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Biological Inheritance and the Social Order in Late-Victorian Fiction and Science" (2011)

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Biological Inheritance and the Social Order in Late-Victorian Fiction and Science Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository December 2011 Biological Inheritance and the Social Order in Late- Victorian Fiction and Science Sherrin Berezowsky The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Dr. Christopher Keep The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in English A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Sherrin Berezowsky 2011 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Berezowsky, Sherrin, "Biological Inheritance and the Social Order in Late-Victorian Fiction and Science" (2011). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 330. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/330 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. BIOLOGICAL INHERITANCE AND THE SOCIAL ORDER IN LATE-VICTORIAN FICTION AND SCIENCE (Spine title: Biological Inheritance and the Social Order) (Thesis format: Monograph) by Sherrin Elaine Berezowsky Graduate Program in English A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada © Sherrin Elaine Berezowsky 2011 THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO SCHOOL OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES CERTIFICATE OF EXAMINATION Supervisor Examiners ______________________________ ______________________________ Dr. Christopher Keep Dr. Matthew Rowlinson ______________________________ Supervisory Committee Dr. Joel Faflak ______________________________ ______________________________ Dr. Matthew Rowlinson Dr. Gillian Barker ______________________________ Dr. Daniel Novak The thesis by Sherrin Elaine Berezowsky entitled: Biological Inheritance and the Social Order in Late-Victorian Fiction and Science is accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Date__________________________ _______________________________ Chair of the Thesis Examination Board ii Abstract This dissertation investigates the heightened interest in heredity as a kind of biological inheritance that arises after the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) and how this interest intersects with concerns about class mobility and the shifting social order. Within this framework, this project considers how heredity became a means of organizing and regulating bodies in keeping with what Michel Foucault terms bio- power. It unearths the cultural work within literary and scientific writings as they respond to narratives of self-help and self-improvement by imagining heredity as a means of stabilizing the social order, and by extension the nation, at the very moment that it was undergoing significant change. In studying diverse texts, this project highlights the shared ideological concerns behind both literary and scientific narratives. This study begins by examining Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret (1861–2) for the way in which this sensation novel, published so soon after Origin reflects the tension between hereditary determination and the figure of the self-made man. The second chapter on George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda (1876) explores the limits and possibilities of biological inheritance as expressed within the confines of the realist novel. The third chapter turns to Francis Galton’s work on heredity, exploring the way in which his scientific research and program of eugenics are underscored by a desire to develop a narrative for British progress. The final chapter focuses on two eugenic romance novels—Ménie Muriel Dowie’s Gallia (1895) and Grant Allen’s A Splendid Sin (1896)—that reflect the way in which biopolitical concerns enter the domestic space by transposing biological inheritance onto the framework of financial inheritance. iii Keywords Literature; English literature; nineteenth century; Victorian; heredity; inheritance; science; class; biography; biopolitics; buildungsroman; evolution; George Eliot; Mary Elizabeth Braddon; Francis Galton; Ménie Muriel Dowie; Grant Allen; Charles Darwin; Daniel Deronda; Lady Audley’s Secret; Hereditary Genius;; Gallia; A Splendid Sin; On the Origin of Species iv Acknowledgements First, I want to thank my supervisor, Christopher Keep for seeing potential in this project and in me. His feedback frequently pushed me outside of my comfort zone, challenging me in so many ways, but I owe so much of my development as a scholar to those moments that encouraged me to stretch and grow in ways that I would not have thought possible. I also want to thank my second reader, Matthew Rowlinson, who set me back on track when I went astray with issues as large as evolutionary theory and as small as preposition choice. I would also like to thank the rest of my examiners—Gillian Barker, Joel Faflak, and Daniel Novak—for giving me a new perspective on this work and for the insights they provided on how it might be further developed in the future. I want to thank Michelle Elleray for introducing me to Galton and planting the seeds of what would become this dissertation. I also wish to thank Teresa Zackodnik whose off- hand comment to an undergraduate about her work practices have served as a model for my own and have undoubtedly contributed to the project's speedy completion. Thank you to everyone who has, at any point in my academic career, encouraged me and written letters for me: Bryce Traister, Pablo Ramirez, Allan Filewod, Heather Zwicker, Garret Epp, and the late Bruce Stovel. My thanks also go out to Leanne Trask and Viv Foglton, for making everything run smoothly and for their unending patience in dealing with lost, confused, and anxious graduate students. I appreciate all my friends and colleagues who have supported me along this journey and have generally made it far more pleasant by their very presence: Mandy Penney, Nadine Fladd, Sarah Pesce, Rebecca Campbell, Stephanie Oliver, Elan Paulson, David Hickey, and David Drysdale. I am immensely grateful for Jeff King and Shalon Noble who have walked alongside me. Our meetings made an unspeakable difference and often came at just the moment when I most needed to remember that I was not alone in this. And thank you, Regina Yung Lee, (I think) for getting the ball rolling. I am thankful for the support of my parents from whom I inherited my love of learning. I wish to thank my mother, Janet Berezowsky Hay who offered wise counsel when times got tough. And, of course, I must thank my father, Walter Berezowsky, who both taught me to read (under much duress) and encouraged me to become a doctor (even if I did turn out to be a different kind of doctor than him). I am unendingly grateful for the love and support of my husband, Patrick Hughes. You have taught me so much about love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and understanding. My life would be so much the poorer without you in it. I am thankful for all the sacrifices you have made and all the hard work that you have done that made it possible for me to see this through. Though I am the scholar and writer, you have always far outstripped me in your written expressions of love. I know I can't do justice to all you are and all you do in these few sentences, and I look forward to continuing to spend my life expressing my love and thanks. Above all, I am thankful for my greatest inheritance and the one from whom it comes. v Table of Contents Page Certificate of Examination ii Abstract & Keywords iii Acknowledgements v Table of Contents vi Introduction 1 The Evolution of the Biological Inheritance Narrative Chapter 1 50 Lady Audley’s Secret and the Menaces of Heredity Chapter 2 92 Invisible History and Inherited Identity in Daniel Deronda Chapter 3 135 The Literary Inheritance of Francis Galton: From Statistical Criticism to Eugenic Utopia Chapter 4 178 The ‘Birthright of Being Well-born’: Biological Inheritance at the Fin de Siècle Conclusion 225 Bibliography 233 Curriculum Vitae 249 vi 1 Introduction The Evolution of the Biological Inheritance Narrative Though a legal mechanism, inheritance looks to natural laws to support its authority to govern the way in which property is transferred from one generation to another. Legal inheritance in Victorian England was governed primarily by common law, and as such, it emerged relatively organically, revealing roots in the intersection of social custom and natural lineage. This melding of natural laws and social constructions underlies William Blackstone’s concept of the common law in his definitive guide, Commentaries on the Law of England (1765–69) which envisions the common law, as William L. Miller puts it, as “men’s approximation of the laws of nature,” “subject to incremental efforts by jurists to move nearer the ideal” (577). This perspective on the law would have been in keeping with the general movement from the eighteenth century onward (evidenced in Adam Smith’s vision of the Invisible Hand and Darwin’s explanation of the laws that govern evolution) to understand the world—including human society—as operating according to the principles of nature. This vision of the common law strengthened custom as the laws of the country became rooted in some greater, if somewhat opaque, natural law. Yet while Blackstone’s general approach to the common law might seek to find its roots in natural laws, this tendency surprisingly does not hold true when it comes to his understanding of inheritance: The right of inheritance, or descent to the children and relations of the deceased, seems to have been allowed much earlier than the right of devising by testament. We are apt to conceive at first view that it has nature on its side; yet we often mistake for nature what we find established by long and inveterate custom.
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