Category: 360: Victorian Sexualities

I would like to discuss Mr. Gilmore’s…sexuality. Though his prose is much more blunt and efficient than Mr.Hartright’s elaborate descriptions of people and places, the narrative style does not necessarily reflect masculinity even though we may typically associate straight-forward, effective language with men instead of the “flowery” or emotional language of women (stereotypes, let’s be clear). I want to address one particular sentence that I think hints to Mr. Gilmore’s sexual desires through the text. After Sir Percival (whom I believe might be the object of Mr. Gilmore’s affection) takes the note from Miss. Halcombe addressed to Mrs. Catherick without looking at it and addresses it and hands it back to Miss. Halcombe, Mr. Gilmore notes, “I never saw anything more gracefully and more becomingly done, in my life” (133). Is this simply approval of Sir Percival’s mannerisms on Mr. Gilmore’s behalf? I would argue there is desire within the sentence. Mr. Gilmore’s language, up until his encounters with Sir Percival, is fairly unemotional and fittingly, lawyer-like. He calls Mr. Hartright a “modest and gentlemanlike young man” (128) and Mr. Fairlie as a “helpless sufferer” (129). Brutally honest, and thus as a reader I came to see Mr. Gilmore as a frank, open man. Mr. Gilmore even describes the women in a very matter-of-fact manner, not mentioning their bodies or beauty (or lack thereof) as Mr. Hartright did.

Saying that Sir Percival’s actions were graceful is the most sensuous wording I’d read from Mr. Gilmore throughout the text. The use of the word “becomingly” suggests an attraction to Sir Percival’s actions while the notion that Mr. Gilmore’s “never seen” anything as graceful alludes to the fact that he has never been as tempted by someone, including women, before. I think the “in my life” highlights the awareness Mr. Gilmore has that his attraction to men is not something that occurs in the lives of other men; I would read it as “in my life”. The sentence is just one of many that hints quite obviously (at least I think so) to the desire Mr. Gilmore has for Sir Percival. He even later describes him as, “a gentleman, every inch of him” (146). I cannot help but associate this with sexual desire! It is not only the words, but the break in his usual objective text. In this novel, it may be those moments, when the narrators’ seemingly innocently comment on actions within the story, when they betray their true emotions. In this multi-narrator text, it’s fascinating to see how observing how different narrators comment on people and describe the events around them can allude to their own desires and thoughts more than the actions in the narrative.

When I first started reading The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, I began to formulate a question in my mind on the true views of the author.  I was curious on whether Wilkie Collins would portray the women of his novel in a stereotypical Victorian way: men being superior to women in numerous rights and aspects of life.

At first, I was convinced that Wilkie Collins’ views were similar to William Rathbone Greg’s opinions on women, which were rather degrading.  In his essay entitled “Why Are Women Redundant?”, Greg described single working women of England as people who were “wasting life and soul, gathering the scientist subsistence, and surrounded by the most overpowering and insidious temptations” (158).  Meanwhile, in one passage in The Woman in White, Collins has one of the female characters, Miss Marian Halcombe, state, “Women can’t draw – their minds are too flighty, and their eyes are too inattentive” (37).  Also, Collins’ other female characters such as Anne Catherick and Laura Fairlie are shown as emotionally unstable.  Both Greg and Collins seem to portray women in their writings as fragile, careless, and incapable of performing certain tasks of life.  After reading such words, I came to believe that both writers were sexist towards women.

However, after delving deeper into the story of The Woman in White, I noticed that the personalities of women, especially that of Miss Marian Halcombe, did not represent female characters as the dim, meek people I had expected Collins to portray them as.  Rather, Marian and her half sister, Laura, are shown as strong characters protesting against the cruel regime of men in Victorian society.  This is most evident during the weeks leading up to Laura’s dreaded wedding ceremony with Sir Percival Glyde.  Marian, fed up with the selfish decision makings of their uncle, Mr. Fairlie, and Sir Percival, exclaims, “No man under heaven deserves these sacrifices from us women.  Men!  They are the enemies of our innocence and our peace – they drag us away from our parents’ love and our sisters’ friendship – they take us body and soul to themselves, and fasten our helps lives to theirs as they chain up a dog to his kennel” (181).  Such words are powerful and bold because they blatantly explain the unequal statues that women suffered during the Victorian Era.

After reading the outcry of Marian, I changed my opinion on Collins, now viewing him as a potential advocate on women’s rights.  However, it is still debatable on what Collins’ true intensions were due to other passages (such as the one mentioned before about women being incapable of drawing) that do not exactly portray women as equals to men.

Throughout The Woman in White, many characters go through losses that alter their life and lifestyle; Miss Laura Fairlie is one of these characters. Despite her growing forbidden love for Mr. Walter Hartright, Miss Fairlie marries another character who she does not love, Sir Percival Glyde. One point in this story, Miss Fairlie asks her half-sister, Marian Halcomb to continue to write to Mr. Hartright even though he has left and their love can never be. Laura pleads, “You write to him, and he writes to you, […] While I am alive, if he asks after me, always tell him I am well, and never say I am unhappy. Don’t distress him, Marian – for my sake, don’t distress him” (173). This passage is about people keeping in touch; however, this passage is also darker than it seems. Though not directly discussed, feelings of loss are key matters in this quote.

By telling Mr. Hartright that Laura is well, it is as if Marian is sending this version of her sister away forever, where she will live in his mind. Generally speaking, being sent away is a bad thing, like readers see through character Anne Catherick, who was sent away to an asylum, which she detests. In this case though, the happy Laura gets to be elsewhere (in Mr. Hartright’s thoughts). During this, the conflicted, fragile, and depressed remains of her character, live on and marry Sir Percival Glyde. Her happiness is lost and so are her hopes to develop a relationship with the noble Mr. Hartright.

The latter half of the quote also presents the theme of loss. The continuation of the passage above goes: “If I die first, promise you will give him this little book of his drawings, with my hair in it. There can be no harm, when I am gone, of telling him that I put it in there with my own hands” (173). This idea, of Laura including a piece of her hair in the book, I like to think, is quite significant. Hair is dead right from the start of the scalp, or from the beginning. The potential for Laura and Mr. Hartright’s relationship to grow was automatically seen as a  dead idea, right as Mr. Hartright arrived (because she is already engaged). It is as if the hair is a symbol of their bond.

Laura’s loss of Mr. Hartright, and of her independence (after marrying Sir Percival Glyde) ties her to so many other characters, and their experiences in The Woman in White. This theme has been present in the story, even if not blatantly stated, from the beginning. Loss has been haunting Anne Catherick, who is trying desperately to rid, or lose her reputation of being the crazy woman from the asylum. Loss has also affected Marian. When Laura got married it was as if Marian had lost a half of herself. So much of Marian’s identity was being a protector to Laura.

Author Wilkie Collins’ inclusion of this understated theme makes me intrigued to see what is going come of Laura and Mr. Hartright and these character’s futures. The author exemplifies the theme of loss, and specifically, this repetition of women losing things (or people) most prominently through Laura. Through the showcasing of this theme, perhaps Collins is commenting on how easy it is for women to lose power over their futures, as readers see, outside sources can hinder one’s development in many specific ways.

Mr. Gilmore repeatedly reveals himself as partial to Sir Percival, to the point of almost willful blindness to signs of his faults. This is exemplified in his description of Laura’s dog: “Her cross-grained pet greyhound was in the room, and I fully expected a barking and snapping reception. Strange to say, the whimsical little brute falsified my expectations by jumping into my lap, and poking its sharp muzzle familiarly into my hand the moment I sat down,” (141). This comment directly refers to the earlier scene in which the dog barks at Sir Percival’s offered hand, and through comparison Mr. Gilmore opens himself to the possibility of seeing through Sir Percival’s gentleman persona, but instead redirects his conclusion in the wrong direction.

Drawing from the trope of dogs being able to sense evil characters, the initial incident with Sir Percival is a clue to his masked dubious character. He more easily disguises his interior self from other people, who have ingrained expectations about gentlemen and infer inward morality from outward presentation, than from the dog. Mr. Gilmore, instead of recognizing its perception, dismisses the dog as a “little beast, cowardly and cross-grained as pet-dogs usually are” (133), to fit the interaction into his previously established worldview. Mr. Gilmore has already given hints that he began his judgment with preconceived notions, as when he described the explanation Sir Percival gave as “simple and satisfactory as I had all along anticipated it would be,” (130). Now, he continues in that trend by misinterpreting the dog’s reactions.

The simplest explanation of the scenario, that being two men both acquainted with a dog, one met with fear and the other with affection, lends easily to the assumption that the first man has given the dog a reason to be distrustful. Mr. Gilmore, however, concludes from this scenario that the dog is “whimsical,” and therefore irrational in its reaction to Sir Percival. This conclusion allows him to continue on without yet being disabused of his expectations of Sir Percival, despite the evidence at hand.

This passage is really about the extent to which expectations based on wealth, power, and gender can influence all later perceptions of actual actions. Sir Percival has been afforded a place in society that allows him to pass without suspicion through most people’s judgments, particularly other men like Mr. Gilmore, who appears predisposed to sweeping generalizations about groups of people (“There are three things that none of the young men of the present generation can do” (128)). He comes assured from the start that Sir Percival will be able to provide a reasonable explanation for the accusations against him, and in fact dismisses Mr. Hartright’s suspicions to the contrary as romantic.

The descriptions of the dog also play into themes of appearance and expectation; Mr. Gilmore expects for the dog to be nasty but it instead reveals itself to be calm and loving, just as Anne Catherick acts animalistic and irrational when Sir Percival is brought up, but is otherwise sweet and docile.  Sir Percival, then, distorts the public perception of those whom he needs to discredit because they know the truth of his character, by simple virtue of remaining calm and unruffled as he provokes extreme emotional reactions (with Anne, this occurs when he gives his seemingly rational explanation for the accusations against him). Both the dog and Anne are voiceless to general society and thus unable to defend themselves in their reactions to Sir Percival, and both are automatically viewed with more suspicion by outsiders than a man of high social standing.

Wilkie Collins’ Victorian sensation novel opens with several, for lack of a better word, strange events: the near-drowning of a small Italian man, an eerie encounter with an escapee from an asylum, and (in my opinion, most shockingly) a woman with a mustache. The protagonist, Walter is immediately taken aback by this mustache woman, Marian Halcombe, internally exclaiming “the lady is ugly!”(Collins 34). Walter also notes that, while she does possess a beautiful figure, she also “ha[s] a large, firm, masculine mouth and jaw; prominent, piercing, resolute brown eyes; and thick, coal-black hair, growing unusually low down on her forehead”(Collins 35). She, juxtaposed with the beautiful and demure Laura Fairlie, is a complete contradiction to the typical Victorian standards of beauty. Laura is the embodiment of beauty in the eyes of Walter (and a presumably Victorian audience): she is demure, submissive, and fair.

Marian and Laura are polar opposites not only in appearance, but in personality as well. While Laura is submissive and reserved, Marian is outspoken and dominant. Mr. Fairlie, the supposed master of the house, much prefers polishing his coin collection to taking care of his family, thus the responsibility falls to Marian. Throughout the novel, she is constantly critiquing and refusing to conform to gender norms, at one point even claiming that she “[doesn’t] think much of [her] own sex”(Collins 36). Despite being presented as such a stark contrast to the ideal Victorian woman she is still, I think, one of the most likable characters in the novel. Unlike the lovesick Walter; the daft Laura, the weak Mr.Fairlie; and the incredibly passive Mrs. Vesey; Marian is smart, capable, determined, and takes care of everyone else in the house. She has informed, intelligent opinions on various matters, such as Laura’s upcoming marriage to Sir Percvial Glyde, and is not afraid to share them.

Perhaps this is just my modern perspective on the novel and could completely contradict the author’s message, however, I believe that the character of Marian Halcombe serves as a critique of Victorian ideals. She is a complete contrast to Victorian ideals, however, is still the character that (at least so far in the novel) is in the most control of her own destiny and seems to be much better off than everyone else. Because she is not afraid to speak her mind and pursue her goals, something that Victorian women were not necessarily encouraged to do, she is one of the most well-liked characters in the novel (at least to me). Her refusal to conform to the pressures of her surrounding society, and her ability to thrive doing so, could suggest that a deviance from Victorian social norms is not necessarily detrimental.

In this post I would like to address the child imagery used to depict Laura within pages 126-195 of Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White. The Freudian concepts of repetition and repression discussed in class are evident features of Laura’s child imagery, which I will come to elaborate on. I pose that this child imagery, when analyzed with a Freudian lens, serves not only to display Laura’s repression of her feelings for Walter, but also creates a stronger connection and physical appearance mirroring Anne Catherick (as child imagery was abundant in her character description in the graveyard seen earlier in the novel).

Mr. Gilmore first brings up one of Laura’s repetitive habits she has had since childhood. When he approaches her regarding the question of whether or not she will marry he observes “Her fingers had a restless habit, which I remembered in her as a child, of always playing with the first thing that came to hand, whenever anyone was talking to her” (141-2). Marian recognizes the fiddling of the fingers again when conversing about her decision to marry Percival Glyde: “twining and twisting my hair with that childish restlessness in her fingers” (164). That night Marian notices the expression of another habit Laura has exhibited since childhood when Mr. Hartright’s drawing book was “half hidden under her pillow, just in the place where she used to hide her favourite toys when she was a child” (165). In Sigmund Freud’s Remembering, Repeating, and Working-Through he states as a psychoanalyst that “repitition is a transference of the forgotten past…remembering at once gives way to acting out…brings out an armoury of the past the weapons with which he defends himself against the progress of the treatment” (Freud 151). Freud essentially states that repressed emotions and thoughts can transfer themselves into repetitive physical actions, for example, Laura using her fingers to play with objects or hiding prized items under her pillow at night.

Recognizing the suggestive, Freudian evidence of her repetitive behaviors, I contend that Laura’s fiddling with objects is an exhibition of her repressed affection for Walter (potentially her desire to ‘play with him’) and her internal wishes to not marry Mr. Glyde, as well as simply the repressed wish that the current conversation would halt. Hiding Hartright’s drawing book under her pillow exhibits her repressed desire to hold on to him, her repressed fear of losing him or that someone will steal him (Glyde, Catherick, or other), and potentially her repressed desire to sleep with him, although due to her chastity and duty to her engagement, she cannot.

Child imagery in regards to Laura continues on 185 when Marian proclaims “poor child- for a child still she is still in many things”. I aim to compare this with child imagery pressed onto Anne on page 94 “harmless, poor soul, as a little child”. Anne’s continued ‘orphan role’ image and obsession with Mrs. Fairlie as a mother figure also play into her child imagery “nobody is like Mrs. Fairlie!” (100). These similarities in child depiction strengthen the assumption throughout the novel that they are physically similar. Extrapolating from this, this imagery also attests to both characters’ innocence and purity in that they “are only children” whether in mental capacity, looks, or social understanding. Percival Glyde’s age of 45 years also gives him a further pedophile-esque quality. It provides suggestions that he is out to control these women as they are merely harmless, supple children. It implies he is or has taken advantage of them- for their bodies, their purity of mind and heart, and in Miss Fairlie’s case, her money (witnessed by Gilmore 151).