Wilde argues with Symonds description of an Urning (a homosexual) in the scene when Hallward describes his infatuation with Dorian Gray. Symonds describes Urnings as having a feminine soul. Basil Hallward is admiting in this scene that he has feelings that transcend male friendship. But nothing so far in the text would support that Basil has a feminine soul–as he is an excellent artist, which we have learned is not allowed for women in the Victorian Era. Basil explains his feelings about Dorian as “I have worshipped you with far more romance of feeling than a man usually gives a friend. Somehow, I had never loved a woman…I quite admit that I adored you madly, extravagantly, absurdly.” (Wilde 79) He just simply never saw a woman who made him fall over with desire, then he sees Dorian and feels emotions that he has never felt before and obsesses over him to an extreme degree that he dominates his thoughts when he is with him and when they are separated. His soul is not feminine–he just has not been moved by an individual to this extent in his life and as a man, he likes other men.

The two articles on old maids agree that there is a multitude of women that are old maids: female bachelors that are destined to remain that way. Carlile states that an old maid is a women past the age of 25 whose comely features deteriorate. Poor features start to rise and rob the woman of her charm and good looks due to her lack of sexual exploration. “[t]hey become pale and languid, that general weakness and irritation, a sort of restlessness, nervous fidgettyness takes possession of them.” (Carlile). While Sala writes about how you can tell which girls based on their personality and demeanor “Among a family of blooming girls one who already wears the stigmata of old maidenhood.” He believes that a woman either blooms into a marriageable woman or a sad old maid.

While men normally do not remain bachelors their whole lives some women (old maids) seem destined to remain single, as he explains “But how many women-young, fair, and accomplished, pure and good and wise-are doomed irrevocably to solitude and celibacy!” They try to join the married but as Sala further explains “It chills the blood to see these hopeless cases, to see the women resign themselves to their fate with a sad meek smile-to come back, year after year, and find them still meek, smiling, but sad, confirmed old maids.” It is not that they are uncomely as Carlile suggests, but they resign to a life of solitude and without marriage. Sala was a journalist writing a book that was meant to be an accurate description of a day in London during the 1850s, so when he mentions the old maids he is only explaining them as they are, not with a trace of irony or misrepresentation from his perspective.

From Carlile’s view, he wanted women to have sexual emancipation and that without this emancipation, women will become old maids. While Carlile believes it is through sexual exploration as he states “Women who had never had sexual commerce begin to droop when about twenty-five years of age, that they become pale and languid.” If a women does not engage themselves, in these experiences, she will begin to suffer the affects of old maidenhood and start to decline as a person.

Sala, George Augustus. Twice Round the Clock, or The Hours of the Day and Night in London. 1859. Print.

Carlile, Richard. Every Woman’s Book . 1838. Print.

Hello All! My name is Zach Locascio and I am an English major with a creative writing minor. I like to read Sci-Fi and horror. Some of my favorite authors are Kurt Vonnegut, Sylvia Plath and Cormac McCarthy.

It is a danger for women to say indelicate things. Elizabeth will normally speak her mind and soul, doing and speaking as she pleases, full of witty remark and objections to things that women in her time were not supposed to object against. But she is an exception, not the rule and even she is forced to respect the way that things are in her time on occasion, for instance when she agrees to dance with Mr. Collins simply because it is not acceptable to say no to a dance offer at a ball.

When women say things that are indelicate, even when they’re honest, they are going against was is expected of them. As Fordyce writes in Sermons to Young Women, “[f]emale angel … never wrote, nor, as I have been told, was ever supposed to have said, in her whole life, an ill-natured or an indelicate thing.”  Fordyce is saying here that women can be smart but they should not be saying anything that may be considered rude or of poor manners to some people. Women should devote there time to adding to pious literature, not a literature world of their or speak up against what was being imposed on them in this time by religion. (I can imagine Jane Austen reading this and thinking “Well, I am going to do the exact opposite.”) Elizabeth rejects Mr.Collins’ marriage proposal and suffers for it. Mr.Collins has hardly known Elizabeth, certainly not well enough to propose to her, but it is Elizabeth who must suffer the wrath from her mother for rejecting the silly proposal. As her mother, who is more concerned with the things that she has been taught to be concerned with, refuses to see Elizabeth if she rejects the marriage offer because Mr. Collins will have land and is a nice enough character. Elizabeth does not love him and knows he will not love her, so she refuses, making the right decision but it is not the delicate decision so it is frowned upon.