Gothic Judgment of Women

               Over the course of the semester I have become acquainted with Romanticism and the major themes that run throughout Romantic works. There are many obvious and large themes present, such as the supernatural, death, or nature. After reviewing all of the assigned texts for the semester, as well as refreshing my memory to the blog, I realized a less obvious theme emerged in several of the texts. The role of women during this time as well as how they were perceived is shown in many of the assigned readings. Upon closer examination, I saw that this concept could be narrowed down even further to the judgment of women.  

Women in the Romantic Period             

Women were treated as second class citizens during this time. As the presentation on “Women and the Law, Inequality, Imprisonment, and Madness” illustrates, men were thought to be much stronger individuals than women as a whole. Women were considered weak, submissive, and unequal to men. If a woman was strong-minded, she usually faced societal difficulties. Many husbands thought of their wives as property, and treated them as if they were merely a possession. In addition, women generally did not receive the same level of education as men and had difficulties obtaining jobs of worth. Women were expected to be subservient and rely on their husbands for support.  This point is illustrated in the image below. It portrays some of the challenges a19th century British woman would face. She is concerned for the wellbeing of her young children while her husband looks down upon her as if she was not his equal.

 

      

For more information on what life was like for women in Britain during this time, visit http://www.hastingspress.co.uk/history/19/overview.htm.

Mary Wollstonecraft

The judgment of women did not only come from men during this time. Feminist women, such as Mary Wollstonecraft, judged the complacency of many women of this time. According to The History Guide, “She ridiculed prevailing notions about women as helpless, charming adornments in the household. Society had bred ‘gentle domestic brutes.’ ‘Educated in slavish dependence and enervated by luxury and sloth,’ women were too often nauseatingly sentimental and foolish.” As BG12 said, Mary Wollstonecraft was against sentimentalism and believed that husbands and wives should be equal in education and rationale. Mary Wollstonecraft believed that women had the power to become strong and independent. She believed complacency led to weak minded women and that education was essential to creating empowered women. Her judgment of the complacency of female society is shown in Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman. The setting has to be an insane asylum to allow free speech between the two women, Maria and Jemima. Women are taught from a young age to obey their husbands and follow the societal rules. After reading WorldWarZDude’s post on social class in “Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman”, I realized that it is only after Maria is placed in an insane asylum by her cruel husband that she allows herself to diverge from what is considered normal and what her husband would allow. This is crucial because it shows Mary Wollstonecraft uses an insane asylum as the setting to portray the insanity of complacent women. She acknowledges that society makes it hard, but stresses the necessity of education to eliminate this complacency that makes weak women.

Seductresses

               Another major judgment I have seen of women throughout Romantic works is the notion that non-complacent, strong women must in fact be evil seductresses who cause harm to men. This concept surfaces in two of John Keats’ works, “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” and “Lamia”. “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”, the knight meets a lady, a faery’s child, in the woods who is beautiful and wild. She claims to love him and then he falls asleep. He dreams of men who appear to be her dead past victims warning him and wakes up scared and sad. This poem portrays the wild woman as a potential seductress who must be of supernatural (faery) blood. This same concept appears in “Lamia”. Lamia is thought to be a horrific creature that seduces men and kills them. She is portrayed to be evil, even though the poem allows you to see there are not necessarily distinct lines between evil and good. As deadlyxpromise shows in his post on Lamia, the poem uses imagery to convey she is supernatural, such as the use of bright colors and animal prints. Even with all of these beautiful, unnatural descriptions, her words disguise exactly how supernatural she is. However, in the story she falls in love and just wants to be happy. She is described as “some penanced lady elf, some demon’s mistress, or the demon’s self”, which shows how unlikely her hopes of happiness are after being described in such horrible terms. Both of the poems show the main female character as a supernatural being. The reader is led to believe they are evil by claiming they killed men in the past. However, in both stories the women appear to simply be looking for love. BIGred13 agreed with this concept, as well, saying that the lady seemed to be caring and loving to the knight. The two images below convey the perception of both women.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

 

Lamia

 

They are both depicted in a way that would suggest seduction. The two women are shown surrounded by nature, indicating they could be faery as well. They both appear to be strong, non-complacent women. In return, they are portrayed in a negative light. These examples help to show that women who diverged from the typical path were looked down upon by typical society. They were judged for their strength and courage and portrayed negatively for having that courage.

The Damsel in Distress

               The last, and probably most extensively used judgment of women in the Romantic period, is the notion that women are always in need of assistance. The “damsel in distress” has been used in stories for thousands of years. With the emergence of the gothic, and the type of stories associated with it, the damsel in distress reemerged. Many gothic works, especially gothic novels, have a female character in need of assistance. This can be seen in Horace Walpole’s, “Castle of Otranto”. As both Rose Thassally and ANA point out in posts on this novel, the role of women is subservience and helplessness. Isabella is helpless to stop Manfred if he finds her and enlists the help of several different male characters to help her escape.  Matilda is helpless to stop her father and control her fate. Hippolita is the definition of subservient. The women feel they cannot control their fates and need a hero to protect them or resolve an issue for them. This can be seen in Percy Shelley’s “The Cenci” as well. Beatrice has had horrendous acts done to her by her father and deserves justice. However, she enlists servants to kill her father for her, resulting in everyone’s eventual death. Percy Shelley notes that the audience’s desire to relate to her is what will keep her story tragic and alive forever. Gothic writers, particularly male writers, portrayed women as helpless and reliant on men because that’s how women were perceived during this time. The emergence of female gothic writers, such as Ann Radcliffe, brought heroines into the stories also. This allowed for the preconceived judgment that women are helpless to begin to dissipate. According to Ellen Moers of Brooklyn College, “Heroinism takes many forms, such as the intellectual or thinking heroine, the passionate or woman-in-love heroine, and the traveling heroine. Radcliffe's heroines fall into the category of the traveling heroine, ‘who moves, who acts, who copes with vicissitude and adventure.’” At the end of the novel, Adeline uses her new found influence to save Theodore’s life. While “heroes” are still predominant in this story, the female gets a chance to be strong and save someone. She is not weak or subservient at the end of the novel. She is a strong, independent woman. For more information on Ann Radcliffe’s use of literary elements, including heroinism, go to http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_18c/radcliffe/index.html.

Gothic Judgments of Women

               The judgment of women during the Romantic period is evident in many gothic novels, poems, plays, and short stories. Feminists judged complacent women on their lack of strength and will. Society in general judged strong and determined women as seductresses or evil-doers. With the notion that women should be complacent, society judged women as a gender as helpless and in need of assistance. Women have come incredibly far since this time. Women are expected to be strong and independent, and have access to the same education as men. It is important to look at the past judgments to be thankful for what we now have.

 

Work’s Cited

"Ann Radcliffe." 18th Century English Novel. Brooklyn College, 9 May 2003. Web. 09 May

2013.

Cowper, Frank C. La Belle Dame Sans Merci. 1926. Web.

"Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759-1797." The History Guide. 3 Aug. 2009. Web. 09 May 2013.

Waterhouse, John W. Lamia. 1909. Web.

Wojtczak, Helena. "Women’s Status in Mid 19^th-Century England: A Brief Overview” English

Women's History. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 May 2013.

P. Shelley's Preface

I found Percy Shelley’s preface to The Cenci to be extremely interesting. He unfolds to the reader exactly why and how he chose to turn this true story into a drama. I particularly noted his own feelings about Beatrice Cenci. He seemed drawn to her story from the beginning, noting he himself had a copy of her portrait that he kept with him. What is most interesting is that he tells the audience he does not agree with her actions, saying that revenge and retaliation are “pernicious mistakes”. However, he notes the necessity of her to make the story tragic. He notes that if people seek justification for an action, there probably is not in fact any justification to be had. It is people’s desire to find justification in her acts that allows the story hundreds of years later to entrance audiences. While the preface talks about other things like Catholicism, imagery, and poetry, I found the part about Beatrice to be of the most importance. Reading this helped me frame my mind to recognize Beatrice and her actions and justifications for those actions are the heart of the story.

(Presentation notes) Women and the Law; Addressing Inequality, Imprisonment and Madness

Women were viewed by society to be the weaker sex, and faced unequal treatment regarding rights by law, job opportunities, and education. Men had the ability to sue their wives for adultery, gain full custody of children in the case of divorce, as well as a full range of educational and legal resources at their disposal. Women on the other hand were unable to sue their husbands (unless attempting to prove physical danger - which was RARELY proven), were seen as the property of their husbands (along with any assets they owned prior), and faced a lack of educational resources and occupational options.

Mary Wollstonecraft is seen by many critics to be the ‘Mother of Feminism’, drawing from many of her own life experiences to form the basis of many of her feminist and ‘radical’ writings. Mary advocated for the rigorous education of young girls into their adulthood, something that was lacking in her time. She also rejected the idea that women were inherently weaker or less capable than men, and strongly fought against the subjugation of women, both in marriage and society. Coming from a family composed of a violent father and a submissive mother, she strove to avoid facing the same ills, but like many others before her- also faced her own demons when it came to her personal life. Pregnant and unmarried (Mary Shelley is the wonderful result of this pregnancy) Mary Wollstonecraft surrounded herself with friends who strongly supported her publications as a means of supporting herself independently, and only later met someone with whom she found herself an equal. 

“The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria”- the asylum setting parallels the lack of physical and mental freedoms that women experienced in society (i.e. the protagonist is imprisoned by her husband unjustly)

“Was not the world a vast prison, and women born slaves?” ( pg. 167)

Mary felt that by denying women serious, rational pursuits, society relegated them to a lifetime of vanity and weakness/inequality. She uses fiction to address feminist ideas of education and morality, medical theories of the mind, and gender differences in a way that is approachable and instructive to the women readership. This novel also helped to pioneer the celebration of female sexuality and cross-class identification between women. 

The heroine’s inability to relinquish her romantic fantasies of life and character reveals women’s collusion in their oppression through false and damaging ‘sentimentalism’. The novel criticizes the patriarchal institution of marriage and the laws that protect it by aligning women with the insane: a minority to be championed in Romantic society. 

This representation reflects a Societal view rather than an Individual view; addressed the wrongs done to women (repression), and by women (sentimentalism).

'Mary Wollstonecraft' by John Opie

 'A Rake's Progress' by William Hogarth (Bedlam depiction)

 'Mary Wollstonecraft' by John Opie

'The Nightmare' by Henry Fuseli

WORKS CITED:

Black, Joseph, ed. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature- The Age of Romanticism. 2nd ed. Vol. 4. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Pr, 2010. Print.

Blake, William. "Drawings for Mary Wollstonecraft's "Original Stories from Real Life"" (c. 1791): Electronic Edition. Library of Congress, n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2013.

"Mary Wollstonecraft." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 04 July 2013. Web. 04 Apr. 2013.

Wollstonecraft, Mary. Mary, A Fiction and The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria. Ed. Michelle Faubert. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Pr, 2012. Print.

Maria and freedom among society

One of the certain themes presented in Maria is it emphasizes of the human mind free from the societal expectations. The story presents a scenario, which may not be so different from our own, which people live by an unwritten code of how people should behave, in this case the women. The societal expectations presented in the story effect how the people interact with each other and what they think is appropriate. With the inability for women to progress among society and expected to behave a certain way gave more of an oppressive or even a slave mentality. Therefore, when the main character is inside the asylum all of the rules of society no longer apply of how the deemed insane interact with each other. Already deemed unfit to live among the people, the characters reveal the truth about the world they live, in which the audience begins to understand the environments power to gives to the characters a sense of freedom. In conclusion the truth revealed by the characters enables not only the audience to sympathize with the main character, but opens to the truth of what is really happening in the world they live in. In other words, the truth was revealed in literature, not so much in pamphlets or a newspaper. 

Social Classes in Maria

I think the bond between Maria and Jemima is an important notion in this novel. Obviously their social classes are much different. This was written in a time when social class was much more important than it is today. Maria is of more elevated rank than Jemima, and yet the two form a strong friendship based on their mutual hardships. Both women have endured horrendous events in their lives, which allows them to connect in a way they normally would not be able to because of their difference in social classes. Mary Wollstonecraft is credited with opening up a commonality between women of all social classes. This novel is a great example of her ability. Maria and Jemima show that no matter a woman's social standing, hardships exist. A woman of high social standing can feel the same way as a woman of low social standing.

"La Belle Dame sans Merci"

I found it interesting, and a little confusing, that "La Belle Dame sans Merci" means "The Beautiful Lady without Pity" since in stanzas 5, 7 and 9 she appeared to be sweet, caring, and nurturing to the knight; almost as if she was taking care of him by providing him with food, a sense of divine purity, love and company.

Then once she puts the knight to sleep, he has this very distressing dream of death befalling kings, princes and warriors - which is why, in the last stanza, he conveys this being his reason for staying where he is. Personally, stanzas 9-12 make it seem that the knight was able to dream because of the faery-like lady - a warning in the form of his dream - so if the lady is to be without pity, why does it appear as if she is warning the knight of the death that could come? Or was she simply showing the knight the sureness of his future, and that there was no escaping it, no matter how long he stayed on that cold hill side?

To further my interest and confusion of her being known as  "The Beautiful Lady without Pity;" why is it that she was crying, and sincerely portraying the emotion of sorrow in stanza 8 if she truly has no pity? In my opinion, those with no pity would not shed a tear in such situations, or even have a remorseful thought on the matter.

Therefore It Is

I was drawn into Keat's description of the serpent-lady. I expected something grotesque, but along with the writing style, the serpent-lady was painted in such a way that I could only describe it as beautiful.

"Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr’d;	50
And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed,
Dissolv’d, or brighter shone, or interwreathed
Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries—
So rainbow-sided, touch’d with miseries,"

The similes simply flow from one to another using words that exhibit color, "eyes like a peacock...full of silver moons...dissolv'd, or brighter shone..." This all drew me in and enticed me even though she was but a demon.

"Her throat was serpent, but the words she spake
Came, as through bubbling honey, for Love’s sake,	65
And thus; while Hermes on his pinions lay,
Like a stoop’d falcon ere he takes his prey."

Even after he reveals her anatomy, her words that "came, as through bubbling honey" creates a film over her true identity, making her seem even more lovely than she is intended to be. Perhaps this is done in an effort to draw his own audience in to realize that even the perceived notion of something that is unpleasant could be beautiful.

Heroes and Heroins

One thing I noticed about the characters in Romance of the Forest was the use of several heroes. Pierre, Peter, and Theodore all do heroic things to save Adeline’s life. Pierre takes her in and refuses to kill her even though it will fix all his problems. Peter warns her several times of imminent danger and Theodore is her true hero and true love. While Theodore is the main hero of this novel, both Pierre and Peter played a role in saving Adeline’s life too. This novel uses several heroes in addition to Theodore to further the plot and show that Adeline’s life is worth saving. I think it is also worth mentioning that the heroin uses her influence at the end to save the hero’s life. It switches up the concept of the heroin being completely helpless and allows her to save someone’s life instead of being saved herself.

Portraying Women: Otranto vs Glenfinlas

In the tale of Glenfinlas by Sir Walter Scott, two men are seduced by a women in green who bears a striking resemblance to the mythological seductress archetype of the "otherworldly" women. This is in clear contrast to the women of The Castle of Otranto who are forced to manipulating events or quietly accepting their fate. The fact that The Lady of the Wood is in charge of her femininity, in that she is complete control of who she loves and is accountable to no one but herself for her actions. Contrasting this is Hippolita who gives up everything of herself for her husband who leaves for a younger woman. These women portray to opposite but important sides of how women were thought of by society, where as Hippolita portrays self sacrifice for the so-called good of her family the Lady of the Wood is purely unchecked desire with no thought or caring beyond what she wants.

Women and Power

As SMJ points out, in “The Castle of Otranto” women have a subservient role. Isabella, Matilda, and Hippolita endeavor at all times to do what is right by God and their male authorities. A key component of the plot is that Isabella acts in a manner that seems rebellious to Manfred by running from him. She, though, is serving a higher authority, which is Providence, and protecting her innocence.

All three women find themselves at one point torn between what the male authorities ask of them and what is right. Manfred and Frederic both have moments where their priority is to obtain a young woman, and they use their power to try to do so. It is fitting then that Theodore keeps his passion in check, and although seemingly of lowly status he treats the female characters with the most respect.

Walpole seems to be making a political statement and commenting on those in power following their misguided whims as opposed to what is right. Manfred and Frederic both act on their passions without regard for those involved. Theodore, however, can’t act on his love for Matilda and is not in the place to force her into marriage as Manfred and Frederic have the power to do with whomever they desire. Perhaps Walpole is using the female characters as a vehicle to portray the corruption caused by excessive use of power?

Small Instances of Atypical Female Behavior

I found that in "The Castle of Otranto", I was really intrigued by the characteristics of the women in the novel. Mostly uniform with the attributes of female characters displayed in literature both prior to and in the 18^th century, the women are portrayed mainly as obedient and kept individuals who lack independence in thought, choices, and identity. However, two of the female characters do display moments of uncharacteristic and surprising behavior. Firstly, there is Isabella, who despite her initial role as simply a bargaining tool, becomes the only character to attempt to control her own fate. While her hope to escape is entirely in response to the actions of Manfred, she escapes and saves herself from what would have been a future of compliance and submission. The other main example of defiance of the typical female character is Matilda, in that she releases Theodore from prison, completely and entirely knowingly defying her father. I found it very interesting to see quite strong instances of self aware and defiant behavior in two women from a time of passive, obedient, and disinteresting female literary characters.