Fall 2016 – Page 5 – Victorian Sexualities

Beauty & The Beast: Looking at the Use of Sexual Assault in a Narrative

"Salammbo" (1889) by Gabrial Ferrier — “Salammbo” (1889) by Gabrial Ferrier (Image provided by Dickinson College Trout Gallery)

"The Goblin Market" (1933) by Arthur Rackham — “The Goblin Market” (1933) by Arthur Rackham (Image provided by The British Library)

Many works of art and literature from the Victorian period, in particular illustrations for children’s novels, represent a method used to justify colonialism or at least xenophobia. Arthur Rackham’s 1933 (while not Victorian, it draws heavily on the text) illustration of Christina Rossetti’s poem “The Goblin Market” is one such example. He depicts a young girl, Lizzie, moments into her assault by the goblin merchants, depicted as grotesque anthropomorphic creatures that attempt to force the girl to partake of their fruit. The goblin merchants have a mystifying and almost hypnotic air about them, as Lizzie’s sister Laura has already fallen prey to them.

Another illustration that portrays the entrancement of a maiden and a beast (or at least can be interpreted that way through the Victorian male gaze) is Gabrial Ferrier’s 1889 print Salammbo. Beasts enwrap the titular character, like Lizzie, in this case a black serpent that coils around her frame. Her pale and nude figure is exposed in what can be seen as a sexualized, yet relaxed, position. This is not the case with Lizzie, as she is clearly distressed and afraid as the goblin merchants swarm around her. Thus the question I ask is why use these sexualized images and metaphors with animals, in particular portraying them as powerful and mystifying figures?

Colonialism is a part of the answer, as you can distance other people and cultures by portraying them as animals, making it easier to justify colonizing them or at least fearing them. Combining this racism and xenophobia with sexism further complicates the images, because while the stories to have sexual tones (and in the case of Rossetti’s story it has a moral lesson), strange creatures assaulting women and young girls further enforces the authority of an Anglo-Saxon man. However, if the concept is to justify colonizing and “improving” the lives of people in other cultures then why portray them as powerful? Part of this has to do with the gender of the creator/illustrator.

Christina Rossetti’s poem, while it does carry racial overtones, presents a moral tale for young girls regarding relationships, how the bonds of sisterhood are everlasting and can withstand the forces and desire of men. Rackham’s illustration fits well with her poem, although the age he has given Lizzie remains ambiguous. She resists the goblins for the sake of her sister, and it is made clear they care not for money but rather for power over women and possession of their bodies.

“If you will not sell me any

Of your fruits though much and many,

Give me back my silver penny

I tossed you for a fee.

No longer were they wagging, purring,

But visibly demurring

Grunting and snarling.” (Rossetti 11)

Overall the difference between the two images is whether or not the woman gives in to her temptation, yet both cases remain for the male gaze, even if Salammbo presents a more familiar image of the nude, or rather any image available for the pleasure of men. A better way to understand her narrative would be to look at the novel the print is based on. Gustave Flaubert is the author of the 1862 novel Salammbo, and his identity brings to light an interesting comparison. Christina Rossetti is the only woman among these four creators, so her narrative contains the most moral view (even with the racial tones). Thus we can see how the male gaze twists this narrative to justify colonialism while exploiting women and the violence inflicted upon them, calling for men to come save these pure and pale women from foreigners.

If a Little Girl Challenges a Queen in a Dream, Does it Make a Sound?

Through the Looking Glass expands themes found in Alice in Wonderland but brings them to a more complete stage of thought. Alice continues to question her identity, focusing more on her name and her ownership of narrative than her physical size as in the first volume. Additionally, Alice struggles to understand why people behave the way they do and what or who defines acceptable actions.

Towards the end of Through the Looking Glass, Alice encounters the Red and White queens, who represent successful and failed attempts at Victorian womanhood, though both are equally compliant with Victorian society’s demands of women. The Red Queen insists upon avoiding challenges to propriety and passes judgement on other women, while the White Queen fails to visually or behaviorally reflect the ideal Victorian woman’s composure and delicacy. The Red Queen embodies the ideal authority female figure when she critiques the White queen and Alice’s behavior. She instructs Alice to, “Speak when you are spoken to!” (Carroll 211). Alice promptly responds, saying, “if you only spoke when you were spoken to, and the other person always waited for you to begin, you see nobody would ever say anything, so that—–“ (Carroll 211). The Red Queen silences her and proceeds to flail at a response before changing the subject. This exchange is important because Alice leaves out a key facet of Victorian social rules in her rebuttal. She fails to take into account those who are given the authority to speak before addressed. Even though the queen is one such individual, Alice’s failure to recognize and question the viability of this fact reveals how much she has been trained to accept such a hierarchy.

This passage is also important because it demonstrates the way Alice’s dream allows her to challenge and question rules that she could never discuss in waking life. When Alice’s nurse or mother instructs her to behave in a certain way, Alice would expect to be denied and punished, while she feels much more free to do so when faced with a figure like the Red Queen, whom she does not recognize from Victorian society. Her ability to point out an inconsistency in the queen’s instruction reveals and important takeaway from the book as a whole. By suggesting that the only conceivable method for exploring such ideas is a dream, Carroll also indicates that no one in Victorian society will speak on such topics even to discuss them, never mind object to them.

The circumvention of Alice’s question has significance as well because she is not able to bring up her point again. The Red Queen successfully moves on to another topic, proving the effectiveness of Victorian evasion at preventing reform or challenge to the status quo. Alice is likely accustomed to such a shift in conversation when there is a danger of substantive debate, just as she is used to someone in authority, like the nurse she mentions, instructing her.

This passage is a good example of the way Carroll asks the reader to consider why individuals are not discussing behavioral norms in Victorian England. By setting this story in a dream, he shows the extent to which Victorians would consider pursuing such topics. While he does indicate people are concerned about these ideas’ truth, he also acknowledges the likelihood of change or discussion. He does this by continually limiting Alice’s success in reaching definitive answers and by denying her understanding of her own thoughts. Without realizing that she is questioning her society, Alice will not continue to do so when she returns to her home and her cats.

Image from Wikipedia (Red Queen and Alice)

This Poem is Not for Babies

When I first read Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market”, I took it to be a poem about the dangers of female sexuality, pre-marital sex, race, and emotional entanglement, with a sexual assault (or, quite possibly, rape) scene thrown in for kicks and giggles. So hearing that this poem is for children kind of blew my mind. I mean, look at the scene on page 12:

“One may lead a horse to water,

Twenty cannot make him drink.

Though the goblins cuffed and caught her,

Coaxed and fought her,

Bullied and besought her,

Scratched her, pinched her black as ink,

Kicked and knocked her,

Mauled and mocked her,

Lizzie uttered not a word;

Would not open lip from lip

Lest they should cram a mouthful in:

But laughed in heart to feel the drip

Of juice that syrupped all her face,

And lodged in dimples of her chin,

And streaked her neck which quaked like curd.

At last the evil people,

Worn out by her resistance,

Flung back her penny, kicked their fruit

Along whichever road they took,” (12)

Well. That’s not disturbing at all. If there wasn’t a word limit on this prompt, I’d quote the preceding pair of stanzas, but I think the above gets my point across quite well. This poem uses the good sister, Lizzie, to suggest that nice young women don’t have sex. In fact, nice young women are so against pre-marital sex that it is impossible to rape them, because they just won’t “open lip from lip.” Great. It’s always encouraging to hear the suggestion that if women just resist hard enough, they cannot be raped (although the poem does suggest they can still be brutalized, and have “juice” sprayed all over their faces, which is does not sound pleasant in the least).

This stanza is more than just victim blaming, though. If Lizzie were to “open lip from lip,” like her younger sister did, she would become addicted to something she can never have again. In this case, that something is goblin fruit, although the juicy, juicy fruit is a thinly veiled representation of sex. That relationship between fruit (sex) and addiction is a clear warning to young women that if they start having sex before marriage, they will be unable to resist the temptation to do it again. In the poem, this addiction leads them to waste away, but it suggests a slightly less fatal outcome for actual Victorian women who give in to temptation. Victorian men wanted to marry virgins, so if a woman was found to be having sex, it probably wouldn’t have be good for her marriage prospects. In a society where marriage and procreation make up a woman’s entire purpose in life, losing the chance for those things to happen would mean an end to her future. The loss of a future is strikingly similar to the loss of a life, so suddenly, a deadly addiction to fruit makes a lot more sense in the context of Victorian sexuality.

Peter Pan is Lewis Carroll

A boat, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily

In an evening of July—

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear—

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream—
Lingering in the golden gleam—
Life, what is it but a dream?

-Lewis Carroll, 1871, Through the Looking-Glass

Carroll’s poem “A Boat, Beneath a Sunny Sky” is a more sophisticated re-write of the childhood nursery rhyme, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” which punctuates the transformation that Alice goes through from adolescent youth to a matured young adult.

On a website I found online (http://shenandoahliterary.org), which told the background of Carroll’s writing of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass, Alice Pleasance Liddell was an actual person and not a fictional character.Carroll was friends with the Liddell family and would tell the Liddell children (there were three of them) stories about his own adventures while they would all hang out on a boat and Alice became his “muse”. This poem at the end of Through the Looking-Glass is just an autobiographical account of his relationship with Alice and the Liddell children as being something that engulfed his memories and haunted his dreams.

This is all very reminiscent of the tale of Peter Pan to me. Carroll was clearly saddened by the fact that Alice grew up and her youthful self still haunted him. Carroll is essentially begging Alice to never grow up, but that is only possible in his dreams and memories of her. He essentially took her and her two siblings to Wonderland through his stories, which is completely parallel to Peter Pan in the sense that Peter took Wendy and her two brothers to Neverland (Similar names for a childhood fantasy world… coincidence? I, personally, think not!). In both cases there are three children taken to an adolescent fantasy world where they frolic and roam free, with the little girl in the story being the center of attention and the fantasy for the man who is telling the story, yet alas, the girl must grow up eventually and leaves her mark on the guy who awakened her maturity or guided her through her transition. Carroll, like Peter Pan, realizes that children must grow up and be adults at one point- also there is the creepy factor that Carroll was an older man who probably spent a bit too much time with adolescent female children. Peter Pan could also be read technically as a really old man who chose to never “grow up” which may be symbolic of something else- but I digress.

So looking at Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland tales with the context behind it now in mind, the text just seems to be autobiographical, or at least a retelling of events that actually occurred in the form of a “fictional”, fun children’s novel. Carroll is essentially keeping his memories of Alice in a metaphorical glass jar of sorts. He seems to embody the character that he saw Alice as, so her own personal narrative and personality is re-written by Carroll and that is the Alice we as a modern audience gets aquainted with.The children’s novel is Carroll’s way of keeping Alice youthful eternally, throughout time. An interesting connection between time and Alice is that in the modern movie directed by Steven Spielberg, Alice Through the Looking-Glass, Time is a personified character and Alice is running out of time throughout the movie to grow up and face the real-world where she is expected to marry and be a Victorian wife.

Also, here is a link to see some of the pictures that Carroll took of ALICE (who was brunette, by the way…).

Lizzie: Ophelia, Purity, and Rape

“White and golden Lizzie stood, Like a lily in a flood,– Like a rock of blue-veined stone, Lashed by tides obstreperously,– Like a beacon left alone in a hoary roaring sea, Sending up a golden fire,– Like a fruit-crowned orange-tree, White with blossoms honey-sweet, Sore beset by wasp and bee,–Like a royal virgin town, Topped with gilded dome and spire, Close beleaguered by a fleet, Mad to tug her standard down” (12).

As we discussed in class, this is the moment where Lizzie is sexually assaulted, however it’s written in this implicit language that we have become so familiar with. Lizzie is described as “white and golden”, and immediately a red flag goes up. The idea of whiteness has been prevalent as a virginic and pure symbol throughout our text and this is no different. By adding in the word “golden” Rossetti suggests that there is also a kind of gold standard that Lizzie has been held to. So not only is she “white”, she is “golden” in her whiteness. She then gets compared to a lily in a flood, and immediately I thought of the painting of Ophelia in the river. Not to mention Lizzie is seen as “like a rock of blue-veined stone”, similar to Ophelia’s cold dead body.

Consistently in this passage, Lizzie becomes objectified. She’s classified as a “beacon”, an “orange-tree”, and a “royal virgin town” (cough, cough virgin). These classifications then come along with descriptions of being pure and chaste and with otherworldly forces trying to strip her of her purity. All three of these symbols also resemble some aspect of being a women. The “beacon” as an object of light that is cherished and celebrated. The “orange-tree” as the bearer of sweet fruit (children), and the “royal virgin town, topped with golden dome and spire” ready to be infiltrated by an unwelcome force (her first sexual encounter). This language that Rossetti uses is quite reminiscent of a women’s first experience with sex, but one can’t help but lean towards the idea that it’s unwelcome. What really drives this home, is the line “Mad to tug her standard down”. This force, the goblins, that interact with her are not beneficent. They are trying to sway her away from her moral and pure goodness through sexual acts, bringing any possibility of a pure marital union crashing down. Thus bringing any future that she may have, down.

Now, so what? It’s always hard for me to find an answer to this question. Why would a sexual act that is not welcomed also be a method to bring a woman’s standard down? It’s not her fault that she’s being violated. In the Victorian era, it seems to me, that no matter what sexual act that is taking place, it is deemed deviant and the fault gets put on the woman. It is her responsibility to stay pure, and no matter what she must keep it in her pants. What’s funny, or really not funny, is that this sentiment exists even today with the pressure to not sleep around, and the horrible effects of rape culture. Consistently the blame gets put on the victim. They were asking for it. Did you see what they were wearing. They didn’t say no. Well they sure as hell didn’t say yes!

Wait, How Come Lizzie Gets Off (Scot-Free, Obviously, What Did You Think I Meant)?

Yikes. I never thought I’d have to look up fetish terms for educational purposes. Since the prof declared in class that BDSM is a legitimate topic of discussion, however, I retain my right to go there, as it were. Y’all have been forewarned.

If “Goblin Market” didn’t make you at least a little hot and bothered by the end, then you must have the libido of a [comment redacted]. Honestly, the poem has a little something for everyone. Do you fancy huge melons? Or, in case the vulgar connotation I’m suggesting didn’t exist in the mid 1800s, “fruit globes fair or red?” (Rossetti 4) There’s also the “ravish” fantasy, a kink to which Lizzie subscribes. The speaker mentions, in no fewer than two instances in the text, that being forced to consume forbidden fruit quite literally, uh, tickles her fancy (“laughed in heart” and “inward laughter”) (12-13). And who could forget the “juice that syrupped all her face, / And lodged in dimples of her chin, / And streaked her neck which quaked like curd?” (12) This juice, of course, originated from the goblins, who “squeezed their fruits / Against her mouth to make her eat” (12). In Japan, the sexual act in question is called bukkake: multiple men ejaculating onto someone’s face. Sounds like fun (as long as it’s consensual, obviously)!

Unlike Laura, Lizzie suffers no consequences from the ordeal because she refused to open her mouth and, essentially, ingest their cum (told you I’d go there). In fact, when the sisters reunite, Lizzie lets Laura drink from the “goblin pulp and goblin dew” in which she is covered (13). It turns out to be the antidote after all. Ostensibly, Lizzie’s brave interaction with the goblins showcases her dedicated love to her sister. Read the poem again and you notice how wrong the concluding stanza is about the whole situation. Lizzie, you see, derived pleasure from refusing to imbibe the fruit juices. This is known in BDSM circles as erotic sexual denial. While the short (and I think beautiful) stanza on page 13 goes on, through multiple similes, about how much of a stalwart paragon our hero is, neither she nor the speaker ever indicates that this was some onus. Au contraire. Whew! I could use a cold shower right about now…

Fairies, Freud, and Prostitution: The Body as a Commodity in “Goblin Market” and Supernatural

At first glance, the poem “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti and the Supernatural episode S6E9 “Clap Your Hands If You Believe” (hereafter CYHIYB) tell very different stories. “Goblin Market” describes the tale of a woman tempted by goblins to buy their (sexual) fruit, and her sister’s heroic (and virginal) act of resisting the goblins’ advances while obtaining the fruit juice her sister needs to survive. In CYHIYB, brothers Sam and Dean are trying to solve multiple disappearances in a town that are attributed to UFOs, but the boys discover fairies are responsible after Dean is abducted.

Digging deeper, both Laura and Dean are changed by their experiences: Laura “dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn/To swift decay” (Rossetti, 8) and Dean returns from his abduction able to see fairies while others can’t (see strongly-PG-13-rated scene below):

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS3mH5d8SNQ”]

Both characters were involved in the selling/trading of bodies. Laura buys fruit for a “clipped…golden lock” (Rossetti, 4) of hair, selling a piece of her body in exchange for the magical fruit, and Dean is taken by the fairies as part of the deal they made with a local shopkeeper, a tithe in exchange for their working for him:

MR. BRENNAN: I asked him just to cure my hands, but he said he would do even better. He would make me more successful than I had ever been. He told me he’d bring a crew of workers, that I could save my business, save my name.
SAM: In exchange for?
BRENNAN: He just wanted a place for them to rest, to take of the fruit and fat of the land. I said yes. I wasn’t thinking.
SAM: And the fruit and the fat was?
BRENNAN: My firstborn. Not just mine. There’s been others. They’re not stopping. They’re not going to stop. (source)

Both stories involve fairies dealing in the trading of bodies, whether seducing the person into willingly participating, like Laura, or unwillingly “taken to service Oberon, the King of the Faery” as Dean is (source). In both cases the trading of bodies is incredibly sexualized – Laura’s very sexual pleasure in eating the fruit (Rosetti, 4) and Dean describing “being pulled to a sort of table,” and Sam interrupts with “Probing table!” This is followed by the already-mentioned theory of Dean being taken to sexually service King Oberon.

The fairies are intertwined with selling sexual pleasure and bodies – in other words, fairies are involved in prostitution. As we’ve seen in the “Prostitution” article we read for class, for a sexually repressed society there were a multitude of prostitutes able to make a living, estimates ranging from 20,000-80,000 within the article. Assumed prostitutes were treated to “lewd suggestions” based on appearance, according to the article. So if these prostitutes were so disgusting, yet often managed to make a tidy sum, where does that leave the terrifying, dangerous, seductive fairies? What makes them so much more dangerous than the others involved in the trading and selling of bodies?

Thinking about it from a Freudian perspective, fairies unashamedly take what they want, seduce who they want and suffer no repercussions: they are able to act on these deep, dark desires that Victorians would have but be unable to act upon; the Victorians could displace their dark desires onto these “other” creatures. Thus, the fairies are terrifying, not only for their actions of kidnapping and seducing, but also for what they represent: shamelessly indulging in one’s dark and sexual fantasies.

Works Cited: Rosetti, Christina. Goblin Market and Other Poems. Dover Thrift Editions. New York: Dover Publications, 1994. Print.

The Depiction of Culture in Victorian Art

I was immediately drawn to this image the moment I walked into the trout gallery during out last class. I am interested in the way in which the exotic was portrayed as something dangerous and threatening within this image. The contrasting colors of the pearly whiteness of the woman’s skin being overtaken by the contrasting dark snake is one of the many ways in which shading within this image seems to represent racial sentiments. The fact that the man in the background is watching this happen and blends into the background furthers this feeling of uneasiness and danger that is often associated with “the other” during the Victorian Era. I believe this shading is intentional for the author’s hopes to convey the danger of the exotic and other cultures.

I think it is important to analyze the artist’s choice of using a snake within this image. Snakes have the connotation of being evil, stealth, and sneaky. These connotations go as far back as the bible, whereas the snake tricked Eve into committing sin and giving into temptation. Thus, snakes generally represent deceit and allurement. One thing I didn’t think of upon looking at this image but that was brought up by a peer was the sensuality of the woman’s face. In the image, the snake seems to be seducing the woman almost, while also constricting her. Perhaps this was meant to induce fear amongst viewers of other cultures being dangerous, exotic, and having the ability to tempt the innocent to sin.

Another aspect of this image I found to be very interesting was Professor Flaherty’s explanation that this picture depicted a sort of mash up of different cultures. The walls, the clothing of the man, the instrument, the materials; all belong to separate cultures. I believe that this indicated the tendency for Victorian peoples to lump ‘exotic’ cultures together into one ‘other.’ This seems to indicate that people of this time do not necessarily care about these cultures and their characteristics and uniqueness, but rather sees them as all the same, exemplifying the very definition of egocentrism.

All in all, this image represents both the fear of Victorians towards the exotic and their lack of education on the subject. This is just a theory, but at a time where travel and communication between people from across the world was very uncommon, the exotic or the ‘others’ likely became something of mystery. Tales of explorers may have reached those who have never left the country, but these tend to be exaggerated and changed through word of mouth. Furthermore, people tend to be afraid of things they don’t understand. Thus, this image represents both the fear of the exotic and the lack of knowledge on other cultures.

Look! More Victorian Ghosts

Source: But it looks so real! The parallel rise of photography and Spiritualism

In 1862, amateur photographer William H. Mumler of Boston took a self-portrait in his studio, unaware of a ghostly apparition lurking directly behind him. It wasn’t until he viewed the resulting image…

Hablot Knight Browne, The London Stereoscopic Company; The Ghost in the stereoscope; 1856 - 1859. Image and original data provided by Rijksmuseum: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl

Hablot Knight Browne, The London Stereoscopic Company; The Ghost in the stereoscope; 1856 – 1859. Image and original data provided by Rijksmuseum: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl

Women and Pets as Domestic Objects

The print “Fannie’s Pets” captured my eye as it appears to be one of the most dynamic prints in the way the subjects appear to be moving, and who doesn’t adore the cute animals? The print features a woman outside, perhaps in a small garden, interacting with many species of birds: parakeets, ducks, a rooster, a peacock, etc. The light shines upon her and the animals so the audience’s attention immediately is drawn to those subjects. Behind the woman, on the left of the print, is a man crouched down in the dark, observing her.

This print brings to mind the role of Count Fosco in The Woman in White and his interaction with women and animals. The woman in the print seems to be interacting with the animals very naturally, while Count Fosco’s interactions with his pets are very strategic due to his training of them. He gives his pets treats when they perform to his satisfaction. He goes as far to call his birds his “children” (270). Count Fosco also gives his wife treats as she gives him his cigarettes which seems to parallel his treatment of his pets. He does not seem to have much of a sense of humanity or intimacy, instead his wife and his pets are objects of enjoyment and entertainment who are rewarded for how they serve him.

“Fannie’s Pets” creates a discourse with The Woman in White that shows the roles of women and domesticated animals to be more similar than different under the observation and manipulation of a Victorian Man. From the male view (assuming the audience takes on the viewership of a man or uses the man in the work itself), the main subject of the print is a woman and her pets and their values are both in their inherent beauty and entertainment-value. When the image is read through the lens created by The Woman in White, the woman and her pets are just objects to be manipulated and observed for enjoyment. There is further symbolism in the image of the birds flying and grabbing the garments of the woman, and while it might be a playful action, it seems to also represent freedom. Birds have the ability to fly away and the woman does not. Yet, this brings light to the captivating qualities that Count Fosco has over women and his manipulative nature towards his pets and women which really leave no opportunity for freedom.