{"id":509,"date":"2015-03-22T18:23:33","date_gmt":"2015-03-22T18:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/?p=509"},"modified":"2016-08-24T15:50:37","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T15:50:37","slug":"natural-motherhood-and-the-victorian-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/2015\/03\/22\/natural-motherhood-and-the-victorian-other\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cNatural\u201d Motherhood and the Victorian \u201cOther\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Within<\/a><\/p>\n

E. W. Fallerton\u2019s etching Within the Lines Siege of Agra 1857 <\/em>is more complex than it might initially seem. The figures are situated in a domestic space, enclosed in a house with a small window. Details suggest a rustic and \u201cEastern\u201d setting: the bare walls; the Oriental rug; the large jars on the ground; the woman\u2019s bare feet, her slippers lying beside her; and the woman\u2019s draped clothing and head scarf, evocative of Indian or Middle Eastern fashion.<\/p>\n

Even the woman\u2019s skin tone and features are darker than the idealized European women depicted by many artists during the nineteenth century. She has dark hair, dark eyebrows, thick eyelashes, and a prominent nose. The baby\u2019s white blanket, the central focus of the painting, emphasizes the darkness of the woman\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

The title of the etching confirms this Eastern setting, as the \u201cSiege of Agra\u201d was a battle in India between Indian rebels and British colonialists [1]<\/a>. This historical context problematizes Fallerton\u2019s seemingly innocuous depiction of motherhood. The woman is depicted in a traditional \u201cMary, mother of Jesus\u201d pose in Western art, with her eyes cast down toward the baby she holds in her arms.<\/p>\n

Yet the baby she holds has white skin and light hair, as does the second child sleeping in the background. The etching thus suggests two possible narratives: the children are the result of \u201cmixed\u201d sexual relations with a British\u00a0colonist; or, the children are not hers, and the Indian woman depicted is a nurse or servant. Both narratives problematize the notion of \u201cnatural\u201d motherhood.<\/p>\n

In his depiction of the Duchess in Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland<\/em>, Lewis Carroll also interrogates domesticity and motherhood. The Duchess\u2019s household, far from the nurturing environment depicted in Fallerton\u2019s etching, is downright abusive. The cook throws frying pans at the pair, and the Duchess \u201ctoss[es] the baby violently up and down\u201d as she sings a \u201clullaby\u201d that advocates child abuse:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cSpeak roughly to your little boy,<\/p>\n

And beat him when he sneezes\u201d (46).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Duchess \u201cflings\u201d the \u201cqueer-shaped little creature\u201d at Alice, a mere child herself, to take care of it (47). Alice demonstrates a maternal instinct to protect the child that the Duchess clearly lacks: \u201cWouldn\u2019t it be murder to leave it behind?\u201d (48). However, when the baby starts turning into a pig, Alice thinks \u201cit would be quite absurd for her to carry it any further,\u201d and she is \u201crelieved\u201d as she watches the pig \u201ctrot quietly into the wood\u201d (48).<\/p>\n

The baby\u2019s metamorphosis into a pig is unnatural, as the adjectives \u201cqueer-shaped\u201d and \u201cabsurd\u201d suggest. The word \u201cunnatural\u201d here is useful, as it historically denotes illegitimacy (OED<\/em>). Like the figure in the etching, Alice is not the natural mother of the baby; by the end of the scene, they are not even the same species. The unnatural pig-child can no longer occupy the domestic sphere, and so takes refuge in the wilderness or wood. Perhaps Carroll, like Fallerton, is making a veiled commentary on race, motherhood, and illicit sexuality.<\/p>\n

<\/a>1. “Indian Mutiny.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica Inc., 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2015. <http:\/\/academic.eb.com\/EBchecked\/topic\/285821\/Indian-Mutiny>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

E. W. Fallerton\u2019s etching Within the Lines Siege of Agra 1857 is more complex than it might initially seem. The figures are situated in a domestic space, enclosed in a house with a small window. Details suggest a rustic and \u201cEastern\u201d setting: the bare walls; the Oriental rug; the large jars on the ground; the … Continue reading \u201cNatural\u201d Motherhood and the Victorian \u201cOther\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1077,"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-509","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\/509","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\/1077"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}