{"id":2053,"date":"2025-02-13T00:33:56","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T00:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/?p=2053"},"modified":"2025-02-13T00:33:56","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T00:33:56","slug":"no-dont-kys-youre-so-modest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/2025\/02\/13\/no-dont-kys-youre-so-modest\/","title":{"rendered":"No don’t kys you’re so\u2026 modest"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we first meet Anne Catherick, at this time still only known as \u201cthe woman in white,\u201d Hartright dedicates a paragraph to describing her.\u00a0 It is a longer paragraph, focused on her physical appearance.\u00a0 Hartright describes her features and the clothes she is wearing, but pays special attention to pointing out her modesty.\u00a0 He says, \u201cthere was nothing wild, nothing immodest in her manner\u201d (Collins 26).\u00a0 The sentiment of Catherick\u2019s modesty, while not explicitly mentioned, is carried throughout the rest of Hartright\u2019s description.\u00a0 He uses words and phrases like \u201cmeagre,\u201d \u201cyouthful,\u201d \u201cquiet and self-controlled,\u201d and \u201cfree\u201d (26).\u00a0 Again, these words are not in direct reference to the woman’s sexuality (or lack thereof), but they reaffirm Catherick’s modesty to the reader.\u00a0 The paragraph ends with Hartright directly assuring the reader, yet again, that the woman\u2019s intentions are honest, \u201ceven at that suspiciously late hour and in that suspiciously lonely place\u201d (26).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why repeatedly mention her modesty?\u00a0 Why does Hartright include this detail so painstakingly in his narrative?<\/span><\/p>\n

An obvious answer might be that this feature stood out in Hartrights memory as he recounted the story, and he deemed it essential for the reader to know.\u00a0 But I ask again, why?<\/span><\/p>\n

The opposite of sexuality is the absence of it, not modesty.\u00a0 The repeated mentions of Catherick\u2019s modesty call the reader to think of sexuality in the novel.\u00a0 If Willkie Collins did not intend for the reader to have thoughts of sexuality in regards to the woman and how Hartright views her, he would not have brought it up.<\/span><\/p>\n

I do not think that the reader is meant to view Catherick as a sexual figure or to believe that Hartright sees her sexually.\u00a0 But I do think we are meant to pay attention to what this could mean going forward.\u00a0 Hartright falls desperately in love with a woman who looks eerily similar to Catherick.\u00a0 At the same time, he is being haunted by thoughts of Catherick and her possible connections to his life.\u00a0 I\u2019d be interested to see what comes of Hartright\u2019s sexual mentions as the story continues, and what other repetitions might reveal.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we first meet Anne Catherick, at this time still only known as \u201cthe woman in white,\u201d Hartright dedicates a paragraph to describing her.\u00a0 It is a longer paragraph, focused on her physical appearance.\u00a0 Hartright describes her features and the clothes she is wearing, but pays special attention to pointing out her modesty.\u00a0 He says, … Continue reading No don’t kys you’re so\u2026 modest<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5519,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135984],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2025-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}