Category: 360: Victorian Sexualities

In Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market, sisters Lizzie and Laura have two very different experiences with the “goblin men” selling fruit. These goblins are described in very animalistic terms, often having tails, fur or claws. They are dark, and don’t walk, but tramp or scurry. In most ways they are different from the two sisters. However, the relationship the goblins have with each other is oddly similar to the relationship of the sisters. On page 474, the goblins are described separately “One had a cat’s face/ One whisked a tail/ One tramped at a rat’s pace/ One crawled like a snail” etc. However, when the goblins act they do so “all together” (474). This contrast of multiplicity and oneness is repeated with the recurrence of the phrase they [action] all together. Laura and Lizzie, while they often behave very differently, are described as together or somehow linked. When they sleep they are “Like two blossoms on one stem/ Like two flakes of new fall’n snow/ Like two wands of ivory”(478). While I don’t think the relationship the goblins have is comparable to the relationship of Lizzie and Laura, I think it’s interesting how the relationships that people or beings have with each other is used to define the individual. Because of their larger identity goblin or girl, their more individual identities- Laura, Lizzie, snail, cat- are erased. In the last stanza of the poem most of the, for lack of a better word, characters are identified by their larger identity: “fruit-merchant men”, and “wives” or “sister,” except for Laura (488). Is she identified because she has become the new Jeanie—the warning to stay within your prescribed roles? But what if instead Laura has her identity because she ate the goblins’ fruit? Is there something about her journey ‘through’ the fruit and back to life that allows her to claim herself?

The etching of the cat sitting in Eugene Gaujean’s The Two Friends instantly reminded me of Count Fosco’s manipulative and feminine characteristics. The cat is usually associated with femininity, nimbleness, and prowess, and the Count exhibits these traits throughout The Woman in White. For instance, Marian first describes the Count, “fat as he is, and old as he is, his movements are astonishingly light and easy. He is as noiseless in a room as any of us women, and more than that, with all his look of unmistakable power, he is as nervously sensitive as the weakest of us” (Collins 219). Marian’s description of the Count in this passage is quite feminine and feline-like. He moves with silent grace, as a cat does before it attacks its prey, and Marian compares this noiselessness to that of a woman. Although the cat in the etching is small, it upholds a massive presence that mirrors the presence of the Count, whom is fat, but tranquil in nature. Additionally, he encompasses “nervous sensitivity,” which is a phrase usually attributed to women. This sensitivity is another attribute cats express to their owner for affection, and more so to receive food. The Count uses his charisma and sensitivity extensively to manipulate others to give him what he wants.

Another aspect about the cat that resembles the Count’s essence is the way it resides in the portrait. The cat appears to be relaxing and at ease, but its eyes are squinting as though it is keeping watch on the room and the bird, like Count Fosco does in the library with Marian and Laura. This manipulative behavior is exemplified when Marian notes, peering through the library door as she’s leaving to deliver her letters to Fanny, that “[Count Fosco] must have specifically invited [the housekeeper] to see [the canaries]- for she would never have thought of going into the library of her own accord. The man’s slightest actions had a purpose of some kind at the bottom of every one of them. What could be his purpose here?” (308). Marian’s observation makes two inquiries which link Count Fosco to the cat. First, he is permitting the housekeeper’s presence in the library, just like the cat is allowing the bird to perch on the same chair. The cat, like Count Fosco, could snap at any moment and kill the bird. Secondly, Marian questions the Count’s motive, which by this point in the novel the reader expects to be malicious.  However, the Count conceals his motives with endearment, and faces each complication in his plan by landing gracefully on his feet like a cat.

 

(I want to mention and stress that I absolutely LOVE cats and do not believe that they are inherently evil. I just thought the stereotype made a strong correlation to Count Fosco. They do have a sneaky way about them, but I do believe they are wonderful pets.) And now… KITTY PICTURES WITH BIRDIES!! =]

In Christina Rossetti’s poems “In an Artist’s Studio” and “Goblin Market,” men are depicted as thieves or consumers of women’s physical beauty. Drained of this beauty, the women in these poems face two different, but similarly undesirable, fates: The model ceases to exist outside the artist’s “dream” and Jeanie dies a single woman—a fate Laura narrowly manages to escape as well (“Artist” 14).

The speaker of “In an Artist’s Studio” explicitly charges the male artist with “feed[ing] upon her face by day and night” (9). The phrase “feeds upon” suggests that the model’s beauty is something he can consume in order to sustain himself. Indeed, as an artist he makes his living off of the aesthetic objects he creates through his art. Therefore, by capturing or “feed[ing]” off the model’s beauty and using it for his art, the artist metaphorically consumes her body for his own gain. The speaker argues that the artist’s repeated use of this particular model for multiple works reduces the model to an abstract ideal, an intangible “dream” (14). In the artist’s paintings, the model appears “fair” and “joyful” (11). Yet, the speaker informs us of the model’s beauty in the paintings through negation: “Not wan with wanting, not with sorrow dim;/ Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright ;/ Not as she is, but as she fills his dream” (12-4). Though the artist’s paintings continuously depict the model as an “angel[ic]” beauty, the speaker suggests that his image of the model is merely a fantasy or memory. He sees her “not as she is, but was when hope shone bright” (13)[1]. The tense shift in this line indicates an important temporal distance between the time the painting was created and the speaker’s present viewing of the piece. Rather than concluding the poem with the artist’s romanticized image of the model, the speaker leaves her reader with an image of a “wan” and depleted woman (12).

In “Goblin Market,” Jeanie and Laura’s respective encounters with the goblin men result in a more literal loss or consumption of beauty. We learn from Lizzie’s anxious memory that Jeanie’s meeting with the goblin men led to her untimely death: “She thought of Jeanie in her grave,/ Who should have been a bride;/ But who for joys brides hope to have/ Fell sick and died/ In her gay prime” (312-16). As we have seen in our study of Victorian art, the idealized image of a woman depicted her as a young, healthy, sensuous woman in her “prime” (316). Illness would mean a loss of this standard of beauty. Laura’s loss of beauty is more overt. First, the goblin men take a “precious golden lock” of her hair (126). Then, in the aftermath of her encounter, Laura’s youthful beauty begins to fade: “Her hair grew thin and grey;/ She dwindled… To swift decay and burn/ Her fire away” (277-280). Just as the artist robbed the model of her beauty through his painting, so too do the goblin men (literally and figuratively) steal Lizzie and Laura’s beauty.

[1] Emphasis added.

Hi everyone! I’ve just discovered that Whistlestop Bookshop has a blog, and found this post about our dear Wilkie Collins, and thought I would share it if anyone is interested in reading:

http://www.whistlestoppers.com/blog/2014/9/4/wilkie-collins-and-the-problems-of-the-grave

In “Goblin Market,” Christina Rossetti provides an account of how the love between two women is actually a necessity for survival. Lizzie and Laura’s love for one another is what saves them both and allows them to uphold their duties as single women and then as married women. Their relationship is reminiscent of the one between Laura and Marian in Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White in that each Laura is saved by the selfless acts of her respective sister. Rossetti and Collins reject the notion that love between women should be feared by highlighting the ability of this love to coexist with heterosexual marriage.

Rossetti proves that though women may fall, they are ultimately powerful forces. Rossetti writes that women can “cheer,” “fetch,” “lift,” and “strengthen” one another in times of need (488). Lizzie could only achieve these feats by offering her body to Laura. When she returns from the market, she says to Laura, “Eat me, drink me, love me” (486). In response, Laura “kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth” (486). This sexually-overt physical exchange between the sisters ultimately prevented the death of Laura. In fact, her dangerous condition arose from the seduction of the male goblins, who spoke in “tones as smooth as honey” and caused her to “suck” the deadly fruits (476). Laura’s weak will caused her to risk her life while Lizzie’s refusal to obey the male characters saved them both from death. Through this portrayal of the female characters in “Goblin Market,” Rossetti shows that same-sex bonds are healthy and can be more beneficial than heterosexual relationships at specific points in a woman’s life.

The final line of The Woman in White embodies that same ideal about same-sex relationships. After dominating the tale, Walter ends his narrative by stating, “Marian was the good angel of our lives—let Marian end our Story” (612). Though it is contestable that Marian actually ends the story, she plays a key role in the marriage between Walter and Laura. Without Marian, Walter’s plans for revenge and marriage would have never come to fruition. Marian acts as the nurturing and protecting force whose physical and emotional support revive Laura. Therefore, just as Laura needs Lizzie’s love and physical affection to revive her from death into her youthful beauty, Laura Fairlie needs Marian to restore her to her previous self so that she is once again fit for marriage.

These stories are paradoxical in that same-sex sensuality is simultaneously repressed and illuminated as a pathway to marriage in these Victorian texts. Even though both accounts end with heterosexual marriages, these unions are not the solution to the scandal of same-sex relationships. Rather, heterosexual marriages allow same-sex relationships to exist by providing women with the guise of respectability in society. Marian and Lizzie remain as close to their sisters as they did before the marriages, but these relationships are no longer explicitly erotic because each Laura can now fulfill her role as a married woman raising her children in a safe, domestic space.

In doing a close reading of a passage, I’d like to look at a stanza in part two of The Lady of Shalott:

“There she weaves by night and day, a magic web with colours gay. She has heard a whisper say, a curse is on her if she stay to look down to Camelot. She knows not what the curse may be, and so she weaveth steadily, and little other care hath she, the Lady of Shalott.”

This section to me is a brilliant description of the ideal Victorian wife; she is focused on her duties (in this case weaving, in other cases childbearing) and she does not know much about her own circumstances. This is a romanticized example, showing a woman cursed, forced to stay inside, and eventually dying when she breaks the proscribed rules. The message, however, is quite clear: stick to the rules, whether you know them or not, and nobody gets hurt.

I think this can relate well back to The Woman in White looking at the role of Countess Fosco. She is often idly working away at rolling countless cigarettes for her husband, keeping her distracted with busy work, so she is doing something rather than focusing on the main plot.

The artwork depicting the Lady of Shalott seems to disagree with my theory that she is merely a demure, controlled Victorian woman; the piece by William Holman Hunt depicts the Lady as larger than life as does the piece by John William Waterhouse. These images, too, appear romanticizations, as were popular with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

The basic idea I’m seeing here is that The Lady of Shalott relates perfectly to the idea of a weakened, docile Victorian woman with little to know knowledge of her own purpose outside of her immediate task, such as weaving, or bearing children.

As we have discussed extensively in class, Wilkie Collins narrative presents ambiguities and blurred lines in every aspect of the text (i.e. characters’ motives, narrative structure, plot twists and elements). One element that Dever addresses in her critique of Collins’ works is the nature of his consistent derivation from the traditional marriage plot. In discussing The Woman in White specifically, he focalizes on the most significant ambiguity of the novel: the relationship between Marian, Walter, and Laura and their “love-triangle,” as we would call it today. She describes that, “Collins produces erotically pluralist novels under the protective, authorizing cover of the conventional marriage plot. He uses the form against itself, turning the marriage plot inside out to feature affirmative, loving, nonmarital bonds” (114). Although only broadly concentrating the relationships in The Woman in White, Dever correctly establishes a main reason behind the “pluralist” nature of Collins narrative. I was interested in this pluralism, though, and what exactly contributed to this in the text through the character developments specifically. One major factor to this triangular romance lies in the deeper relationship between Marian and Walter.

Although Walter and Laura do ultimately end up together, the friendship that grows between Walter and Marian remains a profound and intellectual bond. Nowhere else over the course of the narrative do we see these two characters talk to other characters in the manner that they talk to one another. Of course, the idea that Marian and Walter could ever be a couple is one that has been completely discarded from the very start of the text, since her introduction as a very masculine female character, something that continues to be emphasized throughout the narrative.

Nevertheless, Marian and Walter engage in a very marital-like discourse in many instances. For example, after Marian has been ill and weak for a period of time, yet she and Walter must decide on a new course of action for the two of them and Laura, the two of them share a discourse as Marian cleans the house: “She dashed [the tears] away with a touch of her old energy, and smiled with a faint reflexion of her good spirits. ‘Don’t doubt my courage, Walter,’ she pleaded, ‘it’s my weakness that cries, not me. The house work shall conquer it if I can’t.’ And she kept her word – the victory was won when we met in the evening, and she sat down to rest. Her large steady black eyes looked at me with a flash of their bright firmness of bygone days” (433). The first component of how the reader views this relationship rests in the manner in which Walter describes Marian’s actions and her appearance. He remains very endearing towards her, almost to a point of pity in this passage, as he consistently addresses her “firmness of bygone days” or the “touch of her old energy.” Furthermore, he once again addresses her “black eyes,” a reminder as to how incompatible Marian is as a woman for not just Walter but for any man. Marian’s dialogue to Walter is then the next important element to their relationship. She very assertively says to him “don’t doubt my courage.” This shows how much Marian can not only read Walter but also respond so honestly to what she knows him to be thinking. This reflects the nature of, if not a married couple, then a very close pair, and the intuitions that each could have about the other. Marian and Walter’s relationship still remains the most interesting to me in the novel and going in depth to explore then Walter and Laura and Marian and Laura’s relationships would be fascinating to bring together and how they all prove so directly Dever’s statement about Collins’ works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwFe2KBc3Qw

Just a little something from my angsty phase in high school. The lyrics in the video are a little off, but they’re pretty clear when you listen.

“The Lady of Shalott.” Written and Performed by Emilie Autumn. Released September 2006 on the album Opheliac. 

Marriage was one of the most debated topics during the Victorian Era and it is interesting to see how Collins developed his personal idea on this issue throughout The Woman in White.  Marriage is a recurring theme in this novel, however, it is clear that Collins has a preference for unusual marriage plots which oppose the typical Victorian ideal. As Carolyn Denver states in her essay, there are “different meanings of “marriage” itself – as a legal contract, as a means of regulating sexual desire, as a method of property transmission, as a set of emotional bonds – he (Collins) undermines the fundamental presumption that the concept is founded on the union of a man and a woman.” (Denver, 112) We can find proof to support this claim both in the representation of the sisterly love between Marian and Laura, which is described as being more than a fraternal relationship and leaning towards a same-sex couple, even though not explicitly stated in the novel, and through recurring themes of illegitimate children and adultery throughout the novel.

One being the exact opposite of the other, Laura the vulnerable and weak woman who embodies the Victorian stereotype and Marian her intelligent and outspoken counterpart, they almost complete each other as if they were actually a real and conventional couple. Marian’s masculinity, which is present not only in her physical appearance but also in her personality, does confirm this thought and therefore becomes “a masculine companion for Walter and a feminine one for Laura” (Denver, 114) in this strange triangular love between Laura, Walter and Marian herself.

However, Collins does not stop here in his dismantling of the conventional marriage plot. The representation of illegitimate relationships and children is an important factor as well in the development of the narration. As we already know, scandals were starting to make their first appearance in newspapers during the Victorian Era and the presence of a scandal in a novel aimed to teach “punitive lessons, often deliberately intended to induce conformity in its audience” (the Victorian web). This lesson we can infer from Collins’ portrayal of illegitimacy and adultery conveys the idea that illegitimate children are doomed to a tragic end because of their status and their parents’ mistakes. Through both the figures of Anne and Sir Percival who struggle with mental insanity and violent outbursts of anger, Collins displays his want “to anchor legitimate marriage and to align illegitimacy with lunacy. Serving as a force of sexual regulation, the novel hints that extramarital sex might produce a new generation of Glydes and Annes.” (Denver, 114)

However, while he deals with adultery as something reproachable and to be condemned, exactly as Victorian society wanted, he does not seem to question or condemn the children of the marriage between Walter and Laura. Under the surface of a stereotypical marriage, lies in fact this scandalous triangular love which however seems not to undermine the transfer of property, since Walter’s son is presented in the end as “the Heir of Limmeridge” (Collins, 627).

As the title suggests, the central characters in The Woman in White surround marriage and brides.  What is interesting about the novel is though marriage is the only acceptable social and legal communion between man and woman in the Victorian era, Collins’ presents marriage “as [the] sinkhole of deception, hostility, abuse” (Dever, 114) and illegal activity that is naturally present in male-female relations.

If we examine the conventional marriages in the novel, there is a clear male-dominated, female-directed ownership and exploitation that is justified in the name of property laws.  The most obvious of these is Laura’s marriage to Sir Percival.  The central marriage of the novel is motivated by the man’s desire to secure the monetary inheritances of his wife.

A side note here: traditional Victorian marriages typically joined a man and a woman of similar economic and social standing.  For instance, Laura’s father would never have arranged her marriage to a middle class, blue-collared worker because quite frankly his name would not deserve the Fairlie Estate and he would not be able to provide for his wife in a reciprocal nature.

Back to the point: When we realize that Sir Percival “was not Sir Percival Glyde at all, that he had no more claim to the baronetcy and to Blackwater Park than the poorest labourer who worked on the estate,” it becomes clear that he intended to absorb Laura’s property through the justification of marriage (510).  What otherwise would have been illegal (Percival’s right to aristocratic inheritance) is warranted by the sanctity of mariage.

We see similar questionable, if not illegal, manipulations in the Fosco marriage.  Throughout Walter’s investigations it is revealed that Count Fosco is associated with an illegal organization referred to as ‘The Brotherhood’ (574). And from what we’ve seen of Madame Fosco’s obedience to the Count, it can be assumed that she has been used and manipulated by the Count either to protect his identity or to further his illegal agenda.  When he writes his confessions he also admits to his control over his wife: “I ask, if a woman’s marriage obligations, in this country, provide for her private opinion of her husband’s principles? No! They charge her unreservedly to love, honor, and obey him” (612).  Clearly, Madame Fosco was not allowed to think or act independently within the marriage, so her illegal associations with The Brotherhood were a direct consequence of man’s ownership of woman.  Through her marriage to Fosco, Madame Fosco was legally contracted to act as the instrument for her husband’s illegal endeavors.

Even Mrs. Rubelle’s marriage ties her to illegal activity.  Her husband’s relation to Fosco directly linked Mrs. Rubelle’s interests to the Count’s if by nothing other than her marriage (598, 603).  And so Mrs. Rubelle becomes an active member of the illegal identity-swap of Anne and Laura for the legal benefit to both Sir Percival and the Count.

But women are also exploited when involved in extramarital male-female affairs.  The male-domination and manipulation of women is “natural” in a society where women are second class, but it seems that outside of marriage they are given no legal safety net for this abuse.   For one, Mrs. Catherick births an illegitimate daughter in exploitation by Mr. Fairlie’s sexual desire.  This consequently leads Mrs. Catherick to a life of isolation and societal rejection.  And on an unrelated occasion, she is also used by Sir Percival as a means to execute a criminal scheme to which she is held accountable until the day Sir Percival dies (532-533).

In fact, critics of The Woman in White including Carolyn Dever, cite homosexual and bisexual relations as the only ‘marriages’ that do not hinge on this unbalance between partners and abuse of women as men’s property.  More specifically, Dever writes that the sisterly love between Laura and Marian is “affirmative, loving,” mutual, and respectable (void of an illegal activity and exploitation) (114).  And so it appears that it is the legal and social sanctity of male-female marriages and relations that permit abuse and the less socially and much less legally acceptable sanction of female-female relations that allow for the freedoms of life and liberty.