Category: 360: Victorian Sexualities

In Alice in Wonderland, the primary message is one of everlasting childhood and embracing the whimsy of youth; the final idea the reader is left with is that of maintaining the “simple and loving heart of… childhood” (104). What requires a little more emphasis and depth in the reading of Alice is her representation as a colonial force, invading and changing the foreign environment she finds herself in. I see this definitely as a trippy commentary on British colonialism; Alice was published in 1865, and the 19th century was characterized by British imperialism particularly in the largely unknown regions of Africa and Asia.

The section in Alice that seems to represent most clearly the idea of colonial force is the tea party. Alice approaches a table, and, seeing that there are a large number of seats, sits right down without asking permission. I see this as the British furthering their interests, primarily in the example of South Africa, when they settled despite the interests both of the Africans and the Dutch Boers who had settled themselves (also being colonists). I thought it was particularly well stated when the March Hare offers Alice wine, and she states that “it wasn’t very civil… to offer it” and the Hare then responds, casually, “it wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited” (53). So, Carroll, I inferred, finds imperialism and colonialism to be quite uncivil.

Alice in Wonderland is a story of a girl who lands in a new world, asserts herself as being infallible, makes derogatory comments about the new land (on page 48, “if you’re going to turn into a pig, I’ll have nothing more to do with you”, on page 56, “is that how you manage?”, and on page 102, “who cares for you… you’re nothing but a pack of cards!”) and changes many of the things she encounters. Alice herself is a tiny colonizing force, dropping into a place with the mentality that she owns it, and changing it to reflect her own knowledge and beliefs. She takes what she sees (the food and beverage which make her size change) and she even alters their political realm by literally destroying the Queen. She essentially overthrew a government; that’s a colonizing force if ever I saw one.

At the conclusion of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland we are given a glimpse into the mind of Alice’s older sister.  In the final paragraph, she imagines Alice as an adult who maintains, “the simple and loving heart of her childhood”, and who “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”.

Upon first reading, I found this sentiment from Alice’s sister to be rather odd.  During our extensive study of The Woman in White, the two female characters attributed with childish characteristics, Laura and Anne, were seen and treated as mentally ill persons.  In their case, maintaining  “the simple and loving hearts” of their childhoods was a sign of something being wrong with them, and not a trait to be commended. However, I soon realized that there is a large difference in the medium through which childishness is interpreted in The Woman in White and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

In The Woman in White it was very rare for a female character to be relaying the story to us.  Even with Laura’s sister, Marian, acting as narrator it is difficult to claim a truly feminine viewpoint there, as much of the story features descriptions of her as a masculine character.  The narrator in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, however, was always close to either Alice or her sister.  Taking these disparate viewpoints into consideration, it begins to seem as though it is a masculine view that women who display childish tendencies have something wrong with them, whereas the feminine view is that maintaining this childishness is a good thing.

Childishness is often associated with innocence and naiveté.  The loss of innocence, then, can be seen as the loss of childishness.  Indeed, in The Woman in White, both Marian and Laura (before she is described as mentally ill) tried to shield one another from the realities of adulthood.  Before Laura’s marriage to Sir Percival, Marian lamented the need to explain to Laura what marriage would entail, and after her marriage, Laura refused to tell Marian what her marriage was like.  In both cases, the sisters are protecting the other from this information so they can maintain the other’s innocence and naiveté on the matter; they are seeking to prevent the loss of innocence to keep some of their sibling’s childishness in tact.

In her conclusion of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice’s sister is able to imagine and envision the characters from Wonderland.  She acknowledges reality, and yet delights in her ability to access these childish fantasies, wishing for her sister to be able to do the same when she is an adult.

What all of this suggests is that women view childishness as something to protect and hold on to.  But, because men see it as a sign of mental illness, that childishness must be exposed only to other women (like in the case of Marian and Laura), or other children.

E. W. Fallerton’s etching Within the Lines Siege of Agra 1857 is more complex than it might initially seem. The figures are situated in a domestic space, enclosed in a house with a small window. Details suggest a rustic and “Eastern” setting: the bare walls; the Oriental rug; the large jars on the ground; the woman’s bare feet, her slippers lying beside her; and the woman’s draped clothing and head scarf, evocative of Indian or Middle Eastern fashion.

Even the woman’s skin tone and features are darker than the idealized European women depicted by many artists during the nineteenth century. She has dark hair, dark eyebrows, thick eyelashes, and a prominent nose. The baby’s white blanket, the central focus of the painting, emphasizes the darkness of the woman’s hands.

The title of the etching confirms this Eastern setting, as the “Siege of Agra” was a battle in India between Indian rebels and British colonialists [1]. This historical context problematizes Fallerton’s seemingly innocuous depiction of motherhood. The woman is depicted in a traditional “Mary, mother of Jesus” pose in Western art, with her eyes cast down toward the baby she holds in her arms.

Yet the baby she holds has white skin and light hair, as does the second child sleeping in the background. The etching thus suggests two possible narratives: the children are the result of “mixed” sexual relations with a British colonist; or, the children are not hers, and the Indian woman depicted is a nurse or servant. Both narratives problematize the notion of “natural” motherhood.

In his depiction of the Duchess in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll also interrogates domesticity and motherhood. The Duchess’s household, far from the nurturing environment depicted in Fallerton’s etching, is downright abusive. The cook throws frying pans at the pair, and the Duchess “toss[es] the baby violently up and down” as she sings a “lullaby” that advocates child abuse:

 “Speak roughly to your little boy,

And beat him when he sneezes” (46).

The Duchess “flings” the “queer-shaped little creature” at Alice, a mere child herself, to take care of it (47). Alice demonstrates a maternal instinct to protect the child that the Duchess clearly lacks: “Wouldn’t it be murder to leave it behind?” (48). However, when the baby starts turning into a pig, Alice thinks “it would be quite absurd for her to carry it any further,” and she is “relieved” as she watches the pig “trot quietly into the wood” (48).

The baby’s metamorphosis into a pig is unnatural, as the adjectives “queer-shaped” and “absurd” suggest. The word “unnatural” here is useful, as it historically denotes illegitimacy (OED). Like the figure in the etching, Alice is not the natural mother of the baby; by the end of the scene, they are not even the same species. The unnatural pig-child can no longer occupy the domestic sphere, and so takes refuge in the wilderness or wood. Perhaps Carroll, like Fallerton, is making a veiled commentary on race, motherhood, and illicit sexuality.

1. “Indian Mutiny.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2015. <http://academic.eb.com/EBchecked/topic/285821/Indian-Mutiny>.

Throughout Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice’s intelligence/knowledge/ability to learn repeatedly comes under scrutiny—scrutiny from herself as well as from the residents of Wonderland. For example, during her fall down the rabbit hole, Alice talks to herself, speculating as to where the rabbit hole might take her:

“I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards… I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is… what an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.” (3)

Here, Alice seems self-conscious about her childhood curiosity and lack of worldly knowledge. Concerned that others will perceive this age-appropriate lack of information as ignorance, Alice resolves to not ask questions. Rather than seeking out information from others, Alice leaves her discovery of new information to chance: “perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere” (3).[1] Furthermore, Alice negatively associates questions and curiosity with childhood/immaturity: “what an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking!” (3).[2] For Alice, education and learning are tiresome tasks one must complete before becoming an adult: “‘But then,” thought Alice, “shall I never get any older than I am now? That’ll be a comfort, one way—never to be an old woman—but then—always to have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn’t like that!” (26). Alice views adults as possessing full knowledge with no need for “lessons” or education.

Playing on Alice’s initial fear, many of Wonderland’s residents accuse her of being ignorant or stupid: ‘“You don’t know much,” said the Duchess; “and that’s a fact’” (45). Alice’s (often misremembered) knowledge from school and understanding of the learning process fail to help her successfully interact with the characters she meets in Wonderland. After calling her “very dull,” the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle criticize Alice’s education:

“I’ve been to a day-school, too,” said Alice…

“With extras?” asked the Mock Turtle, a little anxiously.

“Yes,” said Alice: “we learned French and music.”

“And washing?” said the Mock Turtle.

“Certainly not!” said Alice, indignantly.

“Ah! Then yours wasn’t a really good school!” (79)

The exchange that follows, full of puns (“Reeling and Writhing) and nonsense words (“Uglification”), seems to satirize the education system. Comparing the curriculum of their school with that of Alice’s school, the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle equate Alice’s traditional school subjects, French and music, with their foolish-sounding subjects. The utility of education and certain kinds of knowledge appears to be dynamic and subjective rather than standardized and static, like Alice’s view of adult knowledge. In Wonderland, characters like the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle, though not recipients of a formal, British education, often possess more useful knowledge than Alice. Alice’s trepidation about education as well as Wonderland’s satirical conceptions of schooling, suggest Carroll was attentive to, and critical of, issues in Victorian education.

[1] Emphasis added.

[2] Emphasis added.

Alice in Wonderland is a fanciful tale about a girl who dreams about falling down a rabbit hole into a magical realm of nonsense and curiosities (because to say wonder seems to nondescript). Once there, she encounters many situations in which standard phrases in which readers may think themselves familiar until they are re-imagined with different social interpretations or meanings. The constantly changing nature of social meaning through language instills in readers the opportunity, if not the obligation, to be more liberal in their interpretations and understandings of social situations and questions.

Language in Alice asks readers to become aware of their own social preconceptions through the use of seemingly familiar phrases and the presentation of opposing interpretations. Alice is told to “take some more tea,” during tea time with the March Hare, Mad Hatter, and the Doormouse, to which she replies that she’s had none yet, therefore, cannot take more. The Hatter refutes the point by stating, “You mean you can’t take less… it’s very easy to take more than nothing.” In this instance, we see Alice’s conception of more and less and the Hatter’s. Alice interprets “more” as adding to an already existing value (a previous cup of tea) while the Hatter presumes that zero is a reasonable value on which to start adding more tea. There is a social judgment placed on the interaction by both Alice and the Hatter yet the text does not seem to take sides in order to guide a reader towards the “correct” assumption. Rather, the text seems to ask the reader to consider their own understanding of the situation. Which interpretation is more familiar, which is more reasonable, or if both are reasonable, how does it change a reader’s concept of what is being asked of them? If the reader agrees more with the Hatter they may begin to question their sanity. If they agree with Alice perhaps they might question their adulthood. No matter which character they agree with the reader must reflect upon the effectiveness of the question itself.

The language in Alice in Wonderland plays with the variety of means a word or phrase can have, depending on the manner in which a person chooses to interpret it. Interpretation can stem from many sources such as learned social cues and a standardization of linguistic patterning. However, when the aforementioned expectations change or become ambiguous misunderstandings abound. This post will investigate briefly the effectiveness of Alice in Wonderland as a text that exposes readers’ social preconceptions and their ability or inability to adapt in an environment with different or changing expectations.

Texts written for children often have clearly defined morals that children are supposed to understand by the time the tale has concluded. However, these deceivingly clear-cut messages are often convoluted with more sinister warnings. In “Goblin Market,” Christina Rossetti ends her poem with a tidy saying about the value of sisters, diverting the attention from the dangerous, foreign men who prey on innocent young women. Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland similarly describes the happiness of childhood at the conclusion, which moves the reader away from the anxiety of ignorance placing a child in danger. The simplified morals in these texts illustrate the complex desire of adults to simultaneously warn children of danger but prevent them from becoming too fearful of life.

The deeper meaning of “Goblin Market” is interwoven into the final stanza. The role of becoming a mother provides the women with a defined role, but it causes their hearts to be “beset with fears” and to reflect on “not-returning time” (488). The fear arises from their worry for their children and from the realization that they are growing old. Despite their romanticized perceptions of their “pleasant days” of childhood, the “haunted” and “wicked” events in the market-place are true and frightening (488). Lizzie stood in “deadly peril” to save Laura; there is nothing “pleasant” about that circumstance. Therefore, the clear moral denies children access to the more important messages about avoiding dangerous situations, especially those connected to sexual endeavors.

The final chapter of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland also draws all of the disastrous elements of Alice’s adventure into a positive message about enjoying one’s dreams while one can still access her imagination. Alice believes that she had a “wonderful dream,” which is then replayed in a condensed form in her older sister’s daydream (102). After the sister’s rationalization about everything that occurred in the vision, her sister thinks about how Alice will “keep…the simple and loving heart and her childhood” through her adult years (104). Though this seems like a lovely attribute, Alice’s childhood mind is filled with ignorance, disrespect, and simplicity. These attributes prevent her from sympathizing with others and keep her extremely close-minded. Through the emphasis on the joys of childhood at the conclusion, the narrator forces children into believing Alice’s tale was wonderfully positive.

The narrators of “Goblin Market” and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland each conclude with the hope that these tales will be passed on from generation to generation. These texts create two binaries that cause tension in the texts based on this form of storytelling. The first is the natural occurrence of maturing into adulthood while still maintaining access to the memories of childhood. The second is the relationship between the stories parents tell their children and what these stories actually teach. These parental anxieties are one of the driving forces of “Goblin Market” and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Without the focus on a young audience, these texts could have very different, and less happy, endings.

In the Victorian Web’s article, “The Femme Fetale As Object” by Elizabeth Brown, she describes the portrayal of these Victorian women in artwork. In many paintings, women aren’t shown in their true form, but rather versions of themselves with altered proportions. For example, women would be shown with a more elongated spine or longer legs, so they were not always anatomically correct in their portraits. Through these alterations, these women were reduced to a version of themselves based mostly on “pleasing arrangements of shapes and light.” (Brown). The idea of a woman being dismembered in such a fashion reminded me of Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess.” The speaker in the poem doesn’t refer to the duchess as an entity, but rather reduces her to her features, and talks specifically about parts of her, but never describes the entire painting. Through the freedom of artists to alter their paintings to idealize proportions, the woman is not only anatomically incorrect, but her value and individuality are diminished.

The first line in “My Last Duchess” that struck me was when the speaker took note specifically of Fra Pandolf’s hands. By switching the subject of the sentence from the artist to his hands, it dehumanizes him and reduces his creativeness to the tools of his creation-his hands. This is consistent with his descriptions of the duchess, as he goes on to describe the way she blushes. He doesn’t say the word blush, however, which connotes charm and modesty. Instead, the word he uses to describe the flush in her cheeks is “spot.” A “spot of joy” was not a positive description to me as a reader. Instead, it made me think of a stain or something unwanted and undesirable. He does not describe the rest of her face or ever discuss the description of her image as a whole, but he does talk about her mouth and her “smiles” that she wears too often in his opinion. He expresses here his distaste in her flirtatious nature, and his jealousy and unpleasant demeanor become evident. The “femme fatale” is often defined as “a very attractive woman who causes trouble or unhappiness for the men who become involved with her,” which is consistent with the description of the duchess and the husband that survived her.

The imagery present in “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning is fragmented and oftentimes focuses only on specific snippets of images. I found the parallel of the style in which Victorian women were painted and the structure of this poem to be really interesting. The idea of using fragmented parts to create a more appealing whole is consistent in both mediums.

In “Goblin Market” by Christina Rosetti, there are several allusions to female sexuality, even though historically it is a tale about sisterly love. The numerous references to fruit and flowers, to me, served as a metaphor for sexuality and a loss of virginity. Specifically, in the passage where the maidens refer to Jeanie, whose demise serves as the cautionary tale steering the women away from the goblin merchants, I felt as though there were several blatant hints at sex or repeated sexual encounters. The women say, “Do you not remember Jeanie,/How she met them in the moonlight,/ Took their gifts both choice and many,/ Ate their fruits and wore their flowers/ Plucked from bowers/ Where summer ripens at all hours.” (147-152). The choice of words, and the structure of this passage is what made it stand out the most to me in its references to a potential sexual relationship with Jeanie and the goblin men.

The first word that stood out to me here was “moonlight.” I found it interesting that a young woman was going to a market that sells fruit in the nighttime, instead of during the day. The moon is also a repeating image in the poem, as it has several connections with danger and temptation. It is also interesting to note that after Laura eats the goblin fruit in the moonlight, she becomes in sync with the moon’s changing phases. She starts to “dwindle” when the moon changes out of its full phase. The moon and the nighttime are often associated with danger and the unknown, and, since Lizzie and Laura are Victorian women, they have been advised to stay out of anything that causes potential harm or could lead them to lost purity. The theme of purity and its importance was highlighted for me in the fourth and fifth lines of the passage I chose, where Jeanie “Ate their fruits and wore their flowers/ Plucked from bowers.” Here, the use of “fruit” and “flowers” together in a line suggested to me the image of the female reproductive system. A flower is delicate and pure, and the following line “plucked from bowers” suggests that the purity is no longer there and significant. Since a woman’s bowers are her private room or bedroom, I felt as though this line meant that her purity was plucked from her through sexual acts.

Even though the poem “Goblin Market” contains a powerful anecdote of sisterly love, I think through the excessive sexual imagery and the violence of the men towards Lizzie later in the poem, it suggests a darker theme. In the passage introducing Jeanie, I felt as though the words chosen were very deliberate, and allowed the reader to see the sexual undertones present.

   I have chosen to write about the musical version of The Woman in White by Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Zippel. Although I was unable to find the entire musical online, I was able to find bits and pieces, as well as read the summary, reception, and more. Putting aside the fact that the writers had to edit out many parts of the novel in order for the musical to be of acceptable length, I want to address what main parts they did leave out, as well as what the writers changed. First, the entire storyline regarding Pesca’s history with Walter, as well as his involvement with Fosco’s demise is completely omitted. More importantly, Fosco’s death does not even exist in the musical. This lessens Fosco’s involvement in his and Glyde’s manipulation of Laura and Marian, as well as his involvement in the entire storyline as a whole. Second, Glyde’s secret is completely altered. Instead of being a bastard child, it is revealed that he had raped Anne and then drowned the child that was created from the act. This creates Glyde to be more despicable than ever, because there is practically nothing more terrible than killing children in the eyes of the public. These two substantial changes portray Glyde as the true villain in this interpretation instead of Fosco.

   This causes a decreasing importance of Fosco’s character, as well as depicts him as less dishonorable than his character in the novel. Perhaps the sole purpose of these deletions and adjustments were simply to shorten the story, but most likely they were also to simplify it. It appears that having two antagonists, one obvious but the other more subtle, is too complicated for a modern audience. Back in the Victorian era, people were expected to know others’ names without asking, as well as memorize family trees and ties of those around them. These social expectations are no longer in place for our generation, but even so, what does that say about society today if we can’t even keep a storyline of a classic novel the same for our own convenience?

The portrayal of the nameless lady in Christina Rossetti’s poem In an Artist’s Studio evokes, in many ways, Laura’s representation in the Woman in White. These two female figures are, in fact, similarly objectified and described as the center of male desires and of their own projections.

Portrayed differently in each painting, as “a queen in opal or ruby dress”, “a nameless girl”, “a saint” or “an angel” (Rossetti 5,6,7), the woman of Rossetti’s poem has been completely deprived of her real identity in order to become a mere reflection of the painter’s desires. This description seems to match almost perfectly Laura’s in Collins’ novel. The last verse of the poem, in fact, could be easily referred to her character, since Walter shapes Laura in the same way the painter depicts his lady: “not as she is, but as she fills his dream” (Rossetti 14).

Walter’s objectification of Laura, although veiled, can be seen since the beginning of the novel, when on their first meeting he describes a water colour drawing he made of her instead of describing her directly. Walter therefore portrays Laura as he sees her and as he wants her to be, while the real Laura is silenced. A perfect example of how he makes Laura “even more hazy and less individualized” (Donaghy, 393) can be seen a few pages later when he says “think of her as you thought of the first woman who quickened the pulses within you that the rest of her sex had no art to stir…Take her as a visionary nursling of your own fancy; and she will grow upon you, all the more clearly, as the living woman who dwells in mine” (Collins, 52). Laura is here generalized and her emptiness of character is seen as necessary, since she functions as a center of projection of the other characters’ desires.

Therefore, the two figures of Laura and of the nameless woman in Rossetti’s poem, seem almost to overlap, as both their identities, although in different ways, have been completely annihilated by a male figure. In fact, both the painter, through his work, and Walter, through his actions and narration, objectify the two women whose role is merely reduced to “a blank to be filled by male desire” (Donaghy, 393).