{"id":2224,"date":"2025-03-25T19:37:19","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T19:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/?p=2224"},"modified":"2025-03-25T19:37:19","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T19:37:19","slug":"vanora-as-the-new-woman-and-yet-not-quite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/2025\/03\/25\/vanora-as-the-new-woman-and-yet-not-quite\/","title":{"rendered":"Vanora as the New Woman…and yet not quite"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his article \u201cThe New Woman Fiction\u201d from The Victorian Web<\/em>, Dr. Andrzej Diniejko outlines the socially constructed image of the \u201cNew Woman\u201d as it developed toward the end of the 19th<\/sup> century. As Diniejko describes, the New Woman \u201cdeparted from the stereotypical Victorian woman\u201d in her desires for independence, education, and employment (Diniejko 2). This departure from traditional femininity was mocked in popular satirical depictions of the New Woman, which \u201cusually pictured her riding a bicycle in bloomers and smoking a cigarette\u201d (Diniejko 2). This image presents the New Woman as markedly masculine: she wears pants to allow her to straddle a bicycle and she smokes cigarettes, a typically male activity (for the time) involving a phallic object.<\/p>\n

However, Diniejko qualifies this masculinization, considering Lyn Pykett\u2019s observations of \u201cthe ambivalent representations of the New Woman in the late-Victorian discourse: \u2018The New Woman was by turns: a mannish amazon and a Womanly woman\u2026\u2019\u201d (qtd. in Diniejko 2). Pykett links these seemingly contradictory descriptions with \u201cand,\u201d illustrating the New Woman as a multi-faceted figure containing both masculinity and femininity. As a result, the New Woman evades gender distinctions as well as any kind of singular identity or face.<\/p>\n

Considering these complexities of the New Woman, I will analyze how Mona Caird\u2019s The Yellow Drawing Room <\/em>engages with the cultural conversation. In the story, Vanora Haydon presents a fascinating take on the New Woman which both holds up and challenges the popular image. Before even meeting Vanora, Mr. St. Vincent learns of her garish decoration of the drawing room and determines that she must be \u201cheadstrong\u201d and attention-seeking (Caird 103). He muses plainly, \u201cI hate that sort of girl,\u201d and contrasts her with his idea of the \u201ctrue woman,\u201d who is \u201cretiring, unobtrusive, and indistinguishable\u201d (Caird 103). Caird sets up Vanora against the image of \u201ctrue\u201d womanhood, playing into the popular masculinized caricature.<\/p>\n

This division is seemingly continued when Mr. St. Vincent considers Vanora\u2019s plain sister Clara as his \u201cideal woman,\u201d who would never decorate in bright yellow (Caird 104). However, upon seeing Vanora for the first time, Mr. St. Vincent observes her \u201cmass of glistening, golden hair,\u201d her \u201ceyes like the sea,\u201d and her \u201crobust\u201d figure (Caird 104). This description recalls Botticelli\u2019s Birth of Venus<\/em>, the pinnacle of the female form. Indeed, Mr. St. Vincent goes on to describe Vanora as \u201csupremely, overpoweringly womanly. The womanhood of her sisters paled before the exuberant feminine quality which I could not but acknowledge in Vanora\u201d (Caird 105). Here, Caird overthrows Mr. St. Vincent\u2019s idea of the \u201ctrue\u201d or \u201cideal\u201d woman,\u201d because Vanora\u2019s femininity exceeds <\/em>that of her sister Clara. His \u201cscheme of the universe\u201d (Caird 105) is entirely upended by Vanora\u2019s extreme womanliness and beauty, for although Vanora\u2019s behavior frustrates gendered expectations, her image overwhelmingly fulfills them.<\/p>\n

With the character of Vanora, Caird challenges the popular masculinization of the New Woman by presenting an overly feminine figure whose personality contradicts her appearance. Caird engages with the ambiguity observed by Lyn Pykett but completely avoids the \u201cmannish amazon\u201d image. On the outside, Vanora is purely feminine, yet beneath the surface she bewilders traditional gender norms. With this choice, Caird presents her own version of the New Woman which blends with the \u201ctrue\u201d woman,\u201d casting doubt on the Victorians\u2019 ability to clearly distinguish a traditional woman from a rebel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his article \u201cThe New Woman Fiction\u201d from The Victorian Web, Dr. Andrzej Diniejko outlines the socially constructed image of the \u201cNew Woman\u201d as it developed toward the end of the 19th century. As Diniejko describes, the New Woman \u201cdeparted from the stereotypical Victorian woman\u201d in her desires for independence, education, and employment (Diniejko 2). … Continue reading Vanora as the New Woman…and yet not quite<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4760,"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-2224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2025-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224","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\/4760"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}