Exploration into Nineteenth Century Writing - Thomas Hardy - Essay Example

Nineteenth-Century Writing The Victorian age is at once identified generally as a time of nostalgic perfection and rigid oppression. It is the age of change and social advances as well as the age of strict social structure and a severe regard for the customs of the past. Under the reign of Queen Victoria, the Industrial Revolution came of age, blossomed and brought sweeping change across the country and the world. Life switched from being primarily dictated by the land one owned to a social structure based on commerce and manufacturing (Greenblatt, 2005). In this switch, there was a great deal of social upheaval as people living in these changing times began to question the status quo. Social class structures were beginning to break down as common men were able to make fortunes in industry and landowners found it more and more difficult to keep the idyllic life they’d constructed alive. Women, too, were beginning to question their allotted place in society as more and more opportunities opened for them in the urban centers of the country, providing them with a means of supporting themselves and freeing themselves from the yoke of male domination. However, at the same time, these positions were not the equal rights positions of modern times, so it was often difficult to determine whether one wanted to sacrifice freedom for comfort or comfort for freedom. Rarely was it possible to attain both. All of these social and economical concerns can be found in the novels written during this time period. “The Victorian novel, with its emphasis on the realistic portrayal of social life, represented many Victorian issues in the stories of its characters” (Greenblatt, 2005). The condition of women, often aware of themselves but unable to find satisfactory expression, is explored through novels such as Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders through Grace Melbury, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights through the Catherine Earnshaw and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre through her title character. In all three novels, the reader is introduced to a similar figure in Victorian society, that of the unmarried, young, often educated yet penniless woman who fits into no specific social class because of this training. Jane, in Jane Eyre, is quickly understood to be a governess who has no independent income and depends upon others for her well-being. The role of the governess in Victorian society was ambiguous because of the very function she performed. While she was highly educated in all the fine arts and manners of high society by necessity as her function was to teach these things to her young charges, the governess remained a servant in the household and was dependent upon the family to see to her welfare (Roth, 2002). Therefore, she did not fit in with the upper classes because she was a servant, yet did not fit in with the servants because of her advanced training. Jane recognizes this disparity through the way she is treated at Thornton manor by Rochester’s friends, all of whom seem to look down on her as socially inferior, making her the butt of their jokes and only willing to suffer her presence when another body is needed for games or as a means of humoring their host. Because of her position in society, the fact of her humanity is easily overlooked while certain niceties that would be bestowed upon a full equal of the upper class are withheld. At the same time, she is too educated and refined to strike up any kind of equal relationship with the other servants of the household and incapable of finding work in any other venue that would give her access to social equals and thus a social life. Catherine Earnshaw, although free to make her own decisions due to the lack of a male authority figure in the home, is also seen to be bound by the same social constraints that insist she must marry someone of higher social class or financial means while being separated from her true desire through a difference of education. In considering her choices, she realizes that she is not good enough for one and too good for the other. She tells her maid, “Ive no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldnt have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because hes handsome, Nelly, but because hes more myself than I am” (Ch. 9). As a member of an old and respected family, she knows she must marry rather than seek employment, but her marriage options seem contained to just Heathcliff or Edgar, rather than any other gentleman of the region. In the consideration of Edgar, Catherine demonstrates both the need to honor time-honored tradition as well as the need for personal material gain. In seeking a match of equal or greater significance than her own family name, which had recently undergone significant reduction at the behavior of Hindley, Catherine’s marriage to Edgar could be seen as a means of bringing honor back to the family line, if not the name itself. Edgar’s family is of an even more well-respected line than her own, especially given the present circumstances, and she has experienced luxury and gentility in Edgar’s home that she never knew prior to her stay there. This concept, together with Catherine’s already described love of comfort and self-indulgence, introduces the idea that Catherine is marrying for personal benefit rather than family honor. Lacking a responsible elder male of the household, it is Catherine herself who makes the decision regarding whom she will marry. She knows she does not love Edgar with the same depth of passion she feels for Heathcliff as she states herself later in this same chapter, “My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees.” This is also expressed in her comparison of Edgar’s soul, and his passion, to that of a moonbeam and to frost as they compare against such exciting elements as lightening and fire respectively in the character of Heathcliff. Yet, she determines to marry him because he alone can provide the financial resources necessary to help Heathcliff overcome the poor upbringing he has had as a result of Hindley’s treatment. The comparison with frost, though, further cools her impressions of Edgar, making it clear that this alliance would be little more than a business arrangement as far as her heart was concerned. Training has also served to separate Grace Melbury from her community, making her unfit to remain in Little Hintock yet not wealthy enough or from the type of family that will enable her to command a higher status. While her father has sent her away to school for several years at great personal expense, planning on making her as valuable as possible for her intended husband, Giles Winterbourne, this training has caused her to exist on a higher intellectual plain than Giles, almost immediately creating discomfort between them. Upon her arrival in town, Marty notices that Grace was “now looking glorified and refined too much above her former level” while “the greeting in her looks and on her lips had a restrained shape, which perhaps was not unnatural. For true it was that Giles Winterbourne, though well-attired and well-mannered for a yeoman, looked rough beside her” (Hardy 35-36). Although she manages to settle somewhat back into her life at Little Hintock, she continues to float through her society as both a part of the town and at the same time, completely removed from it. Her isolation is brought into stark relief in the forest scene when the other girls are preparing for a bit of midnight witchcraft. Here, Grace is only asked to join the group because she has followed after them like a lost child. “At the moment of their advance they looked back, and discerned the figure of Miss Melbury who, alone of all the observers, stood in the full face of the moonlight, deeply engrossed in the proceedings” (Hardy 137). The isolation of the girl in this instance is almost heartbreaking and serves to remind the reader of Grace’s lack of friends in the town that might have managed to help her remain true to her own inclinations. Although she knows Giles is the better man for her despite his lack of education and knowledge, she is convinced to marry Fitzpiers because of her father’s impressions regarding the family name and the pressure of needing to marry above her natural station. More than anything, the women in these novels express a strong desire to find a place where they can be free to find their own feelings regarding love and life. This behavior is seen as unconventional, which is shown in all three books to be a sign of mental illness. This is carried forward through the depiction of the insane woman in the attic, Bertha, found in Jane Eyre, through the elder Catherine’s insanity in response to her divided heart and even in the strange feeling of Grace in The Woodlanders as she considered the emotion Fitzpiers engendered in her. Learning a bit more of his family background, Grace considers that “the combination lent him a social and intellectual interest which she dreaded, so much weight did it add to the strange influence he exercised upon her whenever he came near. In an excitement which was not love, not ambition, rather a fearful consciousness of hazard in the air, she awaited his return” (Hardy 152). For all her misgivings regarding Fitzpiers and her instinctual belief in Giles, Grace is provided with little option but to follow her father’s directives to marry Fitzpiers. This is partially because of her training that has instructed her to be submissive in all things and partly because of her knowledge of her father’s investment in her, revealed as he almost forces her to go through his books. The conversation that occurs between them at this point summarizes this position of women in Victorian society as Grace remarks, “I, too, cost a good deal, like the horses and wagons and corn” while her father responds simply that “You’ll yield a better return” and Grace makes the connection between herself and common chattel (Hardy 84). In all three cases, it is understood that the insanity that frequently affected women in this age was largely the result of the necessity for women to subsume their own desires, intentions and even entire personalities under the yoke of men’s expectations for them. However, there is equal evidence within Victorian literature that these attitudes were changing. Charlotte Bronte’s character Jane Eyre refuses to become the mistress of Rochester after learning he already has a wife locked up on the third floor of his mansion. Although he claims she is locked up because she is crazy, there are several suggestions that indicate Bertha went mad because she was not permitted her own feelings and self-expression in the rigid world of Victorian society. Despite realizing that she has fallen in love with the fiery Rochester, Jane is certain her emotions will be subjugated under the domination of the man just as Bertha’s had been and thus end up locked up in the attic with a jailor nurse unless she is able to approach the relationship with the confidence of an equal financial footing. Although she realizes that she is every bit as capable intellectually as Rochester is regarding life, she also knows her own poverty and social standing as well as her gender would necessarily place her in a subservient position to him, which would lead to his assuming he can continue to treat her as a servant. Jane is incapable of accepting that fate and chooses to leave rather than capitulate. The argument of the female Victorian character against the man is perhaps put best here as Jane tells Rochester why she will not stay. “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! – I have as much soul as you – and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you” (Ch. 23). Throughout the novel, Jane is asked to make a choice between her own emotional freedom coupled with poverty or the financial freedom that the men in her life have to offer in exchange for the sacrifice of her self-possession. Grace perhaps illustrates the greatest degree of change as she develops from a girl almost entirely given to behave as instructed to leaving Fitzpiers in order to return to her father and, having been refused there, seeking refuge with the man she should have married. Despite her misgivings, Grace allows herself to be talked into marrying Fitzpiers based largely upon her father’s impressions of his family. In conveying to her the history of Fitzpiers’ family, her father tells Grace, “You can’t help being happy, Grace, in allaying yourself with such a romantical family … you’ll feel as if you’ve stepped into history” (151). This is in spite of the fact that his own family goes back as far in history. While she shows flashes of determination, such as when she determines not to marry Fitzpiers after seeing Suke Damson leaving his residence in the early morning or insists on a church wedding, she is quickly placated and follows through with the wedding anyway. However, during the course of her marriage, she discovers the importance of adhering to her inner feelings and inclinations, reclaiming the importance of the individual for herself. When her father chastises her for not doing more to try to save her marriage, she responds simply, “I am what I feel father … what would you have me do?” (208). Although Melbury proposes several options, Grace rejects them all as she determines she will not fight for what she never wanted. Despite the similarities, there remain some significant differences in the three novels in the way in which they depict the Victorian lifestyle. Although all three take their settings from the same country and the same values, each author places different emphasis on various portions of society and is able to depict different scenes and settings in such a way that only by reading all three novels can one begin to gain a true sense of what life was like in 1800s England. Charlotte Bronte, having lived most of her life in the country, was only able to provide a glimpse of the more industrialized setting from the perspective of an outsider with only a vague notion of what was happening in the inner city. This remains true for her sister, Emily Bronte, who had similar upbringing and experiences. Despite their similarities, though, each sister opted to illustrate the changes they recognized in society through their own unique approach. Charlotte created a strong character who nevertheless required salvation from an outside source, which came in the form of an unexpected inheritance coupled with a tragic accident that placed Rochester at her mercy. Emily created a strong character who accepted her social position but not her social constraints and thus brought about change through sheer determination and love for another. Hardy, not privy to a woman’s perspective, nevertheless manages to capture the same sense of a woman trapped within social definitions that had little or nothing to do with her personally as well as the concept that times were changing in suggesting the possibility that a woman wronged might have some recourse action such as divorce. Although Grace returns to Fitzpiers in the end, the simple possibility that she might have made a different choice is an indication of significant social change. These differences in perspective are important in understanding how pervasive the social attitudes were regarding the role of women. Bronte is more concerned with the development of her own character rather than an exploration in the outside world and society, but her story reveals much about the experience of being a woman within the constraints of that society. Jane’s time at Milton is characterized not by the setting, but by her feelings toward the people with whom she is associating which she relates to the reader. What her observations help to reveal, though, is how these people also managed to influence her thinking. Speaking of St. John, for example, she says, “By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my liberty of mind … I fell under a freezing spell” (Ch. 34). In spite of this ‘spell’ he held over her, Jane realizes her relationship here is one of business rather than feeling: “As his curate, his comrade, all would be right … But as his wife – at his side always, and always restrained, and always checked – forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital – this would be unendurable” (Ch. 34). Understanding her true peril at last, Jane determines not to marry St. John and, as a reward for trusting her own instincts, she is provided with the type of support she requires to return to Rochester as her own mistress. In presenting her case, Charlotte describes from the inside out how the common madness of women develops as her thwarted personality ‘consumes vital after vital’. In contrast to this presentation, Emily Bronte presents the effects of social expectations on an individual from an external point of view that remains sharply associated with the feminine perspective. Throughout her story, she shows what is happening to her characters through action and dialogue, offering very little insight as to the character’s decisions unless it is revealed in conversation. Despite her decision to marry Edgar, Catherine knows she is bonded to Heathcliff with stronger ties than mere convenience, comfort or social position, again pulling upon the concept of a type of spell placing some hold over the woman. While both Charlotte and Hardy indicate this spell tends to lead the woman in the wrong direction, Emily indicates it is a manifestation of linked souls. Catherine tells her maid, “My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I AM Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don’t talk of our separation again: it is impracticable” (Ch. 9). Despite her love for him, Catherine cannot bring herself to marry below her station. Certainly, physically she can marry Heathcliff and psychologically she can marry Heathcliff, but socially, it would be a disaster to her own sense of honor and dignity. In addition, she is sure that if she were to marry Heathcliff, the two of them together would be like beggars. She has had a taste of what it is like to be among the spoiled gentry, complete with attendant maids and other servants, and has no real desire to see herself placed at the bottom of the social order, with no servants and no luxury. She does, however, consider that perhaps she can use the money and privilege gained from an alliance with Edgar to better Heathcliff’s position, making him eligible for marriage in the event that Edgar’s frail constitution might free her for the eventual realization of her fantasies. This decision eventually leads to the type of schism through her personality that leads to the woman’s madness, finally ending with her death. Hardy shows the same sequence in Grace’s progress through the often conflicting world of what feels right to her and what she’s told is right by society’s standards. The author continually references to the strange feeling that comes over Grace when she is in Fitzpiers’ presence toward the beginning of their relationship. Her first vision of Fitzpiers as he lies sleeping in his parlor is marked by the sense of the same kind of spell referred to by the Bronte sisters as having some sort of transcendental pull against her either for positive or negative. When she notices Fitzpiers looking at her in the mirror, “an indescribable thrill passed through her as she perceived that the eyes of the reflected image were open, gazing wonderingly at her. Under the curious unexpectedness of the sight she became as if spell-bound, almost powerless to turn her head” (119). Grace is pressured to marry Fitzpiers by her father, who wishes her to attain the family name and thus elevate herself above the yeoman status she’d been born in to enter into the professional classes. Although she continues to feel doubt and to try to consider her feelings for Winterbourne, the fact remains that Winterbourne has been made homeless by the expiration of the life-lease and can no longer support her. As a result, he is no longer considered eligible as a husband for her because she’d have to bring herself too low. As in the Bronte books, though, Grace’s failure to follow through with her feelings leads to disaster for herself as she finds herself trapped in a loveless marriage and the man she loved dead. Through the treatment offered by these three authors, then, the reader is able to gain three distinct sets of perspectives regarding what life was like in Victorian England, particularly as it affected women attempting to navigate confusing and changing social structures. Because they each focus upon a similar character, namely the single young female with little to no financial support of her own yet caught between social classes, it is possible to compare these viewpoints against one another. Each book offers valuable insight into the class struggles of a Europe undergoing tremendous change and conflict even while exploring the various roles and emerging attitudes of previously unconsidered aspects of society, such as the plight of women. By their treatment, it is possible to track the particular interest of the author, as well. Charlotte Bronte’s interest on the internal operatives is reflected in her concentration on Jane herself, while Emily Bronte depicts more of the outer affects these constraints place on the woman’s life. Hardy throws more light on the ways in which society’s attitudes were changing toward women as he presents the possibility that Grace might have had options after she discovered her husband was unfaithful. The Bronte sisters present their stories in true traditional style in which once the marriage choice had been made, there was no means short of death to alter the situation. Hardy gives Grace the chance to leave her husband and suggests that even divorce is possible, yet keeps it out of reach through her own lack of support. Through these portrayals, all three authors indicate tremendous social pressures placed on women who are given very little opportunity to improve their positions yet who attempt to gain some degree of self-possession anyway. References Bronte, Charlotte. (2003). Jane Eyre. New York: Penguin Classics. Bronte, Emily. (1942). Wuthering Heights. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. Greenblatt, Stephen (Ed.). (2005). “Introduction: The Victorian Age.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 8. New York: W.W. Norton. Hardy, Thomas. (1994). The Woodlanders. London: Orion Publishing. Roth, Christine. (2002). “The Victorian Governess.” Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin, Department of English. Retrieved January 10, 2009 from Read More