2025 Posts – Page 10 – Victorian Sexualities

Mr. Hartright’s Understanding of Femininity

Throughout the novel, Collins places a significant amount of emphasis on the inherent differences between men and women and what traits he views as acceptable or normal for men and women to have. This is highlighted through his description of Marian Halcombe when Mr. Hartright sees her for the first time. While he is first drawn in by her body, his perceptions of her quickly shift when he sees her face. Mr. Hartright uses the term ‘masculine’ several times to describe Miss Halcombe’s facial features, and he implies that these are undesirable features that he is “almost repelled” by (35). It seems as if Mr. Hartright views Miss Halcombe’s feminine body and masculine face as two things that simply cannot exist at the same time. He does this by saying that “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” (35). These ‘contradictions’ that Mr. Hartright is facing seem to be confusing his idea of what a woman should look like.

Miss Halcombe’s facial expressions also appear to go against Mr. Hartright’s perceptions of femininity. He states that “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” (35). Mr. Hartright views intelligence and frankness as traits that are un-womanlike and instead sees submissiveness as a more desirable trait. In Mr. Hartright’s opinion, no woman is truly beautiful unless she is ‘gentle’ and ‘pliable.’ Mr. Hartright’s opinions on what traits are acceptable for a woman are typical of the time, as many believed that the role of a woman was to be selfless and care for men. Throughout this passage and as the novel continues, it almost seems like Mr. Hartright views Miss Halcombe as less of a woman because of the contradiction or lack of femininity in her personality and physical appearance.

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the “fairest and fattest” of them all?

When Mr. Pesca tells the story of how he scored Mr. Hartright a new job, he describes everyone in the family of the “fine house” where he teaches “fair and fat”, with the “…Papa [being] the fairest and the fattest of all … [and] a mighty merchant, up to his eyes in gold…” (Collins 16). Mr. Pesca continues to describe the Papa, saying he was “…a fine man once, but seeing that he has got a naked head and two chins, fine no longer at the present time” (Collins 16). This passage seems to connect to the idea of consumption and imperialism from “Brother Jacob”. The Papa is a merchant, and I think it can be assumed that he deals with goods imported from the British colonies. The second part of this passage seems like it can be read as a critique of imperialism and extraction. While this man is gaining rich from exploiting the people and resources from the colonies, he is losing his aesthetic value, just like the colonies are losing their resources and the people there are losing their freedom.

I think it might be possible to read into the critique of imperialism in other aspects of this book as well. The men in Anne Catherick’s life try to control her by locking her in an asylum. When Hartright first meets Anne on the road, she asks him to help her get to London, and then let her leave. Hartright agrees and follows through with his promise, even though he is worried about her (Collins 30). This lack of control or domination separates Hartright from the other men in the novel (besides Pesca). Sir Percival Glyde, like the Papa, is one of the imperializing men in the novel, and like the Papa, he has some physical affliction that shows that; his cough and scar (as Anne mentions in her letter) (Collins 80).

Ms. Halcombe is another character with physical attributes that are seen as hindering her aesthetic value (“The lady is ugly! [Collins 34]). She does not seem to be very imperializing though, and I’m not sure what to make of her role in my reading of the novel so far. Maybe because she embraces the class of the Fairlies, wearing the fancy clothes, she is seen as an accomplice or at least someone gaining something from British imperialism?

Hartright’s Desire for Purity and Sex

Hartright’s narration between pages 64 and 65 of the growing attraction between him and Miss Fairlie demonstrates the pull between sexual desires and desires for female purity. Although Hartright repeats certain phrases to mirror his and Miss Fairlie’s movements, moments of halfway connections also characterize the passage. Hartright says that his lover’s charms “…can purify and subdue the heart of man” (Collins 64). He contextualizes her traits through the effect on his traits; he admires her for her ability to distract him from his character flaws. Instead of specifying that the “man” described him, Hartright broadens the scope to include any man. This enlarges her powers to “subdue the heart,” making her the paragon of purity who can inherently “fix” any man.

Bearing the precedent of Hartright’s vision of a pure Miss Fairlie, their subsequent moments of physical sexual yearning stall at several points. Hartright writes “Not a day passed…in which my hand was not close to Miss Fairlie’s; my cheek…almost touching hers” (Collins 64). The pair purposefully do not contact skin to skin, but Hartright emphasizes the thrill he receives from the teasing closeness. Besides the references to his cheek, and he also notes “…the perfume of her hair, and the warm fragrance of her breath” (Collins 65). These references to hair, cheek, and breath all encircle a key feature on her face that Hartright fails to mention: her lips or mouth. Although Hartright arrives close to this feature when describing her breath, he refuses to focus on the most sensual part of a woman’s body, a part that has been hallowed in countless romantic works of prose and poetry. Even in a scene rife with sensual details, the lack of references to lips or mouth stands as a gaping hole. Obviously, Hartright would have noticed her mouth, but then made the conscious choice not to write it. Hartright enjoys these moments of halfway connection because they preserve his vision of her purity; having sex, even kissing would break the imagined barrier that separates Miss Fairlie from other, more promiscuous women.

However, Miss Fairlie shares Hartirght’s affection, and the pair demonstrate their affection by mirroring each other’s actions. He describes the scene by writing “…at one time bending over her…to feel her bending over me, bending so close to see what I was all about…” (Collins 65). He uses the same word choice to describe the same movement, as if the two lovers had become intertwined into one. Repeating the same phrase three times causes a building sense of closeness, with every iteration increasing the number of times that they meet and even increasing how close together the bend brings the two. “… to see what I was all about….” presents a possible moment of innuendo. Its vagueness regarding what she looks at could point a look at his body.

“Awww, she’s ugly.” Mr. Hartright’s Disappointing Revelation

When Mr Hartright first meets Miss Halcombe, he begins his description without even having viewed her face. He describes her as “…tall, yet not too tall; comely and well-developed, yet not fat” (34). This is yet another instance where Hartright is unable to place the person he is describing into a category. It all comes to a head when Miss Halcombe turns around and discovers, much to his horror, that “the lady is ugly!” (34). He feels betrayed by Miss Halcombe’s figure causing him to expect a beautiful young woman. He states that the adage “nature cannot err” has never been “more flatly contradicted” by his discovery (34). Even though he says that after Miss Halcombe turns around, contradiction permeates throughout his description of her before her face is revealed to him. This contradiction though takes on a Goldie Locks like effect when he describes her body. She is the perfect height and the perfect weight. Her movement was elegant and caused him to grow excited seeing her face. Her face, on the other hand, brought Mr. Hartright back down to earth and he was disgusted by it. Her face contradicts her body. Her body was perfect in every way, but her face was dark to the point where it seemed she may have even had a mustache. This duality of Miss Halcombe, her womanly body and her manly face, puts Mr. Hartright on edge. He is easily able to move past her facial features that he deems ugly and is able to become good friends with Miss Halcombe, but he never views her in a romantic light again. I believe this scene, though, sets up the reader, and Mr. Hartright, to be prepared to be deceived by how a character may seem when they first appear, just as Hartright feels that he was deceived by Miss. Halcombe’s body in thinking that she was a beautiful woman.

Get With The Times Mr. Fairlie

“Count Fosco, though not a rich man, was not a penniless adventurer either. He had a small, but sufficient income of his own; he had lived many years in England; and he held an excellent position in society. These recom- mendations, however, availed nothing with Mr. Fairlie. In many of his opinions he was an Englishman of the oldschool; and he hated a foreigner, simply and solely because he was a foreigner.” (180)

This quote is from the section of Mr. Gilmore’s narrative in which he lays out the marital laws and policies regarding the inheritance of the Fairlie estate that will, in part, go to Miss Fairlie upon her coming of age on her twenty first birthday. This particular topic is being raised with the question of her impending marriage to Sir Percival Glyde who stands to benefit from her inheritance once they are joined in matrimony. This specific selection is actually discussing the disgraceful marriage of Miss Fairlie’s Aunt Eleanor who was, at one point in time, disinherited entirely as a result of her decision to marry the Italian Count Fosco rather than a man of standing in English society. Mr. Glimore explains that the marriage was not disliked because of a distinct class difference like the one emphasized between Miss Fairlie and her drawing instructor, Mr. Cartright, earlier in the text. He even defends the Count saying that he “had sufficient income” and “held an excellent position in [English] society.” (Collins, 180)

Mr. Gilmore goes on to detail why this mixed-nationality marriage led to Aunt Eleanor’s fall from grace and attributes it to the xenophobic nature of the current Mr. Fairlie who Mr. Gilmore says “hated a foreigner, simply and solely because he was a foreigner.” (Collins, 180) This close-minded outlook towards the “foreign,” or “other,” was not uncommon in English society, as explained in the reading we have done previously from Norton’s Anthology’s “The Victorian Age. Norton’s Anthology points to the shared anxieties that the Victorian societies experienced as the world they had come to know expanded. A mindset that Mr. Gilmore acknowledges when he explains Mr. Fairlie’s xenophobia as stemming from his status as an “Englishman of the old-school” which effectually highlights the more outdated nature of his rationale and attitude towards the foreign. (Collins, 180) Throughout this text Collins is critiquing the more conservative xenophobic mindset of some of his fellow Victorians.