The New Woman in Late-Victorian Literature - Perceptions and Challenges - Essay Example

THE “NEW WOMAN” IN LATE-VICTORIAN LITERATURE – PERCEPTIONS AND CHALLENGES The last decades of the nineteenth century, the late-Victorian era, saw the emergence of many new movements and representations in literature, as writers began responding more realistically to the changing social structures and moral values of a society, caught in the clutches of modernisation. Rejecting the repressive moral and aesthetic values of the Victorian era, writers began re-examining the institution of marriage and the traditional relations between the sexes in their novels. This re-examination, particularly by women writers, saw the emergence of new genres of women’s fiction – women’s ‘sensation’ novel of the 1860s and the ‘new woman’ novel of the 1890s – as well as the emergence of a ‘new’ kind of woman in literature and society, challenging the Victorian social ideals and perceptions of femininity. [Pykett, 1992] While the sensation heroines, as Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Isabel Sleaford in ‘The Doctor’s Wife’ and Aurora in ‘Aurora Floyd’ present shades of a new kind of woman – “a woman who cannot easily be accommodated either to the category of normal, proper femininity, nor to that of deviant, improper femininity,” [Pykett, 1992; p. 19] the ‘new woman’ heroines of the 1880s and 1890s, as Lyndall in Olive Schreiner’s autobiographical novel ‘The Story of an African Farm’, presents more powerful, fiercely independent and more “seriously feminist” representation of women. Though Lyndall is more often referred to as the “best example” of the “new woman’ in English novel, [Monsman, 1985; p. 262] Braddon’s Isabel and Aurora Floyd are more subtler representations of an evolving, new femininity, at odds with the Victorian perceptions of femininity. It may be fascinating to analyse the development of this new femininity and representations of ‘new woman’ in literature, as women writers of the late -Victorian era defined and redefined femininity. As one attempts to understand the ‘new’-ness of the ‘new woman’ and the challenges posed by these representations in literature, it may be worthwhile to examine how the ‘new woman’ is described, as well as analyse the construct of this figure in literature in relation to the perceptions of femininity in their days. Smith Rosenberg explains that the New Woman was primarily a representation-- ‘a condensed symbol of disorder and rebellion,’ [In Pykett, 1992; p.137-38] actively produced and reproduced in the print media and in novels. From a more realistic perception the New Woman is simply the woman of to-day striving to shake off old shackles.” [Stutfield, 1897 In Pykett, 1992; p.137] While Smith Rosenberg’s description suits more appropriately to the “new woman” writings of the 1890s, Stutfield’s characterisation explains why Braddon’s sensation heroines may be the first genre of the ‘new’ kind of woman heroines in English novels. In Victorian culture and literature, the ideal woman and proper femininity were represented by such characteristics as propriety, domesticity, chastity and the maternal. [Pykett, 1992; Kane, 1995] The sensation heroines represented a kind of ‘new’ woman as they defied the established Victorian roles for women in family and society, even as they dwelled within the private, domestic sphere. Unlike the typical ‘new woman’ of the 1890s, the sensation heroine is conventional in many ways, allowing the readers to renounce, even as they indulge in, the defiant attitudes of heroines, as she is viewed positively in the end. Mary Elizabeth Braddon has been, both approved, as exemplified by the wide and avid readership, and reproved by many literary critiques of her times, for the kind of sensation heroines she introduced to the Victorian public. In The Doctor’s Wife, her English adaptation of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Braddon presents a unique representation of the new female figure in English literature, Isabel Sleaford, very different from Braddon’s other sensation heroines like Lady Audley and Aurora Floyd, in crucial aspects of femininity. Published in 1864, The Doctor’s Wife, essentially portrays the middle class woman’s dissatisfaction with her married life and her ploys to bring life and beauty into her unromantic existence. In that sense the novel is sensational, yet, charting the heroine’s “moral evolution from a self-absorbed spinner of dreams into a sadder and wiser woman, who is also an altruist, a better citizen” [Braddon, 1998; p. xii] The Doctor’s Wife and its heroine differs distinctly from Braddon’s other more obviously sensation novels and heroines like Lady Audley, Aurora Floyd. Isabel, the imaginative heroine of The Doctor’s Wife is certainly ‘not a woman of the world;” having a consuming passion for romance novels, she “desires a life of beauty, poetry and elevated emotions” [Braddon, 1998; p. xiii] Even as he proposes to her, George knows that “under no combination of circumstances” [Braddon, 1998; p. 59] would Isabel arrive at the standards of his idea of womanly perfection or “make a good wife for any one” [Braddon, 1998; p. 60] – according to him she is only “fitted to be the heroine of a romance.” [Braddon, 1998; p. 30] Isabel agrees to marry Doctor George, imagining him as the Byronic hero she had longed for; marriage for her is also an escape from her mundane life as governess. Isabel’s marriage decision goes against the accepted norms of Victorian marriage – imaginations, likings and emotions of women are given little considerations in deciding marriage in Victorian culture. [Kane, 1995] And, when she realises that George isn’t her kind of man, she returns avidly to her world of romance novels, more often compromising her domestic duties-- the role and duties considered most significant for married women of her times. Her overriding passion for romance novels can also be seen as a trait challenging the Victorian feminine ideals -- reading sensation novels that indirectly voiced women’s ambitions for individuality and power was a way of revolting against the conventions [Kane, 1995; p. 48]. Her romantic involvement with the aristocratic neighbour Roland Lansdell is the most sensational aspect of her, yet unlike the other sensation heroines she displays a “quality of innocence and unworldliness,” [Braddon, 1998; p. xiii] a certain strength of character, as she declines Roland’s “cruel” demand to elope with him: “I will do my duty to my husband and—think of you’ [Braddon, 1998; p. 275]. Though she loved Roland ‘with all her heart’ [Braddon, 1998; p. 274] , the ‘possibility of deliberately leaving her husband …was far beyond her power of comprehension.’ [Braddon, 1998; p. 275 Thus, in the so-called inherent qualities of femininity: emotion, passivity, submission, dependence, and selflessness” [Kent, 1990; p.30] Isabel borders between the ‘proper feminine’ and ‘improper feminine’ – expressive even as she is submissive, self-regarding as she is committed to her husband, romantic as she emerges practical, conventional as she is unconventional. These traits make her unique among the sensation heroines of the 1860s – although she stays within the Victorian moralistic ideals she seeks to establish her identity as an individual, expressing her choices in life, love and marriage. Isabel thus turns out to be a new figure among her contemporary sensation heroines, a precursor of the more powerful and individualistic “new woman” of the 1890s. The “new woman” of the 1890s was in all sense ‘new’, if ‘improper’ femininity’ is considered the mark of newness. Unlike their sentimental predecessors the ‘new woman,’ directly and actively questioned women’s traditional roles, as well as revolted vehemently against subordination of women in families and societies – a true ‘feminist’ opposing the social constructs of sexuality and gender. Challenging the conventions of the time from all possible quarters, these “new woman” voiced against the Victorian ideals of femininity and female subordination, triggering the first feminist thoughts among the women readers in the mole-dominated Victorian society. Lyndall, Schreiner’s articulate heroine in The Story of an African Farm, a colonial orphan, is referred as the first ‘new woman’ in English Literature; she is also “first wholly serious feminist heroine in the English novel” [Showalter, 1977; p. 199]. According to Paxton, Lyndall is a rebel, fighting against “the ignorance and provinciality of her adoptive family” [Paxton, 1988; p.570] as well as against the patriarchal forces of religion and constructed morality in currency at the time, to keep women subject to male society. Unlike the sentimental Isabel, who longs a life of beauty and high emotions, Lyndall longs for individuality and power – education and freedom are values she considers important in life. As a child she shows immense resolve and strength: “but I intend to go to school” [Schreiner, 1992; p. 11] and she knows the worth of trying in life – “I try,….That is why.” [Schreiner, 1992; p. 5] As a young woman, she is “profoundly wise in the ways of the world..see[ing] far into life” [Schreiner, 1992; p. 300]. In choices of marriage, she presents “novel reason(s) for refusing to marry a man." [Schreiner, 1992; p. 296] Going against the Victorian norms of marriage, of marrying a man of wealth and power, as well as the ‘new’ romantic choices of the sensation heroines, Lyndall, the ‘new woman’ looks for an intellectual companionship in her partner, and is reluctant to marry her lover though she is pregnant by him. “You call into activity one part of my nature; there is a higher part that you know nothing of, that you never touch” [Schreiner, 1992; p. 297-98], she explains articulately, and firmly to the man who loves and proposes her to marry her. Even as she says “I dont know much about love,” her description of love is truly new, “[T]here is another love, that blots out wisdom,….lasting for an hour; but it is worth having lived a whole life for that hour [Schreiner, 1992; p. 195] If the sensational Isabel belongs to the realm of the heart and sentiment, Lyndall dwells in the realm of the mind and the intellect, yearning for knowledge, freedom and power – a dangerously new female self, countering the established conventions of femininity and female subordination. Yet, unable to endure the pressures of the traditionalist society, Lyndall, is led to self-destruction, the only choice left for a woman so ahead of her times. In conclusion, the late-Victorian era saw the emergence of a new female figure in literature – a woman distinctly different from the Victorian moralistic heroine inhabiting the private, domestic sphere. While the emotionally- expressive sensational heroines of the 1860s, still inhabited the private sphere of femininity, the individualistic and more powerful feminist “new woman” heroines of the 1890s, challenged the established conventions of femininity and traditional role of woman in Victorian societies and families. The new kind of women in literature threatened the predominant male point of view in Victorian literature and culture. Influencing their woman clienteles with their newfound identities and feminist ideals, they challenged the cornerstones of Victorian perceptions of femininity and domesticity, apparently undermining the perceived domestic tranquillity characteristic of Victorian England. Works Cited 1. Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. The Doctor’s Wife. Oxford World’s Classics Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998 2. Kane, Penny. Victorian Families in Fact and Fiction. London: Macmillan, 1995. 3. Kent, Susan. Sex and Suffrage in Britain 1860-1914. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. 4. Monsman, Gerald. “The Idea of ‘Story’ in Olive Schreiner’s Story of an African Farm.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 27 (1985): 249-69. 5. Paxton, Nancy L. “The Story of an African Farm and the Dynamics of Woman-to-Woman Influence.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 30 (1988): 562-82. 6. Pykett, Lyn. The ‘Improper Feminine: The Women’s Sensation Novel and the New Woman Writing. London & New York: Routledge, 1992. 7. Schreiner, Olive. The Story of an African Farm. Oxford World’s Classics Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992 8. Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977. Read More