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Victorians and the Underground
by
Melissa McDaniel
A Thesis
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of
CSU Honors Program
Requirements of the
for
Honors
in the
degree of
Bachelor of Arts
in
Language and
Literature,
College of Arts and Letters,
Columbus
Thesis Advisor
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Committee Member
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1
Victorians and the Underground
The Victorian Age created
fostered
its
social ideologies.
In every civilization, the technologies of the time reflect the social
For instance, the development of the printing press
issues of the culture.
and has
a revolution in technology that defined the age
in the fifteenth-century
revealed desires for higher literacy rates; the invention of the cotton gin incited the social
injustices of
American slavery;
fast-food, fast-money,
the progress of the Internet
and fast-information. Likewise,
embodies
in the
Victorian Age, the invention of
underground tunnels exposed some important social issues which developed
as the physical
image of a tunnel promotes
symbol seems subconsciously
women
in the
eyes of the male
artist.
literature
Specifically, the
poetically and socially, reflects the desire
women. For
a sense of enclosure
pervade Victorian
to
by men
to
way
in
attachment to
this century's
in the period.
and confinement, the tunnel
and
art as
which
it
reflects the treatment of
women
are portrayed, both
imprison or enclose the sexual power of
the Victorians, tunnels represent not only the thriving age of industrialization, but
they also symbolically suggest the social confinement of nineteenth-century
women.
For the Victorians, change was occurring everywhere. From Darwinian evolution
rise
of Capitalism to the Industrial Revolution, this age seemed to reflect the growing
mass production and the belief
the world
Just
would soon
in urbanization.
realize the
With the invention of railways and
growing power of Britain and her people. For the
depend on mechanical vehicles
—
demands of
the
subway,
first
Englishmen abandoned the simple transportation systems of carriages and horses and
to the
time,
started to
vehicles which were built underground, operated underground,
and moved people underground. In
effect, these long-stretching tunnels
symbol of technological advancement.
became
a Victorian
The Great Exhibition and Underground Tunnels
Perhaps nothing expresses better the English excitement for expansion and progress
through technology than the Great Exhibition of 1851. Promoted by Prince Albert, the Great
Exhibition
became
the first world's
cultures around the globe.
England had
(Wilson 145), an exhibition located
steel.
The 902 panes of
glass
and mass production of the
it
era.
featuring thirteen thousand exhibits represented by
fair,
"all the
in the "Crystal
took to build
Even
this
at
Palace" which was
from one end of
With
out of glass and
its
monumental symbol of
British
long, horizontal design, the exhibition
the building to the other.
one end of the Crystal Palace and look down
made
"Palace of Glass" reflected the urbanization
the infrastructure of this
industrialization curiously resembles a tunnel.
floor stretched for yards
world going to see the Great Exhibition of 1851"
to the other, as if
it
In fact, a visitor
were a
straight
could stand
pathway
underneath these reflective panes of glass. The enclosure of the glass ceiling symbolically
reflects the
way
visitors
closed in physically.
architecture of
could look out of
The
similarity
this tunnel-like infrastructure but at the
between the
same time be
structural design of the Crystal Palace
one of London's underground tunnels
is
best described
and the
by Robert Thorne:
At Paddington Station (1851-4) the design team (including, once again, Fox Henderson)
sought to perpetuate the lessons of the Crystal Palace
in
memories of
Paddington are on a 30-foot
the original
were
module, rather than the 24
the similarities
still
fresh.
The bays
feet at Crystal Palace,
at
more permanent form while
and the roofs are
between the two projects are obvious.
No
elliptical arches, but
other major railway station
followed the language of the Great Exhibition quite so closely. (181)
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Delamotte, Philip Henry. "The Nave Looking North." 1855. The Photographic Institution; London, England.
"Construction work in progress on the nave of the reconstructed Crystal Palace exhibition hall at
Sydenham
Hill" (<http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/personalisation/object.cfm>
Constructing Paddington (Praed Street) Station, London, 1866-8. Picture Reference: 10325362
As exemplified by
the Crystal Palace, the
image of the tunnel, whether consciously or
not,
miiTors real Victorian concerns about the social confinement of the period.
Just as the tunnel
becomes
symbol for Victorian expansion and progress, the enclosed
a
and confined underground tunnel also symbolizes the psychological entrapment of women.
Age was
often said that the Victorian
care of the
family.
home and
hearth
—
to stay in their
Numerous conduct books
Sarah Stickney
The
Ellis'
Isabella Beeton's
Women
Women
an age of contradictions.
for
revered this
women became widespread
during the century, including
of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits and
The Book of Household Management These publications praised the
.
"woman
of domesticity"
who
all
women. The
of
like
role of
entire society
helped shape the ideal family home. Contrarily, the
period also birthed a generation of advocates against the established traditions of
Women
to take
domestic sphere and uphold the virtues of the
and mother, and they supported the domestic duties of
the wife
were supposed
It is
women's
roles.
Florence Nightingale and Frances Powers Cobbe sought social reform for the rights
women. Rights
for equal opportunities for education
seemed
to
be
at
the forefront of these
concerns and John Stuart Mill became a campaigner for gender equality. Although the treatment
of
women remained
a constant issue
female subjects through their
art
among
remained
forever buried and closed off; Victorian
Victorians, the
fixed.
women
In art
way
in
which men portrayed
and poetry, the voices of
are suffocated
and motionless
women
in the
their
are
canvas or
on the page. Like the underground, they are entrapped by their male makers and are exorcised
from
society.
In
The
the confined
Madwoman
woman
in the Attic,
in their
Plato's Allegory of the
chapter
Cave and
Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar expound on
titled
relate
it
"The Parables of the Cave." In
to the story of
women
this idea
of
this chapter, they take
in the patriarchal Victorian
society.
Like the
men
in Plato's
passage
place, a
93).
Gilbert and
supposed
to be a positive
women. For
"imprisoned
us that "a cave
a house of earth, secret
feminine space for "the
destiny" (94), a place which
for
Gubar remind
womb-shaped enclosure,
are imprisoned in the
women
of their delusions, so too, are Victorian
{Madwoman
who
is
secret
and sacred,
in,
is
as
instead
by, such caves"
Freud pointed out
and often sacred"
woman whose
it
empowered
not
—
underground cavern because
(93).
—
While
cave-shaped anatomy
becomes
a female
a cave
is
is
her
a restrictive holding place
Plato and his culture, the place to hold these prisoners
is
in
an underground
cave; for the Victorians with their technology, the place to hold their prisoners
is in
the
nineteenth-century subways and underground transportation systems. Just as Plato's male cavedwellers are deluded about reality, the wives, mothers, and daughters of the Victorians were
deluded to think about their social position as one of inferiority and second-best to man. "The
Parables of the Cave" bears great insight into the claustrophobia of
underground harem are obviously buried
in
much trapped
idea that
Alfred,
(Madwoman
shadows of
94).
create in their poetry
inside enclosed structures
and
women
of this
[...]
Writers such as Tennyson, Dante
women
are, like the Plato's
characters
who
are very
cave-dwellers, instilled with the
reality represent the real world, rather than the true
essence of
reality.
Lord Tennyson
In
many
of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's early
Shalott," one can see
These
Browning
"the
(and by) patriarchal definitions of their sexuality
enclosure without any possibility of escape"
Gabriel Rossetti, and Robert
women:
women
how
poems such
as
"Mariana" and "The Lady of
the female figures have been portrayed as isolated
are entrapped
by both
their physical
mutes who are confined to the imagination of
and alienated.
environment and by the poet himself and are
their creator.
They
are portrayed through a
man's
perspective and are thus unable to have their
Susan Gubar put
For
if
it
perfectly
when they
the author/father
is
own
voices heard. Critics Sandra
owner of
and events
and white and 'bound'
Male poets and
artists
—those
his text
and of
have the tendency
moated grange"
(1.
8)
brain children
in cloth or leather.
to
portrayal. In "Mariana," the leading lady
lonely
his reader's attention, he is also,
is
is
— he has both incarnated
(Madwoman
'"I
am
from her society. She remains "upon the
aweary, aweary,
/
Oh God,
that
I
(1.
9)
dependent on the presence of a male. The only voice that she has
doors for her and have
fictional lover
all
She
utterly defenseless against both of these
Mariana wishes
come
to
(1.
83-4).
after day, for she is
the suppressed one that her
Angelo and her poet-creator have
her sleepless and forever mourning in her decaying halls.
closed
left
is
to
and endlessly
were dead'"
She represents the abandoned woman. Mariana pines away for her lover day
male creator has fancied. Both Mariana's
black
their subjects in their
and looks out into the night crying for her dear Angelo
resounds those dreadful words,
fact that
in
7)
choke out the voices of
isolated
to say of those
her side. She closes herself in as "she [draws] her casement-curtain by"
is
Gilbert and
write:
of course, owner/possessor of the subjects of his text, that
figures, scenes,
M.
male
to die suggests that the
forces.
As Thais
E.
Morgan
states,
"The
male poet's appropriation of the feminine
preserves rather than changes the dominant ideologies of separate spheres" (205). Tennyson
himself seems to endorse the prevailing attitude about a
woman's
reliance on a man, and he
supports Mariana's enclosure as he creates the ending to her story. In his poem, Mariana
remains forever closed off from Angelo and from her society, whereas
for Measure, Mariana eventually
is
in
Shakespeare's Measure
granted a marriage with her defiant fiance. Tennyson's
deliberate reversal of Shakespeare's original
Mariana confirms what Victorians assumed about
women
—
that they are helpless
Tennyson
however,
as a
is
characters
Victorian
and
male poet supports
that
Tennyson
whose
is
very
silent
this
without their male "rescuers."
view of
much
a
man
women which
of his time.
fates reflect the fates of Victorian
women who have no
In a social context,
He
like
place and visions
characters are imitations of
woman who
Mariana very much represents the Victorian
Mariana can only look outside
is
wait for her beloved Angelo,
their
windows and dream dreams:
women
in the
lives in a
world
in
male-dominant Victorian age are confined
submissive, passive, and self-sacrificing for their family and their society.
Woman,
perfect in appearance and behavior; and to
silently resign her
own
Gregory says, '"Your whole
bear your sorrows in silence,
unknown and
are to be buried
and closed
them.
do
A Father's Legacy
women
Women
this, the
life is
often a
life
to
to
Women: From
desires for those of her family (174). Also,
her essay a letter from a father to his daughter. In
written in 1774, Dr.
recall
which she must be passive and
Sacrifice to Self-Awareness," she confirms the nineteenth-century notion that
towards the Ideal
"All their
are left without the food either of reality or of
passively wait for their social equality. In Carol Dyhouse's essay, "Role of
women's voices
strongly
confined to her homely
seem vanished, and they know not where; gone, and they cannot
hope" (Nightingale 1511). Just as Mariana
in
clear,
social freedoms.
They do not even remember them. And they
woman must
is
Society has imposed certain domestic duties on her and she cannot leave her
responsibilities.
Women
What
creates medieval female
women. His
yearns for gender equality and educational opportunities, but
place.
he portrays.
unclear whether
is
It
Self-
are to be
are to strive
Victorian
Dyhouse quotes
His Daughters,
of suffering
[...]
You must
unpitied'" (175). This reinforces the idea that
off.
Tennyson has created
in
Mariana
this Victorian
a
8
concept of the Silenced
Woman — a powerless
figure
who
suffers privately within her isolated,
confined space.
"The Lady of Shalott" depicts yet another female subject who has been closed off by
society and
whose voice has been
buried. First of
all,
she
is
physically closed off by four castle
walls:
Four gray wall, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And
the silent isle
The Lady of
She
is in
imbowers
Shalott.
(11.
15-19)
touch with the outside world only through her mirror, and even then she sees only
where "shadows of the world appear"
out, for she is "half sick of
shadows"
(1.
"red-cross knight" Lancelot, she throws
knight; but
is
When
down
the
from the inside and desires
Lady of Shalott sees
her mirror and goes
As
(1.
to
the reflection of the
Camelot
to find her
initiates the curse
she floats into Camelot, she becomes deathly
silent.
Her
upon
last
160) wait for her noiseless arrival. She has been so long enclosed inside that tower
even when she escapes, she
is still
unable to be heard. The Lady of Shalott, like Mariana,
fixed in a patriarchal society where she must endure a solitary
that only a
man can
is
woman's
life
while waiting for happiness
give her; but contrary to Mariana, she reacts against social and physical
confinement. She ventures out, and what
Shalott
down
to get
heard faintly by the villagers, but no one heeds her coming: the "knight and burgher, lord
and dame"
that
71).
lives life
by making her bold step outside of her enclosed tower, she
her and sings her last song.
song
She
48).
(1.
is
her fate?
A
silent,
unheard death. The Lady of
destroyed because of her self-assertion and forward actions toward liberality
liberality that Victorians
themselves would have disapproved
of.
—
is
The implication
live within
in
both of these early poems by Tennyson
that if a
woman
her closed, claustrophobic environment she cannot survive. Likewise,
social tradition
and steps out into
that
voice will be choked off. For both
of his time, Tennyson
knows
feminist critics Gilbert and
purity,' is a life
Gubar
of silence, a
{Madwoman
36).
male-dominant world, she
women,
that these
if
"A
continues to
she rejects
and her
will be forcibly silenced
Being a man
their fates are sealed with destruction.
women
assert,
life that
'significant action,' is a life that
story"
is
cannot be expected to survive their enclosure. As
life
of feminine submission, of 'contemplative
has no pen and no story, while a
must be silenced, a
life
life
of female rebellion, of
whose monstrous pen
tells a terrible
For the Victorian woman, both choices bring about a cursed
life.
In his
book Rossetti and the Fair Lady, scholar David Sonstroem describes the "sexually innocent
ladies
whose
lovers victimize
them nevertheless by deserting or tormenting them"
Although Sonstroem's comment
is
specifically regarding
feminine subjects, a like parallel can be
made between
some of Dante Gabriel
(
104).
Rossetti's
Rossetti and Tennyson's portrayal of the
female subject. The Lady of Shalott and Marianna are innocent ladies
who
are
abandoned and
destroyed by their male lovers.
The
fact that
trapped situations
women
is
Tennyson chooses
telling of
role of
in
such
women. Not only
are the
themselves victims of Angelo's betrayal and Lancelot's ambivalence, but they are also
Tennyson gives them no choice
does not leave her grange, she dies;
are incapable of
century British
woman
Mariana and the Lady of Shalott
man's outlook on the established
the victims of their poet-creator.
women
to portray
is
women
if
changing the
the
Lady of
fate that
to
change
their fate: if
Mariana
Shalott leaves her tower, she dies. Both
Tennyson has created for them,
just as nineteenth-
are confined within their domestic spheres with buried voices.
portrayed just as the male creator-poet chooses to reveal her:
The
10
As
a creation 'penned'
'penned
in.'
As
by man, moreover,
a sort of 'sentence'
man
woman
has been 'penned up' or
has spoken, she has herself been
'sentenced': fated, jailed, for he has both 'indited' her and 'indicted' her.
As
a
thought he has 'framed,' she has been both 'framed' (enclosed) in his texts,
glyphs, graphics, and 'framed up' (found guilty, found wanting) in his
cosmologies." (Gilbert and Gubar,
With Mariana and the Lady of
entrapments symbolize the
women, including
the
way
13)
Shalott, both of their confined
way
in
Madwoman
in
which many men
which poets and
artists
in the
environments and social
nineteenth-century objectified
portrayed their female subjects.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Perhaps no other
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
painting
woman
them
as
did.
and poet during the Victorian Age adored
From
pervades his entire
artistic
ideal beauty" (198).
artistically
and personally.
as
much
in his
as
poems
to
his canvases, his fascination with the beauty of a
consciousness. Stanley T. Williams concludes that with a
beauty
that of his ideal:
in
woman
see "both in the joy and
as a
symbol of
Although Rossetti's notion of the Ideal Beauty allows him
this is the
disillusioned with
is
women
women
poems "The Blessed Damozel" and "Jenny," one can
sorrow the central feeling
admire women,
describing them as angels and fallen
damozels and temptresses on
study of Rossetti's
in the
artist
the artist's
to appreciate
and
very thing that drives him to victimize his female subjects, both
He
idolizes his female subjects to the point that he
what beauty really
is;
for in these
"idealizing illusion to bitter disillusion" (Johnson
1
poems one can
19).
Even
his
becomes
see the change from
beloved Elizabeth Siddal, with
her imperfect health and facial freckles, cannot live up to the perfect standards of
womanhood
11
that his paintings try to present.
By
insisting
on perfect
Rossetti creates female subjects that try to live
up
women
for his perfect
art,
Dante Gabriel
to his impossible standards, but are closed off
and barred from society, just as the underground Victorian tunnel
is
buried from the observable
landscape.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti's early poem "The Blessed Damozel," he creates
In
woman who
lover.
is
dissatisfied with her sanctified place in
Although she
desires.
As she
Damozel yearns
separates
is in
"cast[s] her
arms along
"to live as once
Heaven and Earth and
/
on earth
is
golden barriers"
/
With love"
what she believes
Turner summarizes
composed
(117).
this
portrait of a
Even
to
(1.
(1.
mourns her unloved
dead
state.
141-42) of heaven, the Blessed
129-30). She
best
girl,
when he
is
trapped by the bar that
woman who must
wait for a male figure in order to
says,
"The
Blessed Damozel' was a carefully
waiting Mariana-like for the arrival of her earthly lover
The other angels
leave her upon heaven's bar to
Her claustrophobia and entrapment
Damozel has ultimately become both
who
is
disenchanted by Heaven's perfect atmosphere. Like
in
—
also closed off
In Rossetti's
a
woman who
from any
is
the victim of sorrow
in
Victorian
is
life.
[...]"
her tears
to:
weep alone
Heaven (which
be the "place of comfort") parallels the nature of the buried tunnel
woman
true
be true happiness and to be integrated into society. Perhaps Paul
poem
are shed, but not consoled.
suffocating
from her
end of the poem, the woman's desires are heard but not listened
in the
heavenly
to be with her earthly
that perfect place of blessed safety, she is closed off
Tennyson, Rossetti has created a powerless
attain
Heaven and yearns
a
as she
supposed
to
The Blessed
and despair, and she represents the
suffocated by the torment of living without her lover, and
true attachment to
heaven and
famous poem "Jenny," the speaker
for the evening, but she has "fallen" asleep
on
his lap.
in the
He
earth.
poem
has hired a
woman
of service
therefore has time for reflection,
12
although he reflects not on his decision to hire this
how
her
has been spent.
life
breathing
woman,
He views
but as an object. At
this "lazy
first
woman,
but he
wonders what she thinks
languid Jenny" not as an active, living,
read, this
poem might seem
can strive to clear"
and the "dark path
closer examination, this
is
poem
superiority over Jenny.
Throughout the speaker's monologue, he implies
him
and
socially
intellectually.
beneath him in every
way
about power; specifically,
However,
is that
[he]
she
is
is a
it
story of a man's self-projected
that
Jenny
is
Because of her profession, Jenny
a prostitute.
Her voice
390). But upon a
(1.
inferior to
main reason the male speaker thinks Jenny
the
and degraded by her buyer. As defined by her male counterpart,
both socially and intellectually.
man's epiphany of
like a
the injustices of prostitution
a
of,
woman
is "in
is
is
belittled
the dark tunnel"
buried just as the Victorian tunnels led people
is
underground and closed them off from social interaction.
From
world
—
the
a world
the course of the
(1.
1),
first line in
is
him and she
poem, readers
encompassing harsh and
poem, he insensitively
a "thoughtless
again, she
the
queen of kisses"
called "poor," "shameful,"
is
his property.
uses her profession as a
and give her
(1.
"poor
7-8),
little
"my Jenny" (my
her.
48).
He
is
Throughout
(1.
299), and others. Again and
implying that she
is
is
lesser than
a prostitute,
himself that she
is
and he
a "fallen"
is
woman,
kind enough
unlike her other customers. Perhaps he even thinks of himself as a
rest"
while she
prize.
prides himself on the fact that he
and are heavy laden, and
to her
italics),
He reminds
made when he
he says
Jenny"
forgets that Jenny
Christ figure, echoing the promise Jesus
I
toward Jenny, his
male speaker's
Jenny many things: "Lazy laughing languid Jenny"
calls
way of degrading
rest,
critical attitudes
The male speaker never
with her "silk ungirdled and unlac'd"
to dine her
(1.
are thrown full force into the
will give
you
said,
"Come
(New King James
asleep, "perhaps you're merely glad
/
to
Me,
Bible, Mt.
all
1
you who labor
1:28).
Pompously,
That I'm not drunk or ruffianly
/
13
And
let
man
like
you
upon
rest
him, a
some food and
my
man who
knee"
64-66). Obviously, she
(1.
is
so lucky to have a thoughtful, kind
believes himself doing her a great service by charitably giving her
a place to rest.
While these things he does
for her
would be genuine
themselves, they are not because of his reproachful attitude toward her.
who
looks like the knight in shining armor, the noble savior
can
lift
in
He does them
up the
fallen
and of
so that he
and rescue one
from the enclosed underground tunnel.
Further in the poem, the male speaker reminds himself (and Jenny while she sleeps) that
a prostitute as he imagines
she
is
you
out,
what thing you
outbraving too"
"thing" she
know,
/
is,
(11.
and
79-81).
—
/
all
how
He acknowledges
[her] pride
that she is
and woe"
fact,
he
is
him, for he says, "I've filled our glasses,
of yours suffice for two"
(11.
superiority
is
(1.
From shame and shame's
fun of by others because of the
the "learned
It is
London
children
curious, though, that never once
let
us sup,
/
is
so defiled that she might contaminate
is
And do
not
let
me
think of you,
/
Lest shame
all,
him
but for a learned
too.
man
It is
to
okay for her
be shamed
is
to
be shamed,
outrageous. His
assumed merely because of her profession, and he continuously degrades her
as guilty of the
much
all
/
90-92). In his attempt to remain holier than her and superior to
a prostitute after
person because of
us, the
143-144).
afraid that she
Jenny, he hopes that her shame will not overtake
is
made
exudes shame. Even
her that other people "[point]
tells
she sees herself, but he assumes that she must be shamed because that
what he and others believe. In
besides, she
He
others view Jenny.
Yes, from the daily jeer and jar,
that her profession
Poor Jenny,
does he ask her
are:
how
woman
it.
The
immoral
will
ironic thing
activities
is that
he
is
the one
which he accuses her
who buys
of;
her services. So, he
man's" (308).
just
however, as A. N. Wilson reminds
always be the guilty and blamed because Victorians believed "[her]
greater than the
is
sin
was
14
As
the
beside other
others by
male speaker continues
more virtuous women. He
comparing her
upon her sleeping
another
to
woman
state,
sleeps!"
to those
whom
mention Jenny's poor fallen
tries to
emphasize the
177).
he also sets her up
fact that she is inferior to
him and
he sees as socially superior. For instance, when he looks
women. He
he marvels that she actually looks like other
(1.
state,
He cannot
believe that this lowly,
any characteristics with other women, especially
women
like his
says, "Just as
shamed woman can
share
cousin Nell. The male speaker
consciously makes mention of his cousin to set up a dichotomy between the virtuous Nell and the
fallen Jenny.
Of the
traits
first
After making his comparisons, he says, "So pure, -so
common
with this
kindred link?"
woman whom
(11.
207-208).
He
he bought on the dance
condescending as he believes Jenny
to
fall'n!
How
dare to think
/
cannot even fathom his cousin sharing any
His attitude here
floor.
be utterly inferior to
all
of the
women
is
entirely
he knows.
How
dare she think that she shares something with the virtuous Nell? Certainly, the male speaker uses
Jenny's profession as a motive for puffing himself up and for knocking her down.
He
has
confined her to her profession and she cannot escape his harsh judgments or the disparaging
glances of others.
Obviously, the male speaker
in Rossetti's
because of her profession as a prostitute.
and reminds himself what she must look
obvious that the
man
denigrates her as he calls her insulting pet
like to others.
In a
thinks of Jenny as being inferior to
intellectually. First of all, the
controlling her
He
"Jenny" assumes his superiority over Jenny
male speaker
movements and her
asleep and he says,
Well, well then, keep
actions.
names
thorough analysis of the poem,
him
in
two ways:
asserts his social superiority
it
is
socially and
over Jenny by
At the beginning of the poem, Jenny begins
to fall
15
Your head
But
And
He does
there, so
that the
you do not
weariness
may
sleep;
pass
leave you merry, take this glass.
93-96)
(11.
not want her to sleep; he wants her to stay
her services, after
all.
sleep, so he feeds her
He
believes his desires to be
and gives her drink
to stay
awake and be merry
Warwick Slim, Jenny's head on
grown
('as if
many
When
awake.
The speaker
society.
life,
women must
power
that
she begins to doze into a
is
a social
woman
181).
"Poor
that is
little
pervading Rossetti's
woman,
own
society.
Jenny, good to kiss
down
way
in the
the
home
male space,
—
just like
to live in a patriarchal
to
be the creator of her
rightful
277), and only an object
(1.
" (1.
299).
The way
over her
is
in
which the
telling of attitudes
familial breadwinners have the power,
either the prostitute or even the domesticated wife,
Perhaps the clearest
to
merely purchased merchandise. The
is
his social superiority
The male buyers and
socially buried under his all-encompassing
According
19).
She becomes so drained of any
almost fades from view"
male speaker objectifies Jenny and proclaims
while the
(1.
he cannot even recognize her as a woman; she
— an object
lies
male space as they are forced
the clay"
(1.
"the representative virtuality of female weakness
power over Jenny by believing himself
power over
longer he looks as her, "the
remains
lie in
asserts his
just as "the potter's
knee
male heaven" (135). She
light) resting in a
Victorian
his
did pay for
more important than her physical need of
slumber, he succumbs and allows her to rest "[her] head upon [his] knee"
E.
He
for him.
must remain closed off and
rule.
male speaker establishes
his
power over Jenny
is
by
reaffirming his intellectual superiority. In the third stanza of the poem, readers are immediately
introduced to two different lifestyles, that of a learned
Jenny.
The male
speaker's
room
is full
man and
of books, and he
is
that of a
sure to
let
dancing
girl
Jenny know
named
that his
room
16
is
more highly valuable than
when he
22-23).
at
says, "This
From
room of
hers.
He
yours,
the beginning, the
my
Jenny, looks
careless
to her level
life [he]
led"
(1.
on the dance
37).
indirectly insulting Jenny's
Dancing
is
By
way
He
floor.
is
A
of
By
life.
fit
drawn away from
life
was
that
meets Jenny dancing
when dancing,
when he
is
"it
women were
dancing, he
women, while
the man's place
in Rossetti's "Jenny," therefore
very
during the nineteenth century. Because
many young
and
girls
women were
raised to
not even allowed to study
at universities
thought to be intellectually, emotionally, and physically superior to
attitude
toward Jenny
superior to Jenny, and he
As
the
poem
this
He
is in
to think for her.
He
stares at her intently
lightning in a dream!
of meaning.
First,
/How
much
women had
become
Jenny
is
compared
in the
men were
this explains the
is
more
intellectually
own
self-righteous about his
is
more learned and
my
his space is
mental capabilities and even goes so far as
and realizes "what a book [she] seem[s],
should you know,
the
time and time again.
not only blatantly expresses that he
of books, but he also begins questioning her
women, and
poem. The speaker knows he
continues, the male speaker gets even
intellectual superiority.
full
in Rossetti's
smugly reinforces
is
and even then,
they were not granted degrees until decades into the twentieth century. Therefore,
male speaker's
idly
was a
wives, mothers, and caretakers. Their vocation was in these roles and their workplace was
home. Until the 1870s,
(II.
his intellectual activities to
insignificant
for lazy, careless
women
such limited educational opportunities,
that he
of books"
full
degrading her enjoyment, he insults Jenny herself.
The male speaker
represents prevailing attitudes about
his superior intellectual capacity
change from mine so
He even admits
saying that his
a thoughtless activity only
study and in the universities.
/
male speaker makes us aware
the party because he is tired of studying.
lower himself
acknowledges
explicitly
Jenny?"
to a book, half-read
(11.
/
Half-read by
51-53). This small passage
and dusty as the male speaker
is full
asserts
17
himself to be in control, to be the author of her story. The other side of the book metaphor
suggests that Jenny
that the
is
Her "half-read" pages represent
ultimately a mystery to the narrator.
speaker wants to master and define, but her
decipher. Just like other
male figures
the best interpreter of her story.
life is
a text
decode or
a text that he cannot
Victorian patriarchal society, he assumes that he
in the
Gilbert and
Gubar believe
that "it is just
because
women
is
are
defined as wholly passive, completely void of generative power (like "Cyphers") that they
become numinous
to
male
with the potent activity of
other.
men
left
(Madwoman
The male speaker
21).
The
in the
community,
where they began playing the
in
women
instilled passivity of
their aggression spilled over
role of the
dominant husband,
father, or
"Jenny" assumes the role of a dominate lover which leaves Jenny
unable to act as an active, powerful
woman.
own
Further, the last line in this excerpt reveals the speaker's attitude about Jenny's
intellectual qualities.
is
He
disdainfully asks
merely an uneducated, female prostitute.
why
she should understand what he
And
—
poem
deaf, blind, alone"
that
8)
does
Jenny
this
is
were the
The
and now he intends
that evening, but he
He
it
upon himself
to think for her.
first
time he does so occurs
when she
falls
truth confess'd, / You're thankful for a little rest,
man, who meets Jenny
thinking?
saying, for she
As she
"sits
291), he wonders what she thinks, and he spends the majority of the
creating her thoughts for her.
says, "For sometimes,
How
(1.
is
because Jenny does not have the faculties to
think intelligently for herself, the male speaks takes
there
coupled
Victorians constantly trying to understand and define each
Because men adopted aggressive roles
into the domestic sphere,
lover.
artists."
that very night,
have the
ability to
understanding her.
becomes comfortable with describing her
life as if
" (1.
67-68).
understand what
has already addressed her as "the thoughtless queen
to reveal her thoughts without truly
—
asleep and he
she
is
/
it is
Of kisses"
He meets
a person
(1.7-
her only
who
can
be easily classified and categorized by her profession.
poem
is
that while the
One
of the most ironic aspects of the
speaker continually assumes his right to speak and think for Jenny,
inevitably he cannot control her thoughts and dreams; and his attempt to articulate those for her
suggests his uneasiness with his
He does
not want to
power over
know
hers.
the true Jenny, her true essence; rather,
perspective, he classifies her and refuses to investigate her true voice.
poem
is
entitled "Jenny"
asleep, unconscious.
and she
is
the
main
subject, never
once
a voice/or her
The male buyer has created
prejudices and preconceived ideas about prostitutes onto her.
thoughtless
woman who
is
has been shamed by the public
He
from
In fact,
his
male
even though the
her voice heard. She
and has imposed
treats her as an
all
is silent,
of his
uneducated,
life:
Like a rose shut in a book
In
which pure
For
To
its
woman may
not look,
base pages claim control
crush the flower within the soul;
(11.
253-56)
This image of a rose being shut up between the pages of a book seems to suggest the fact that
fallen
women
women were
Jenny
E.
is
like
Jenny are shut up and pinned
intellectually locked in the dark
in
makes her ideologically
and enclosed
the speaker's
in
Just as
many
Victorian
metaphorical underground tunnels,
book metaphor when he
inferior, the passive text read
her the possibility of understanding his metaphor:
plant
their society.
entrapped within a book, a phallic symbol linked to the male speaker's source of power.
Warwick Slim comments on
(148).
by
It is
appropriate and interesting that Jenny
says, "Figuring her as text
by the active reader, and he even denies
'How should you know, my Jenny?'
is
compared
to the rose, a
(line
53)"
growing, thriving
which has been choked off by the male speaker's powerful devices—his
intellect.
Rossetti
19
is brilliant in
that
he develops
this
book metaphor from
room
the third stanza, with the speaker's
of books, thus setting up the connection between the male speaker and books. Although Jenny
also
compared
to as a
book, she does not get her source of power from books because she
"half-read" and the "pages of her brain
According
to Rossetti, her
mind
is
hand can use books symbolically
/ [...]
Close back upon the dusty sense"
(1.
is
is
160, 162).
desecrated and tattered; but the male speaker on the other
to
wield his power because he believes himself to be educated
and intellectually superior.
Although the male speaker believes himself
and for knowing what
insistence on thinking for her
own
inferiority
complex. Because she
inevitably intimidated. Perhaps this
attitudes
in
is
is
a text he
why
he
is
to
is
be intellectually superior to Jenny, his
best for her
feel socially superior" (86).
These
painters and thinkers, such as
way
of dealing with his
cannot decipher or read or penetrate, he
is
so aggressively displaying his condescending
critics also
at
ease only with a
remind us
that
inferior to them. Just as
shameful" Jenny
is
can summarize her
many
life
whom
many
women who were
Victorians promoted the idea of
women's
they could
and comment on her
more
to say.
He
"Jenny" represents the fear that Victorian
qualities of
fallen state, but the ironic thing is that
men, "poor
possessed with giving
He
life.
once she
can assume his superiority over her when she
men
G.
F.
intellectually
inferiority to
all
but once she opens her eyes (and her mouth), he grows silent.
or a voice of their own.
to
of the Pre-Raphaelite
represented as being unequal to the male speaker in
up, he has nothing
silent,
woman
Ford Madox Brown, William Holman Hunt, John Ruskin,
Stephens, and Rossetti himself, married or planned to marry
and
a
toward Jenny. Brian and Judy Dobbs write, "many men were so unsure of themselves
dealing with the opposite sex that they were
wakes
is
is
asleep
The male speaker
women
too
in
much freedom
20
Men
intellectual
in the
Victorian
come about
did fear what would
freedom, but curiously,
women
if
much
gained too
too were growing suspicious of female advancement.
women
male speaker comments on women's fears when he says, "Even so unto her sex
Rossetti's
the life-blood of this rose,
women were
his
Age
Puddled with shameful knowledge"
/
(11.
275, 264-65). Obviously,
makes mention of
also endorsing gender inequality, as Rossetti
in
these lines.
woman's place
that the
to be lesser than her
husband (1088).
is in
Many
traditional
woman's domestic sphere. The Queen of England
their appropriate
woman on
domestic sphere.
earth, she
Sharpe 101
1).
'this
is
most anxious
mad, wicked
poor feeble sex
subject which
folly of
is
mad, wicked
folly of
to enlist
'Woman's
every one
the
Queen
different
—then
Women's
May
who
Rights', with
that she
women
was
were
"the
to
remain
Rights'" (Henderson and
29, 1870, she writes,
can speak or write to join
all its
checking
attendant horrors, on which her
womanly
them remain each
in
feeling and propriety...
in their
own
God
It is
a
created
position, (qtd. in
Marsh 98)
Throughout the endless discussions and debates about the appropriate and customary role of
women
in
spoken
for.
dance
England during the nineteenth century, one thing
floor.
In "Jenny," the
He
male speaker
is
dominant and
speculates about her dreams.
her to sleep for a while.
He
He
is
certain:
in control:
women were
He meets
creates her thoughts
leaves her in the morning.
in
most powerful
so furious that she cannot contain herself.
let
commanded
is
staunch advocates of the
interesting that even though she
bent, forgetting every sense of
makes
men and women
women were
herself believed that
by Queen Victoria on
In a letter written
The Queen
this
denounced
It is
and
the domestic sphere
In
women
powerful work The Subjection of Women, John Stuart Mill acknowledges that
encouraged the idea
is [...]
and
The male speaker
is
very
much
with her on the
desires.
He
allows
constantly intruding
21
on Jenny, which
is
like the voices of
yet another
many
way
he violates her. Because of this intrusion, Jenny's voice, just
women,
Victorian
is
suggest the "interchangeability of the bought
moment
From
she [the bought
woman]
is
is
woman and the
possessed wife, but
woman,
the
way
in
which the male
The
Representation, and Desire:
Politics of
D.G. Rossetti's 'Jenny," E. Warwick Slim writes, "Jenny
is
at the last
artist
is
In his
(33).
or male speaker
one of oppression and entrapment-the same feelings of
which the image of the underground tunnel creates for the Victorians.
titled "Prostitution,
far as to
always ostracized from the sanctity of the hearth"
the possessed wife to the fallen
defines the female voice
Nina Auerbach even goes so
silenced.
restriction
wonderful essay
Male Liberalism
in
not an individual by this account: she
a generic image, the culmination of a cultural history of gender representation" (133-34).
In thinking of
Jenny as a Victorian
woman whose
voice has been buried in a masculine space,
Jenny becomes more than the subject of a poem. She becomes a cultural icon.
While Jenny can be seen
still
the
remained an icon of monetary value
poem
begins his monologue saying,
fond of a guinea"
is
(1.
1-2).
From
Jenny
as a cultural icon to readers of the twenty-first century,
to her
male buyer
"LAZY
in the
poem.
laughing languid Jenny,
the beginning, Jenny
is
In fact, the speaker of
/
Fond of
and
a kiss
seen as a useable object. She
is
lazy and
only worth physical or material things, like kisses or money. The speaker uses her for his
physical needs and then throws her a guinea for meeting those needs. Obviously, there
commercial exchange taking place
sexual services.
in the
poem
in
hopes of attaining some
and does not deliver the service for which she
sleeps, the speaker reveals his thoughts about his purchase,
his disparaging
a
— an exchange involving material goods and
The male speaker brings Jenny home
pleasure, but she falls asleep
is
remarks about Jenny derive from the
is
sort of sexual
hired.
As Jenny
and we as readers quickly learn
fact that she is a prostitute,
that
merely an object
22
Throughout the
in his eyes.
entire
poem, Jenny
poem
the speaker of the
owned marketplace, and
is
compared
is
to items.
She
is
on sale
all,
male speaker
as the
tells his story,
"Poor beauty, so well worth a kiss!"
changeless
sum / Of lust,
"poor" here
degraded
guinea"
is
twofold:
(1.
2).
first, it
Also, the
state.
and
past, present,
in
and he believes her
to
come"
(11.
to
says to her,
be "a cipher of man's
The meaning of
278-79).
"Jenny." First
He
he constantly mentions Jenny's worth.
55),
(1.
word
the
connotes his attitude about Jenny, emphasizing her poor,
word can mean Jenny's economic
Again and again, Jenny's worth
is
state, for
she
is
based on physical things.
poor and "fond of a
We have already
seen that the speaker does not believe Jenny to have any social or intellectual worth, but
worth becomes external and bodily. Her worth adds up to man's
continually measured up to what he believes her value to be,
The
the best judge of her personal thoughts.
/
These golden coins"
(11.
more preoccupied with
her worth, not she.
assume
that
Jenny
How
340-43).
is
sometimes a way for
Because Jenny
is
Even
unhappy
women
in
to
in
is.
know whether Jenny
hair
/
is
is
he believes he
is
when he
her unconscious state, the speaker
He
is
she needs.
the one
thinks only of
who
It
seems
that
he
constantly reiterates
money? How can he
her station? According to Jan Marsh, prostitution was
improve
never given a voice
money and
her
Perhaps the subject of
their circumstances
in the
and
to gain social
freedom (120).
poem, we cannot know whether she
what she does, but we can know what the male speaker thinks. He assumes
only of
way
now
She
his desires.
like the
how much money
relating her worth than she
does he
much
among your golden
believes that Jenny only dreams of her worth and
is
and
lust
speaker, as before, thinks for Jenny
imagines that she dreams only of money: "I lay
your dreams,
male-
buying.
Images of commerce and economic exchange are exceedingly prevalent
of
in the
obsessed with her value, while he himself
is
really the
that
regrets doing
Jenny dreams
one who
is
guilty of
23
pricing Jenny's worth.
Another image of economic worth
The male speaker
is
that
words which express two
is
it
poem
is in
the beauty of Jenny's hair.
constantly equating Jenny's hair with money. In the
he describes Jenny, "whose hair/
creates
in Rossetti's
Is
countless gold incomparable"
(11.
10-1
different meanings. Jenny's "gold" hair
1).
poem
stanza of the
first
Again, Rossetti
is literal, in
the sense
golden blond, and figurative because the gold symbolizes Jenny's monetary worth. For
Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the other Pre-Raphaelite painters, the model's hair became her beauty
mark. In his exhaustive work on the Victorians, A. N. Wilson writes,
wore her hair loose
their erotic
charm
— which
for the
is
Just like the hair of the Blessed
men who bought
painted them and the
Damozel
in Rossetti's
The Awakening Conscience, the hair of Jenny
/
My
"I think I see
gold, in rising,
is
from your
hair, /
A
speaker thinks of the gold as
his,
Danae
is
not hers.
notion that he views Jenny as an object, his object.
139), she
becomes
to sprinkle
as she
And
moment
The
is
the very
the speaker sees
rub your eyes for me, and
there"
(11.
376-79). This
both powerful and compelling.
fact that he calls
"When Saturday
1
14).
it
night
It is
interesting
his gold reaffirms the
is
market-night"
(1.
This subtle reference to Danae also reveals the speaker's
assumed superiority over Jenny. He thinks of himself
Danae
for a
/
poem when
it
the product to be sold, the possession to be purchased, a "value sign in the
world of men" (Psomiades
Heavens
the pictures" (163).
what gives her sexual appeal, and
you when you wake,
image of Jenny shaking the gold out of her hair
that the
woman
painting or the hair of the lady in Hunt's
thing that defines her worth for the male speaker. At the end of the
shake
respectable
what gives these loose-haired Pre-Raphaelite maidens so much of
men who
Jenny waking up he says,
"No
Danae with
awakes and shakes
his golden dust.
his gold
as Zeus-like,
Jenny
from her
hair.
is
descending from the
transformed into the mythic figure of
Jenny has been victimized and silenced
24
by the male speaker, and
tunnel where there
Through
is
no
like
many women
no voices, and there
light, there are
the poetry of
in the Victorian
is
no chance of
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, we can begin
society of his time considered the issues of gender.
artist
Age, she has been shut into
We can
further see
encourages the social confinement of women. In his personal
very fictional male
Damozel's
artist
lover, Jenny's buyer.
encompasses the way
becomes
we have been
his object
and he uses her
as a
is
artist
how
how
the
often times the male
Rossetti embodies the
life,
Angelo, Lancelot, the Blessed
His relationship with his model and
which the male
in
womanly beauty
of physical
discussing. Rossetti
societal escape.
understand
to
a dark
wife Elizabeth Siddal
later
uses and speaks for his female subject. "Lizzie"
to achieve the ideal
beauty
in his art
—
symbol of the unseen beauty" (Williams
"his belief in an ideal
197). For years,
Lizzie sacrifices her time, her career, and her face for Rossetti' s all-consuming passion for
As
Gilbert and
Gubar observe,
Whether she becomes an objet
d' art or a saint, however,
— of her personal comfort, her personal
self
angel-woman's key
to death
art.
and
However, Rossetti
to
is
act,
heaven."
while
it is
it
is
desires, or both
—
the surrender of her
that
precisely this sacrifice which
(Madwoman
is
the beautiful
dooms
her both
25)
not the only male artist that has chosen to
draw on
the ever-giving face of
Elizabeth Siddal. She posed for John Everett Millais in his striking Pre-Raphaelite painting
Ophelia, where she lay in cold bathwater for four months in the middle of English winter. For
the
art,
Lizzie almost died that winter.
Possibly the best
male
artist is in
summary of how
victimized the
woman
subject
the poetry of Dante's sister, Christina Rossetti. In her
Studio," the speaker says,
is
in the
poem
eyes of the
"In an Artist's
25
He
feeds upon her face by day and night,
And
she with true kind eyes looks back on him
moon and joyful
Fair as the
Like a vampire, the
artist
as the light: (1.9-11)
feeds on his prey, the model. She
is
hidden behind his canvases and
devotedly poses for hours while she loses her identity and he gains his fame. She
girl," just as the
female subject
fills
his
Blessed Damozel
is
italics
nameless and Jenny
By becoming
the victim.
dream" (my
is
14).
1.
is
unable to speak her
the artist's creation, she
is
a "nameless
own name. The
"Not as she
Just like the Victorian wife, Elizabeth Siddal
is
is,
but as she
must
sacrifice
her intellectual and social ambitions to meet her husband's. Rossetti and other male poets
"ventriloquize
women and endow them
his literary subject
entrapment. Like
and
with certain preferred qualities" (Victorian Web). She
his physical object as she fulfills this Victorian
many
them" (Johnson 80) for
Victorian poets and
their
own fame and
Elizabeth Siddal, along with other
about
in
poems not with
their
own
artists,
"men both
idealize
concept of feminine
women
while they exploit
for art's sake.
women, has been placed behind canvases and
identities, but
with
new ever-changing
identities
creators have
imposed on them. Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted Elizabeth Siddal
Damozel and
Beatrice, John Everett Millais painted her as Ophelia,
her as Viola in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Her face
"the
model
sits
motionless, aware that her face
beyond her control" (Rosenblum
learned to remain
all
85).
is
is
is
their
as the Blessed
it
is
the artist's face, as
being scrutinized and transformed
becomes
beautiful surface, hidden both from herself and
which
and Walter Deverell painted
never her own;
In losing her identity, she
written
the
in
ways
"woman who
has
from the men she must
please" (Cooper 76). Just as Christina Rossetti writes, the female subject
fills
the
male
artist's
26
dream
as her voice
and face are buried
is
buried and closed
in the
off.
Like the enclosure of the tunnel, the female's voice
imagination of her artist-creator.
Robert Browning
One
of the great poetic icons of the Victorian
Age was Robert Browning. Famous
for his
dramatic monologues, for his secret love affair with Elizabeth Barrett, and for his masterpiece
collection
In
Men and Women, Browning became
many ways he challenged
a
monumental
figure in Victorian literary circles.
poetic traditions: he integrated dramatic forms and literary forms to
create his celebrated dramatic
monologues; he tapped into the inner psyche of
his subjects to
reveal their inner selves; he revitalized Dante's verse form, terza rima, and perfected
these
ways
by
treated
in
which Browning went against the
their
male
Rossetti, Robert
creators, he
Browning
social grain,
when
depicting
it.
Despite
how women
are
remained very Victorian. Like Tennyson and Dante Gabriel
often creates a female character
who
is
barred from society by an
overbearing male figure. In depicting his female characters, however, Browning does so with
irony.
He saw
the
problem with enclosing women,
much oppressed by
a
Victorian ideologies,
dominant male figure
Browning
Statue and the Bust," three
controlling men.
They
creates in
women who
— her
"My
for his
father.
own
wife, Elizabeth Barrett,
In order to
expose the wrongs
was very
in
Last Duchess," "Porphyria's Lover," and ""The
are silenced and shut off
from the outside world by
are confined to their cloistered homes, buried in their
own underground
tunnels.
Perhaps no figure in Browning's poetry
is
Duchess. Readers are introduced to the Duke's
Fra Pandolf's hands by the Duke's request. The
as physically confined as Ferrara's Last
last
wife through a canvas
poem
tells
of an
—
a canvas
made by
unnamed woman, known
to
27
dead and whose story
told only through the
readers as Ferrara's Last Duchess,
who
memories of Ferrara. The Duke
touring his palace with an emissary for his next father-in-law
when he
was kind
that in
stops at the portrait and begins to
to
you disgusts me; here you miss,
stopped together"
(1.
is
of her deeds and her disobediences as a wife. She
45-6).
I
professes that he "gave
but a dusty piece of
attitude
/
Then
all
smiles
trapped inside a canvas, and her story, like that
is
I"
is
(1.
seen only by Ferrara's
9-10).
memories hidden from
He
the public view.
owned and
dominated by the Duke, and she
is
art
command,
for
"none
keeps her portrait hidden behind a
He
regards her as nothing
Loy D. Martin
an object without any power or influence.
objects to be
or
constantly
is
by her male oppressor. Throughout the poem, the Duchess's
Duchess
toward the Duchess as merely a piece of
is
commands;
She
told
art as discrete static
Last Duchess
37-9).
/
late
have drawn for you, but
art,
(1.
this
The
is
curtain, just as he keeps her
mark"
or there exceed the
depicted by Ferrara and her portrait
puts by the curtain
works of
/
Duke who proudly
of D. G. Rossetti's Jenny,
character
tell
is
everyone she met, but the jealous husband would always be thinking: '"Just
being watched by the
Duke's
is
is
when he
says,
controlled" (76). In
explains the
"He [Duke] considers
life
and
after life, the
never free to escape his grasp and remains
forever in his canvas. She just waits lifelessly inside his imagination.
Browning's
"My
Last Duchess" also reveals
how
the
Duke
regards the portrait of his
late
wife by the other artworks that he displays. Paul Turner points out the speaker's "lack of feeling
for his first wife, except as an art-object,
by
his admiration of her portrait
bronze of 'Neptune taming a sea-horse,' a subject symbolic of the
is
a
"woman
[of]
decoration, the male-created
woman" (Brady
and equal
way he
125).
interest in a
treated her" (47).
Her canvas
She
acts like
Mariana's moated grange, the Lady of Shalott's castle, and the Blessed Damozel's Heaven. She
can never leave her physical environment and her face
is
hidden away
in a
canvas behind a dark
To make
curtain.
a social parallel, perhaps the Last Duchess
uneducated, inferior
Victorian
woman
men expected
that Ellis
in their
is
the very domesticated,
and Beeton commended and the female figure
wives. She
shaped
is
to his desires,
and her voice
is
that
never once
heard behind his imposing dictation.
Like Ferrara's Duchess, Porphyria's voice has been ignored and muted by her lover. In
his
"Porphyria's Lover," Browning creates a
poem
out of the storm, she
does not reply.
He
is
compelled
tries to
but he
Once
uninterested.
he wildly thinks, "at
last
Perfectly pure and
I
show him
the
knew
good"
/
love,
am
kills
gained instead"
own
(1.
(1.
33-37).
He
He
voice
is
to his desires.
angry with her for being away
It is
She
She
the "gay
tries to retain his attention,
sure that Porphyria's love
is
so
full
is
genuine and sincere,
moment
she was mine, mine,
of rage, anger, wrath, and jealousy that
beginning of the
her), she is
dead
and he proves
life.
to
him
this as
too bad that her
is
at
disregards her presence, she forces his arms
strangles her so that she can never love
needs are certainly more important than her
man and confined
is
.
pride,
55).
her lover and she calls after him. However, he
Porphyria worshipped me. .That
arms around
her for his
is
has been silenced vocally and
Porphyria "glides" into the cottage and
affection, but he resists.
to her figuratively in the
call or willingly put his
poem. He
down by
male lover
he must have her love perpetually.
While he was dead
sit
when he purposefully
around her waist. She
fair, /
to
ignores her calls because he
feast" without him; and,
is
When
by a jealous, controlling male speaker.
eternally
woman who
She
life is
is
a
poem
(for
literally
anyone
he would not answer her
by the end of Browning's
he triumphantly says, "And
gone, as long as /
woman
that has
am
I,
its
satisfied.
been depicted by
the socially confined nineteenth-century
muted and silenced by her male lover or husband.
else.
His
a
woman whose
29
Because of Porphyria's independence
retaliates
and closes her
in
and
to
going out to enjoy herself
will not let her escape
formidable hands, or escape her eternal
and the only way for him
in
by
is
fears that Victorians
House
is at
had with giving a
is
warm
buried.
woman
too
Read
is
cottage, escape his
his jealousy
and wrath
trapped inside the
socially, this
much independence.
poem
If
the
is
telling of the
Angel of the
the feast instead of in her domestic role, she has the potential of disrupting the social
order. Similarly, if girls in the nineteenth century are going to school
men
her lover
Like Marianna, the Lady of Shalott,
killing her.
Jenny, and other female figures in Victorian poetry, Porphyria
claustrophobic underground and her voice
the
She becomes the victim of
fate.
hold on to her
—escape
at the feast,
will begin to fear
competition and displacement
in the
and becoming educated,
workplace. John Stuart Mill
way
addresses this issue in his profound book The Subjection of Women. Seemingly, the only
Porphyria's lover to keep her in his control
When
physically.
Porphyria
"shut[s] the cold out
images emphasize
energy with
in
her.
first
comes
and the storm"
that
(1.
in
7),
is
Her sexual
by becoming tyrannical and dominating her
from outside, she
and she kneels
when Porphyria comes
vitality threatens
to
is
empowered: she "glides"
make
the fire blaze.
into the house, she brings a great
in,
she
These sensory
amount of
him, and the "lover" must keep her locked inside
order to keep her in her domestic place and to have
full
control over her.
Poiphyria
is
physically closed into her domestic cottage and literally asphyxiated by her lover. She
in a sort of
for
underground tunnel where there are no doors or windows or outlets
to rely
is
buried
on for
deliverance.
In both
"My
Last Duchess" and "Porphyria's Lover," the two male speakers are trying to
control their lovers' sexual power.
behavior, for "she liked whate'er
/
Duke
Ferrara admits that he
became
tired of the
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere"
Duchess's
(11.
23-24).
30
Ferrara
is
most jealous
other men.
Her sexual
hundred-years-old
of.
It is
vitality
name"
the "spot of joy"
knows
kill
he has no control over her while she
soiled gloves by, untie[s]
/
Her hat" (my
When
controls her by killing her.
is
Victorian
she
defeated, just as Victorian
patriarchal society in
which they
men when he
manhood and
attractive to
his "nine-
is
italics
is
11.
in
ruled by
He
and "[lays] her
12-13), he can reestablish his authority.
must succumb
inside his domain, she
in
brooding with jealously.
when she comes
outside, but
women become
live.
comes
her in order to champion his anxieties. She
feast radiating with youthful vitality while her lover sits
that
and she
threat to his
what
Likewise, Porphyria' s sexual vitality also threatens her
33).
(1.
this is
upon her cheek which makes her
and energy become a
"lover" to the point where he must
from the
and
sets her apart (and attracts the attention of others),
Her inner and outer beauty
men who have
He
demands
to his
established the
A. N. Wilson comments on the authoritarianism of
writes,
Chastity was no easier for Victorians than for anyone else, but their guilt-feelings about
sex,
combined with
their attitudes to
possession, ownership, purchase of
economics, could lead to those presumptions of
women by men.
Because many Victorians suppressed any sexual impulses,
(162)
their
emotions remained very much
bottled up, until their anxieties unconsciously surfaced, as they did for
Porphyria's lover.
anxieties on to
118).
It is
its
When
happens, the "patriarchal culture
subordinates:
the sexual
seek to contain.
this
powers
A woman's
women,
reclaim the control and power; and by placing a
gives
him
a
way
woman
in a
to ensure that his voice is heard, not hers.
its
sexual
and other nations" (Marsh
Duchess and Porphyria have
sexual vitality threatens a man, so the
Ferrara and
then projects]
[...]
children, the lower classes,
that the Last
Duke
man
that their
strikes
male controllers
back
in
order to
symbolic underground tunnel,
it
31
Robert Browning's famous
in
which
women
poem, a lady
poem "The
Statue and the Bust" brilliantly exposes the
are confined to their physical surroundings
by
their
male counterparts.
way
In this
confined within her bedroom, confined within her marital situation, and confined
is
women
to the social role that
Lady has become trapped
in the Victorian
Age were expected
inside a symbolic tunnel
to fulfill.
Specifically, the
— a tunnel which has been designed,
built,
and
operated by men. In this poem, the builders of those oppressive societal tunnels are the Lady's
husband, and even her passing lover.
father,
An
in-depth textual analysis of this poem, reveals
within her feminine sphere. First of
story "our
townsmen
not townspeople.
W.
O.
poem
—
a world in
attitudes, as
will
we
even go so
will see
a
which
thing
is
poem
certain: the
is
throughout the poem. In
far as to suggest that the speaker is
in
subjects oppress her reveal
The
first
which the Lady
many
is
of the social ideologies
(1. 18).
She
in
some
in
(144).
Browning
which
is first
all
that the
fifty lines in this
Raymond
speakers, in
Whether
the
created, one
of the male
Browning's world.
Lady
is
life
poem, she
is
of a
woman
known only through male
introduced as a lady, then as "a bride the Ricarddi brings
For the entire two hundred and
poem
scholars such as
way of creating
way
the
Robert Browning.
clue that readers of "The Statue and the Bust" are reading the
is
poem, readers
why
this is
own person"
portrayed and the
through the words of a male poet and male speaker
identifiers.
in his
as a
fact,
the poet/creator himself or a fictional voice that
way
restricted
by townsmen,
stories are related
male voice, and perhaps
"The Statue and the Bust" Browning "avowedly speaks
speaker in the
Lady has been
In the third line of the
Browning does use dramatic monologues
posits that although
the
begins with an objective speaker telling of a
3) about a statue in Florence.
The speaker of the poem has
male
Raymond
(1.
the
thrown into a male world
are immediately
often reflects
tell"
all,
how
home
to-day"
never given a name. She
32
is like
own nor
there
Lady of
the
is
Shalott and
Duke
Ferrara's
an empowering identity. All she
no place for her
to define her
own
her caged in her tower. Contrarily, the
the passing lover
to be
also
is
given
is
person. She
men
in the
is
poem
in the
are given proper
male speaker describes her
only identified
is
but within that
merely defined by the men
is
names
of her
room
who keep
or descriptions:
the bride of Ricarddi. There
Lady's character portrayal as she
especially significant that she
name
neither a proper
room of her own,
a
"The Great Duke Ferdinand" and she
is
examined not only
it
is
— she has
Duchess
locked away
is
in relation to
her tower, but
men. Realizing how
understanding
in her identification is pertinent in
in
how
much
is
the
Lady
the
is
a
victim of men's oppressiveness from the beginning of the poem.
Once
the "Great"
Duke Ferdinand
rides past the castle, he
and the Lady
first
look upon
each other with loving and curious eyes. The speaker describes the incident saying, "He looked
at her, as
began"
a lover can;
/
She looked
at
him
as
one who awakes:
28-30). This passage explains that the Lady's whole
(11.
without the Duke.
As
a single, capable
enters her life that there
is
woman, her
meaning. Her
life
cast, /
is
is
no
is
light,
exit,
permanently fixed
Caesar said
est,"
in
no hope of
in her
salvation.
The door
a sleep,
and her
life
has been hollow and dead
it
is
not until a
man
(11.
55-56).
is
The door
"that her lot
to her
enclosed within a tunnel where
to marital
freedom
is
also shut and she
domestic sphere. This passage resonates with echoes of what Julius
49 B.C. when he crossed the Rubicon
which means "the die
was
wedded husband calmly explains
slammed by her dominating husband and she
no
life
past
has been useless;
That the door she had passed was shut on her"
independence
there
life
The
begins with him (or so the male speaker implies).
Also, the very night of her wedding, her newly
was
/
is
cast."
The phrase
to
invade
actually
been made. For Caesar, his irrevocable decision
is to
Italy.
means
He
declared "Jacta alea
that an irrevocable decision has
crush through the Italian front; for the
33
bride of Ricarrdi, the irrevocable decision
Her
lot is cast
is
to
be sentenced to a
The speaker
(1.
guarded and subjugated.
once she becomes the property of a tyrannical husband, and any hopes of escaping
from her enclosed tower or her own underground tunnel
East"
life
further relates that the
Lady
is
is
irrevocably denied.
confined within her tower. The Lady must merely "watch [the
is
a convent's chronicler"
60).
(1.
She
is
cloistered within closed doors, shut
windows, and barred from the outside world. Further,
it is
her for "nights and days in the narrow
ironically,
however, he never shows her
Whether he
fears she will leave
off,
him or he
is
room"
(1.
festivities] like
up behind glass
interesting that once the
married to Ricarddi, readers are never given any other accounts of him.
left
facing the
59) to go to the feast. Ricarddi forbids her from physically leaving her tower, just as the
Lady of Shalott
and
"window
forbidden to leave her
It is
as
if
Lady
is
he married her
216) where she becomes a trophy bride;
but instead marries her for a
name and
just acting as the overprotective tyrant,
status.
he
nevertheless initiates her entrapment.
And what
exactly
is this
"narrow room"
like
and what are the consequences
escapes her "place?" Physically, the Lady resides in a narrow
and pass and look
/
where
his lady
confined space where no one
is
In fact, Ricarddi is not
now
that she is his object, she
twice this year,
/
To
is
mirrored
in
is
through the glassed
Duke "may
is
ride
locked into
this
cannot join the
Lady of
in the
window where
festivities or
go
room. Her only
she has been shut
in
her face. According to Ricarddi, '"If she quits her palace
avert the flower of life's decline"'
her to go. Like Tennyson's
143-144). She
even mentioned as attending her himself
communication with the outside world
and where unhappiness
(1.
the
she
said to have entered. Before the marriage to Ricarddi, her
bridesmaids could attend her, but
outside.
watches behind the grate"
room where
if
(1.
104-105), there will be nowhere for
Shalott, she will wither
and fade away
if
she leaves her
—
34
tower. Although she will die emotionally
physically
if
if
she remains in her ordained place, she will die
she leaves. So, she decides to wait Mariana-like for
Duke Ferdinand
but both his and her indecision to act leaves her physically alive even though she
The Lady
own
herself admits her
to rescue her,
is
dying inside.
emotional entrapment when she says of her newly
wedded husband,
"Your window and
its
world
suffice,
Replied the tongue, while the heart replied
If I
spend the night with
May
window
his
Whence
Here, the
Lady
a
her place as a married
She
is
to
meet
my
loop of hell
soul looks on paradise!"
(1.
between what her head knows
woman
disgusted by this
must continue
serve as
damned
torn
is
that devil twice,
man
social
and remain submissive
Ricarddi
who
has
65-69)
is
expected by society
to her
become an
authority figure to her.
in a
happy marriage.
In
women
in the nineteenth
Yet, the
Lady
that often times
men and
name of morality"
(40).
compels married partners who hate one another
In a society based
marriages often became relationships based on appearances
In fact, the
in
century remained married because that was what was expected in the
Brittain writes that society "still
to say that her
remain
The Testament of Youth, Vera
comments on her Victorian upbringing and she describes
woman
to
husband) and what her heart desires.
Brittain
live together in the
is,
and domestic expectations by following her husband's orders. She
must keep up the appearance of being
community.
(that
on keeping up pretenses,
— appearances
husband's world suffices, while inside her heart
main reason why
away with Duke Ferdinand
is
the
that
is in
compelled a
turmoil and agony.
Lady does not escape her imprisoned bed chamber
another domineering male
in
her
to
life,
her father; for she says,
to run
"'My
35
my
father tarries to bless
the
poem
1
must keep
the Lady. Judith
implied in
one day more for him'"
fact that her father is to bless her state,
The marriage
business transaction with Ricarddi.
the marriage
it
the marriage. First of
two major things about
reveal
and from the
state: /
Weissman
will
remind us
a political arrangement
is
'My Last Duchess'"
patriarchal society
is
obvious that the father
(12-13). Both the
we have
is
in
Lady of Ricarddi and
men
seen in the
controlling the
a
the
— not
for her
which the Lady
is
that
marriage
like the
Duke
and
[...]
of Ferrara's
commerce. Secondly,
her place for her father
first
making
Lady does not love her husband
are the ones controlling this society into
(as
evinced from earlier lines
made between powerful men, something
important to realize that the Lady remains
The men
is
as
arranged for the benefit of the men, not for
is
that "the
Last Duchess have been priced and sold by the
her parents.
it
all,
77-78). These lines in
(1.
mother or
born.
is
it
for
The
stanza) told through the townsmen, the
marriage relationships are controlled by the male breadwinners, and the familial relationships are
defined by the fathers.
comment on
women
By
placing his
the social issues of his
poem
own
Renaissance
in a
time.
setting,
Browning can
discreetly
With Ricarddi 's fear of feminine empowerment,
such as Ricarddi's bride are enclosed not only within Renaissance towers, but also
enclosed within a Victorian claustrophobic society.
Readers can also see the phallocentric mindset which
when he decides
wait a night.
.
./
Today
112, 116-117).
is
to wait to elope with the
sure that even
is
not wholly
lost,
Lady.
beside,
The Duke does not rush and
if
he delays, she will
still
He
/
after
ingrained
in
confidently says, '"Yet
With
seize the
its
hope of
moment
be there waiting
must wait for him, just as the Victorian wife and mother
home
is
work. Isabella Beeton supports the idea that
is
in
my
Duke Ferdinand
my
passion must
lady's countenance'"
to take his love
away; instead, he
her high tower. She
is
the one
daily waiting for her husband to
women
(1.
should reside chiefly
in the
who
come
36
home and
she says, "a mistress should be thoroughly acquainted with the theory and practice of
cookery, as well as be perfectly conversant with
comfortable
home" (1538)
all
so that she can persuade her husband to
than spending time at their clubs or taverns. Likewise, Browning's
domestic place
room by her oppressive husband, but she
inability to act
is
Lady must
is
also expected to be passive
male admirer, Duke Ferdinand. Browning
when he
come home
male breadwinner comes home. But not only
until the
the arrival of her
making and keeping
the other arts of
brilliantly
the
after
a
work
rather
stay in her
Lady confined
in
her
and nonchalantly await
symbolizes the Lady's
writes,
And she— she watched
book
the square like a
Holding one picture and only one,
Which
When
And
daily to find she undertook:
the picture
was reached
the
she turned from the picture
Of tearing
it
at
book was done,
night to
out for herself next sun.
This book imagery exemplifies
how
the
(I.
scheme
145-150)
Lady functions
in
her society. She
is
the reader of the
marketplace, the reader of the streets, the reader of the storybooks: She must live by reading, not
living.
While Ricarddi "brings her home," Great Duke Ferdinand "rides by with
and her father
The men
"tarries to bless her state," she
interact with the
world and
interacts with the nonliving
must engage
live in this
book pages and
realize that their love affair will
acts as an
women and
never come to
in a silent, individualistic activity.
seemingly male-controlled society: the Lady
onlooker on the bustling marketplace.
Further in the poem, the memorials that both the
telling of the respective passive roles of
the royal air,"
Lady and
the
active roles of
fruition, they
Duke have made
are
men. Once the eager lovers
both have
artists create
memorials
37
which
"[fix] a
which
will
below
in the
make
a
(1.
square!"
(1.
The Lady
168).
remain "on the window there,
/
is
(1.
a bust
memorials
Robbia
hires the artist
Waiting as ever, mute the while,
172-174). Contrarily,
Duke Ferdinand
bronze statue of himself to "set [him] on horseback here
sculptor can"
Lady's
beauty never to fade"
hires artist
aloft,
/
/
to fashion a bust
my
John of Douay
that they do.
is
a statue, but rather the importance lies in
The Lady wants her beauty
to
is
art is
not that the
why they chose
the
be fixed (similar to the beauty that Dante
Gabriel Rossetti fixes in his painting of Elizabeth Siddall), and she wants to be
"waiting" and "mute." She
to
Alive, as the crafty
203-204). The monumental importance of these two pieces of
and the Duke's
love to pass
remembered
as
so deeply steeped in the male-dominant Victorian society that she
accepts her role as the submissive lover and wife. Ironically, her permanent inanimate bust will
much
not be
different
from how she
window
long looking
down from
she
The Lady has been
is alive.
her
tower while she
that all of the
She passively waits so
is alive.
townspeople see her as inanimate even while
treated as a piece of lifeless clay her entire
life.
The Duke's
on the other hand, aptly portrays what he and the entire male-dominant ideologies
statue,
supposed about the "male rescuer."
living
lives in that
among
visibly
the townspeople.
engaged
in the streets.
statue '"to listen the while,
He
Even
is
the knight in shining
after death, his
While the Lady
and laugh
in [his]
and her memories will be blotted out of the
memory
will be
tomb'"
histories,
mute
(1.
armor striding on horseback and
will live
on
in a statue that is
after death, the
212).
The Lady
Duke wants
his
will be silenced in life
while the Duke's voice will be heard, even
laughing in the marketplace. Her voice will be buried
— buried because of
the Victorian fear of
entrapment and a burial which implies the social confinement of nineteenth century women.
"The Statue and the Bust"
Victorian period
became
is
restricted
a fine
example of how
the opportunities for
by a male-centered world. Poets such
women
as Alfred,
in the
Lord
38
Tennyson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Robert Browning create male speakers
who
wives, mothers, and daughters as passive, defenseless objects of men's needs.
Women
this
time became socially confined to their
always remained silenced by the
subways
that
men were
men
homes
portray
during
or moated granges or towers, and their voices
in their lives.
Just like the
underground tunnels and
designing and building during the period, their female dependents were
trapped inside those tunnels and their voices were buried with them in the underground.
many women
Unfortunately,
confinement for
many
living in the Victorian
reasons.
represent themselves politically.
They could
Age had
to accept their
not support themselves financially.
They could
said,
to poetry to interpret life for us, to
They could
not prepare themselves intellectually.
choice they had was to acquiesce in accepting their confinement in the
Matthew Arnold once
domestic
"more and more, mankind
man-made
will discover that
not
The only
tunnel.
we have
to turn
console us, to sustain us." (1030). The literature of the past
has the amazing ability to interpret the values, moral, and issues of an age. In the Victorian Age,
poems such
convey
artist.
"The Lady of Shalott," "Jenny," "The Statue and
as
to us as
modern readers how
These poems shed
artists/creators
light
and confined
the female subject
on how
women have
in the patriarchal
the physical infrastructure of the enclosed
psychological entrapment of Victorian
to seek
some
in their
domestic sphere.
social
and
political
is
the Bust,"
treated
been defined
and preyed upon by
in the
Victorian society by both
— women who were,
independence, but were
still
the
male
poetry of their male
men and women. Thus,
and confined underground tunnel
women
and many others
reflects the
for the first time, beginning
forced to be silent and imprisoned
39
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