved statue which resides in the Louvre in Paris and has been extraordinarily well-protected throughout history by the French and lovers of the statue at large. It is also, and perhaps most importantly, not a perfect statue. Both of the goddess’ arms have broken off over time, both before its discovery and excavation in 1820. And yet, Bettany Hughes refers to it as “the most replicated of all Aphrodite-Venuses around the globe” (135) in her biography Venus and Aphrodite. The Venus de Milo is an amputee, taking away the all-powerful allure of the gods and goddesses of Olympus. This becomes all the more important with the lens of Lee-Hamilton’s own disability, neurasthenia, which was the physical manifestation of leg paralysis, in his case, from severe mental illness.

In the first part of Lee-Hamilton’s poem dedicated to the statue, he references the widespread praise of this particular statue. He writes, “Embraceless Beauty, Strength bereft of hands; / To whose high pedestal a hundred lands / Send rent of awe, and sons to stand beneath” (3-5). The acknowledgement of just how popular this particular reference of Aphrodite had become is also interesting considering how relatively recently it had been discovered by the time that Lee-Hamilton was writing. Hughes refers to the Venus de Milo as “cherished with extraordinary care and chivalry” (135). She, meaning Aphrodite, was cared for by the society that discovered her in a way that she was not by the society that created her. Even without her arms, she was a show of strength and a source of awe and wonder. In fact, it may even be argued that her allure came indeed from her very lack of arms. Her body had wondrously survived the ages, even if all of her limbs could not.

This fascination with Venus de Milo not in spite of, but in light of her disabled body, is well explored. Hughes writes, “[C]ivilization is reveling in her castration––the armless Venus feeds a ruin-lust” (136). In the second part of Lee-Hamilton’s poem does just this, although it may take a different tone than the “reveling” that Hughes refers to. He imagines a variety of locations the arms of Venus de Milo may be in, all of them filled with hope and cultural significance. He writes of them lying “where the Greek girls reap” (17), tying in the importance of Aphrodite worship to ancient Greek girls and women. Alternatively, he wonders if the arms have been used to create mortar “for some Turkish tower / Which overshadowed Freedom for a time” (24-25), much like the body that we do have was used as infill for a Roman wall (Hughes 135). By not just seeing these missing arms as a loss for the Venus de Milo and those viewing her, but rather as pieces that must have served some great purpose in the world, Lee-Hamilton is allowing himself to imagine the lack of limbs as something still worthy of praise and adoration.

Laura Fairlie is the beautiful object of the affection of many men and women across The Woman in White. Her introduction at the hands of Walter Hartright presents us with a heavenly image. In describing her eyes, he writes, “The charm – most gently and yet most distinctly expressed – which they shed over the whole face, so covers and transforms its little natural human blemishes elsewhere, that it is difficult to estimate the relative merits and defects of the other features” (Collins 51). To the reader, Laura is given this angelic quality that is certainly super-human. Now, what does it mean that she is described most often at the hands of Walter? He is a character introduced to us, before all else, as an artist. The epithet given to Walter in the title of the first section of the novel’s body is “Teacher of Drawing” (Collins 9). Sent to Limmeridge to teach Laura and her sister how to improve their watercolor painting abilities, he was always intended to be viewed as an artist who himself was seeing the world with an artistic lens. Thus, we are given an artist’s vision of who Laura Fairlie is, a question that becomes very literal and central to our story by the end of the narrative.

Christina Rossetti’s “In the Artist’s Studio” offers a woman’s perspective on the Victorian male artist. The sister to Pre-Raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina would have been herself very absorbed in the artistic movement, both as a model for several of his paintings and a friend to the other members. Dante Gabriel Rossetti often used his wife, Elizabeth Siddal, as not just a muse, but as the model for nearly all of his paintings that depicted women. Christina responds to this constant depiction of the same woman, the same face, in “In the Artist’s Studio”. She writes that “every canvas means / The same one meaning, neither more nor less” (Rossetti 7-8). By constantly using the same model, her brother is effectively deifying Elizabeth, making her into his own object with the image of her face and body. It removes her autonomy, in a way, instead making her his canvas to project any image or connotation onto.

Walter Hartright, although he does not use Laura Fairlie as a model for widely spread or praised artwork, does something of this sort to her in his writing of her. Of her brother’s subject, Rossetti writes, “A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens, / A saint, an angel . . .” (6-7). This reflects Hartright’s first descriptions of Laura, where he writes, “. . . there dawns upon me brightly, from the dark greenish-brown background of the summer-house, a light, youthful figure . . .” (Collins 51). In describing her hair, he refers to it as “not flaxen, and yet almost as light; not golden, and yet almost as glossy” (Collins 51). He’s making her seem like an angel, almost taking away her normalcy and humanity, much in the way that Dante Gabriel Rossetti did to Elizabeth in his paintings. In the words of Christina Rossetti, Laura is appearing in Walter’s narrative “Not as she is, but as she fills his dream” (14). Laura is not a person in Walter’s writing. She is simply a dream, an object of his affection, a blank canvas for him to paint the woman that he wishes for.

We know that “Michael Field” – Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper – were both aunt and cousin and considered themselves married. We also know that they were, for a significant period of time, deeply surrounding themselves with Ancient Greek and pagan traditions. It informed their writing. Informed by both their sixteen-year age gap and that Katherine helped raise Edith when she was young, before they intertwined their lives into shared journals and shared rings, I want to offer “Michael Field’s” poems in the context of the Ancient Greek tradition of pederasty.

Pederasty isn’t difficult to define but it can be difficult to discern. When I originally thought to write this post, I didn’t anticipate the grey area that a concept, originating in a society with different accepted behavior and norms, has with our more current understanding of child-adult developmental differences, consent, and standards for behavior. According to Walter Penrose, Jr. in “A World Away from Ours: Homoeroticism in the Classics Classroom,” when distinguishing pederasty from pedophilia, writes that “Ancient Greek pederasty, the other hand, when it conformed to cultural norms, was controlled, involved education of the youth by his older lover, and in some cases may not have been sexual at all” (238).

Penrose goes on to cite primary sources that refer to the “boy” in a pederastic relationship to be one who “had attained full height;” that parental or guardian consent was required before a pederastic relationship could occur and that a chaperone might be present during the meetings. He makes sure to write that, at this period in time, the acceptable age for girls to enter into marriage was also much younger than is generally accepted today, and that “boy” as terminology could refer to a more adolescent boy as well as a man in a lower social class or who was enslaved.[1] He notes that there seems to be some laws or regulations preventing nonconsensual or coerced relationships. He also acknowledges that sexual assault and rape did happen, but that pederastic relationships were ideally regulated, consented to, and without the connotations of pedophilia today.

The most interesting thing that Penrose cites about Ancient Greek pederastic relationships was its emphasis on education, rather than any form of sexual relationship. In some forms of the pederastic relationship, the older man could enter into a ritualistic “capture” of the younger boy, mimicking some traditional practices of heterosexual marriage, as in Sparta. Pederasty, used as a form of apprenticeship, could encompass spiritual love rather than physical, though of course as a concept it was nuanced.

“Michael Field,” then, can be viewed as encompassing the ideals of Ancient Greek pederasty. They felt romantic love for each other and it is assumed that they had a sexual relationship, but given their age gap and their focus on artistry and writing together, in some ways their relationship embodies the pederastic emphasis on education. Additionally, the concept of pederasty being a form of socially-accepted same-sex marriage in the ancient tradition, if they were aware of it, was likely alluring for them.

Keep this nuanced understanding of pederasty in mind when thinking about “Michael Field” and their love for the traditions and concepts of Ancient Greece. In Underneath the Bough, their poem “Love doth never know,” Katherine and Edith write that “Were its hopes removed,/ Where itself disproved/ By cold reason,/ In its happy season/ Love would be beloved” (11). This book is surrounded by references to classic mythos. In this poem, “Michael Field” is asking: even if the love between people has become hopeless and “itself disproved,” it still would have been “beloved” in “its happy season.” Although their relationship is a bit ethically questionable and “disproved/ by cold reason,” as is pederasty, in our current understanding of accepted behavior, would not the real love felt then, in “its happy season,” still be “beloved?”

[1] He also notes that the concept of “childhood” or “adolescence” as necessary developmental phases into adulthood is a much more modern practice – it was more common for a child to begin working very young. One must also, Penrose says, take into account shorter lifespans and so shorter developmental time periods.

The poem “The Magdalen” by Michael Field is an ekphrasis poem that describes St. Mary Magdalene by Timoteo Viti. In the Bible, Mary Magdalene is a reformed prostitute who found God and became a follower and eventually a saint. This painting in particular depicts her standing alone in what could be best described as a tomb (similar to Jesus) with her hands in prayer, long hair, and a shawl which are all symbols of her reformation. Because she was able to find God, she was washed of her “past sins”. Michael Field describes her sins as “done away” and no longer giving her “annoy”. They also tend to focus on the very feminine features she has, such as her eyes, lips, and fair skin.

Their focus on Mary Magdalene out of all saints is particularly interesting in the way in which they chose her. Their description of her is very straight forward describing the painting almost exactly as it appears, while also imposing their own narrative. The fact that they chose a reformed prostitute is interesting, as during the Victorian times, prostitutes were considered “deviant” and “other”. Michael Fild (a pseudonym for Katherine Harris Bradley and Edith Emma Cooper) was also considered “other” as they identified as a couple and that was frowned upon. They also did not cross the religious boundary imposed when describing her; Mary Magdalene, a saint, is not a sexual being but instead an emblem of “correct” femininity.

In contrast, when they are communicating the painting Sleeping Venus by Giorgione, they impose the typical “male gaze” found in Victorian literature. Phrases representing her curves and the malleability of her body offer a similar view that men had of women, as in the poem “In an Artist’s Studio”. Similar to the poem, they are describing her in a way that forces her to be an object instead of a human. She is there for their pleasure, not the description given to Mary Magdalene. This again reiterates the male gaze-like view imposed. (ik this is a really weird way to leave off, I’m debating if this will be my final project idea, so please forgive me. I’m trying my best, I promise).