There is a significant turning point in Dorian’s disposition after he sees Sybil Vane, the girl he is madly in love with for her beautiful acting skills, put on an embarrassingly poor performance as Juliet in front of Basil and Lord Henry. He began to show signs of a change in him after a discussion with Lord Henry about the fleetingness of youth, when his powerful desire to stay young forever emerges. Dorian, who had once professed his love for Sybil and her ability to emulate a beautiful work of art through acting, is aghast at Sybil’s dismal performance as Juliet.

Sybil explains to Dorian that his love has freed her, that her acting was only an “empty pageant” and now she truly knows what love is. (Wilde 72). In a dramatic fury, Dorian tells Sybil, ““you have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don’t even stir my curiosity. … I loved you because you were wonderful, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away” (Wilde 73).

Heartbroken, Sybil kills herself. Basil is bewildered by Dorian’s indifference to the news, to which Dorian replies, “she lived her finest tragedy.” He goes on: “… she died, as Juliet might have died. She passed again into the sphere of art. There is something of the martyr about her. Her death has all the pathetic uselessness of martyrdom, all its wasted beauty. (Wilde 93). Dorian has no interest in Sybil if she cannot embody the artistic beauty he seeks. He tells Basil that he, Dorian, has grown, matured and developed into a new man with new passions. Basil finds himself moved by Dorian’s speech: “rugged and straightforward as he was, there was something in his nature that was purely feminine in its tenderness (Wilde 94)”.

In A Problem in Modern Ethics, John Addington Symonds contends that gay men posses a feminine soul, and are instinctually emotional and full of desire (1896). Dorian’s sexual awakening begins with Lord Henry’s speech, which has altered his view of the world entirely, and is catalyzed by Sybil’s butchered Juliet performance. Dorian himself is dramatic and emotional, aching with desire to blur the lines between life and art.

Flora Tristan blames Victorian London’s rampant prostitution on a number of factors, including an unequal distribution of wealth and society’s oppression of women. She discusses the prejudices which prevent women from achieving a high social status, such as their lack of professional education and their inability to own land. According to Tristan, if women were allowed the same education and to hold the same occupational positions as men, they would not be subject to the poverty and degradation that ultimately leads them to prostitution. She also states that women, since they are not treated as autonomous individuals, cannot be held accountable to any sort of “moral law”— in fact, they’re taught their whole life the “art of pleasing”, so how could they not, in desperation, turn to prostitution just to get by (Tristan)?

Tristan goes on to give a lengthy description of Waterloo Road, a dangerous area of London where prostitutes and pimps lurk while awaiting clients, and one of the “finishes”, a sort of cabaret/tavern where wealthy men engage in orgies with prostitutes. Tristan explains that these finishes are the “meeting places for high society where the elite of aristocracy assembles”, where these men can indulge in food, drink, and sex, committing all sorts of debauchery she describes as “ revolting and frightening”.

Tristan notes that most prostitutes succumb to disease within three or four years, if not in hospitals, where they are given last priority, then on the streets. In his poem, “The Bridge of Sighs”, Thomas Hood laments the loss of a young prostitute. While he calls upon the reader to mourn for the woman, “loving, not loathing” (14), and treat her body with tender care, he does not offer any sort of critique of society to mirror Tristan’s. Instead, he writes:

Make no deep scrutiny

Into her mutiny

Rash and undutiful:

Past all dishonor,

Death has left on her

Only the beautiful (21-26).

While Hood does ask the reader to forgive her for her crimes, he speaks of the prostitute as a rebel to society, a disgraceful and sinful person. Hood would probably argue Tristan’s point that women are not subject to a “moral law”, and in fact describes prostitution as “evil behavior” (104). He places the blame on the prostitute, not society. Yet the poem is not angry or damning; instead, it emits a sense of sympathy, or at least pity, for the prostitute’s plight. The prostitute is not a victim to society, but she is still a victim who has suffered at the hands of her own actions.

“Hints on the Modern Governess System”, an article published in Fraser’s Magazine in 1844, discusses the lifestyles of governesses of the time. The article describes education as the “work of life” which sustains “intellectual and moral growth” (568). The position of governess was a cost-effective alternative to formal education for many Victorian families; rather than send their children away to school, parents could instead hire a governess to come into their home and conduct lessons. It was a position known to women alone; education was the “holy vocation of a woman”, a trade in and of itself (568). Yet the article laments the difficulties of the life a governess. Although the job was a way for women, even those of lower classes, to emerge from the traditional domestic life and make a place for themselves in the workforce, it was no easy task. The pay was poor, and the children difficult; many young governesses were ill prepared for the “childish follies and perversities which need a mother’s instinctive love to make them tolerable” (571). Furthermore, a governess was expected to keep her reservations about the children she taught to herself. To vent her frustrations would be to betray the trust of the family she works for, as a governess was the “confidante of many family secrets” (572). Despite her involvement in family affairs, the governess was otherwise ostracized by the family from anything that wasn’t school-related, resulting in feelings of isolation and loneliness on her behalf.

Jane, the protagonist of Jane Eyre, takes up the role of governess for reasons not unlike those suggested in the Fraser’s Magazine article. After six years as a student of Lowood and two as a teacher, Jane yearns for “liberty” of the place she has spent the entirety of her adolescence (151). She becomes the governess at the Thornfield estate for a young girl named Adele. Although she takes a liking to Adele, Jane does indeed experience the loneliness known to governesses, which she calls a dreaded “stagnation” (185).

Yet Thornfield is a strange place; Mr. Rochester, Adele’s guardian, makes no claim to be her actual father, yet she lives with him at Thornfield because her own mother, Mr. Rochester’s ex-lover, abandoned her. Jane often hears a crazed laugh coming from the grounds of the estate, which are attributed to the seamstress, Grace. Jane later saves Mr. Rochester’s life from a fire in the middle of the night, which he is grateful for, and asks her not to speak of the incident to anyone. He tells Jane he knew she would “do [him] good in some way” the day he met her (244).Jane, though she takes up what is considered a lowly position in Victorian society, serves an important role at the Thornfield estate as something of a parental figure for Adele and an object of fascination for Mr. Rochester Continue reading →

On Lee Jackson’s “Victorian Dictionary” site I browsed the subcategory “Health and Beauty” of the “Women” section, where I found a number of articles ranging from topics such as self-care during pregnancy to the “Feminine Diet”. One article which particularly struck me, listed as “keeping oneself attractive”, came from an etiquette and advice manual of the time. It was written by the French Baroness Staffe and translated to English by Lady Colin Campbell in 1893. The article explains the important of the “woman’s sanctum”; that is, her dressing room. According to Baroness Staffe, a lady’s dressing room is a sacred ground for her and her alone, forbidden even to her husband. It’s where a woman “practises all kinds of magic, in order to keep herself so astonishingly young and lovely” as to “captivate, or to retain the heart of, the man she loves” (“The Lady’s Dressing Room”). In other words, it’s where a woman does her make-up and hair every morning, which are of upmost importance for Victorian women. The article shows the ridiculous standards that these women faced (some of which still stand today): Baroness Staffe’s rules dictate that a woman must look beautiful at all times, for it is “her mission to please and charm”. She even says that if a woman should feel insecure or slighted by her husband for looking at another woman, it’s her own fault for not putting more effort into her hair that day or for wearing her corset. Yet men should believe that women are always pretty and sweet-smelling because they are “so adorned by Nature”, not because they are obliged to spend hours on their appearance every morning. The Baroness dismisses women who have a “total disregard of appearances”, citing this as the reason for tumultuous marriages (“The Lady’s Dressing Room”). She expects women to not only abide by her standards but find joy and pleasure in doing so.

Work Cited

Staffe. “The Lady’s Dressing Room”. Trans. Colin Campbell. Cassel & Company Limited, 1893. Web. February 14, 2016.

http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications/ladys-preface.htm#remaining attractive

My name is Ally Cirruzzo, I’m a senior graduating in May, majoring in English with a minor in Creative Writing and Art Studio. My favorite author (and poet) as of late is Sylvia Plath, but JK Rowling will always hold a special place in my heart.

James Fordyce opens one of his sermons to young women with a list of the ways in which a girl can disappoint her parents. The list includes being “unruly, foolish, wanton”, or to “throw herself away on a man unruly of her” (395). He notes that the honor of a family lies heavily on its daughters, less so than its sons. Fordyce goes on to describe a woman’s ability to woo men, adding that there are “few young women who do not appear agreeable in the eyes of some men” (396). He describes women as generally alluring, attractive creatures with as significant hold over men.

Mrs. Bennet, the gossipy mother of Lizzy, the protagonist of Pride and Prejudice, might agree with Fordyce’s notion about women. She is very much concerned with marrying away her five young daughters, in particular to wealthy spouses. She would be the most proud of her daughters if they proved to be worthy potential wives to rich suitors.

Mrs. Bennet quite often makes a fool of herself in trying to incite a marriage between Mr. Bingley, a wealthy bachelor who has recently taken up in the nearby Netherfeld Park manor, and her daughter Jane. Lizzy is very much embarrassed by her mother’s antics.

When Mr. Collins, a clergyman who is slated to inherit the Bennet property, proposes to Lizzy, she turns him down, much to her mother’s dismay. Mr. Bennet, who is as unamused with his wife as Lizzy is, if not more, informs his daughter that “your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do” (142). Mrs. Bennet’s sole obsession is marrying her daughters off; she believes it is of upmost importance for her daughters to be appealing to men so that they can find a husband.