{"id":282,"date":"2015-02-20T01:48:56","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T01:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/?p=282"},"modified":"2016-08-24T15:51:39","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T15:51:39","slug":"marian-subverting-redundancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/2015\/02\/20\/marian-subverting-redundancy\/","title":{"rendered":"Marian: Subverting Redundancy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Woman in White<\/em> ends with Laura Walter and Marian all living together at Limmerage without scandal. William Greg would likely argue that Marian is the \u201credundant\u201d woman in this relationship as she is single and the other two characters are married to each other. This essay will attempt to refute the argument of Marian\u2019s redundancy in the story though the examination of how Wilkie Collins deals with the three issues proposed by Greg regarding women\u2019s redundancy and Marian\u2019s complex role in the narrative that makes her appear both \u201credundant\u201d and not redundant in comparison with other female characters.<\/p>\n

Greg argues that English women remain \u201credundant\u201d because of three factors: the lack of women who immigrated during the colonization period, men\u2019s preoccupation with prostitutes, and women never being asked by a man to get married. Wilkie Collins deals with two of the three problems Greg proposes through the characters of Madame Fosco and Laura. Madame Fosco immigrates to Italy to marry the Count, solving issue one. Laura, in her marriage to both Sir Percival and Walter deals with men\u2019s fascination with prostitutes. Sir Percival has an obsession\u00a0with Anne before and after his marriage to Laura. Anne, while not a prostitute, becomes similar to a prostitute in the sense that she is a woman who distracts men from their marriage. This problem is fixed by his death and Laura\u2019s remarriage to Walter. The third issue which Gregg points out is an issue, and potentially holds weight when we consider Marian\u2019s status as a single woman. <\/span><\/p>\n

Marian is one of the few, if not the only, female to remain single (and alive), throughout the entirety of the novel. No one asks Marian to marry her. However, there a few sentences on page 621 when Walter clumsily asks whether Marian intents to get married and she responds that, \u201c…there can be no parting between [the three of] us\u201d and \u201cI will teach the children to speak for me in their<\/i> language; and the first lesson they will say to their mother and father is – we can\u2019t spare our aunt.\u201d (621). In this case, Greg might argue that Marian takes on a role of governess for her sister and Walter and \u201cwhile a noble profession\u201d should still obtain a husband. Carolyn Dever would likely argue back that Marian does find a husband in Walter and a wife in Laura, but its likely Greg would not accept this. However, Marian also falls into the category which Greg allotted for, a woman who chooses to remain single rather than is forced to be single by circumstance. <\/span><\/p>\n

Marian is redundant because she is a single woman\u00a0but is also not because she chooses to be single. We can take on alternative perspectives like Dever, or call Marian a proto-feminist because she\u2019d rather have children speak for her rather than a husband. Marian\u2019s complex character complicates Greg\u2019s overly deconstructed reasons as to why Victorian women were single. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Woman in White ends with Laura Walter and Marian all living together at Limmerage without scandal. William Greg would likely argue that Marian is the \u201credundant\u201d woman in this relationship as she is single and the other two characters are married to each other. This essay will attempt to refute the argument of Marian\u2019s … Continue reading Marian: Subverting Redundancy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2304,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[111380,108029],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-360-victorian-sexualities","category-spring-2015"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282","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\/2304"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}