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The Victorian Governess As Spectacle of Pain

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The Victorian Governess As Spectacle of Pain University of Vermont ScholarWorks @ UVM Graduate College Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses 2014 The icV torian Governess as Spectacle of Pain: A Cultural History of the British Governess as Withered Invalid, Bloody Victim and Sadistic Birching Madam, From 1840 to 1920 Ruby Ray Daily University of Vermont Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, History Commons, and the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Daily, Ruby Ray, "The ictV orian Governess as Spectacle of Pain: A Cultural History of the British Governess as Withered Invalid, Bloody Victim and Sadistic Birching Madam, From 1840 to 1920" (2014). Graduate College Dissertations and Theses. 291. https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis/291 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks @ UVM. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate College Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ UVM. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE VICTORIAN GOVERNESS AS SPECTACLE OF PAIN: A CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE BRITISH GOVERNESS AS WITHERED INVALID, BLOODY VICTIM AND SADISTIC BIRCHING MADAM, FROM 1840 TO 1920 A Thesis Presented by Ruby Ray Daily to The Faculty of the Graduate College of The University of Vermont In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Specializing in History October, 2014 Accepted by the Faculty of the Graduate College, The University of Vermont, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, specializing in History. Thesis Examination Committee: ____________________________________ Advisor Paul Deslandes, Ph.D ____________________________________ Abigail McGowan, Ph.D. ____________________________________ Chairperson Sarah Alexander, Ph.D. ____________________________________ Dean, Graduate College Cynthia Forehand, Ph.D. July 31st, 2014 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the celebrity of governesses in British culture during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Victorian governess-mania was as pervasive as it was inexplicable, governesses comprising only a tiny fraction of the population and having little or no ostensible effect on the social, political, or economic landscape. Nevertheless, governesses were omnipresent in Victorian media, from novels and etiquette manuals to paintings, cartoons and pornography. Historians and literary critics have long conjectured about the root cause of popular fixation on the governess, and many have theorized that their cultural resonance owed to the host of contradictions and social conundrums they embodied, from being a ‘lady’ who worked, to being comparable to that bugbear of Victorian society, the prostitute. However, while previous scholarship has maintained that governess-mania was produced by their peculiarity as social or economic actors, I intend to demonstrate that this nonconformity was extrapolated in visual and literary depictions to signify a more prurient deviance, specifically a fixation on human suffering. This analysis reveals that whether depicted in mainstream press or in nefarious erotica, popular interest in governesses was contoured by a fixation on their perceived relationship to corporal violence. Over the course of the nineteenth century governesses were increasingly portrayed as the victims of a huge range of internal and external threats, such as disease, sterility, assault, murder, rape, and even urban accidents like train crashes or gas leaks. Cast as flagellant birching madams in pornographic fantasy, governesses were also construed as deriving erotic authority through the infliction of pain on others. From imagining the governess as a pitiful victim of brutality or conversely eroticizing her as the stewardess of sadomasochism, all of these constructs rely on the dynamics of violation, on bodies that experience misfortune and bodies that mete that it out. Utilizing a wide array of sources and methodological approaches, I will demonstrate that the Victorian governess was not only popularly correlated with social or sexual irregularity, but that these themes were ultimately circumscribed by a larger preoccupation with the governess as an icon of violence and pain. DEDICATION For my very beloved Grandmother and also for Doug—the former loves me unconditionally and the latter puts up with all of the weird books around the house. I don’t know what I would do without their support. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION .................................................................................................................... ii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... iv INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 The History and Historiographies of the Victorian Governess ....................................... 4 CHAPTER 1: A ‘MELANCHOLY INTEREST’ IN GOVERNESS DECLINE ............. 18 Withering Beauty and Sexual Deterioration ................................................................. 23 Employer Cruelty, Governess’s Emotional Distress and Illness ................................... 31 “A Helpless Governess, Miss Renault”......................................................................... 44 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 53 CHAPTER 2: THE GOVERNESS AS BLOODY SPECTACLE .................................... 55 Historiographies of Violence and Criminality in Victorian England: Where the Governess Fits in ........................................................................................................... 61 Male Predators and ‘Fallen’ Governesses: Suicide, Infanticide and Sexual Violence . 68 Women Hurting Women: Interpersonal Violence between Governesses and Female Employers and Students ................................................................................................ 79 Modern Dangers and Fatal Accidents ........................................................................... 89 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 96 CHAPTER 3: ‘SPARE THE ROD AND SPOIL THE CHILD’—THE GOVERNESS AS SADIST............................................................................................................................. 98 Corporal Punishment, Flagellation and the Governess in British Society .................. 103 The Beautiful and Genteel Lady Authoritarian ........................................................... 114 The Ritualization of Pain............................................................................................. 124 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 133 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 134 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 139 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 ‘Considerate—Very!’ Charles Keene, Punch , 22 (October 22, 1864) Master George. “Cross, Disagreeable old thing, I call her! Miss Caroline. “Oh, Gregory! But we ought to give way to her; recollect, dear, she’s a very awkward age!”….26 Figure 2 The Boy’s Comic Journal (1894)……………………………………………...27 Figure 3 ‘Simple Addition’ Punch (May 20, 1871) New Governess. “Why are you staring so intently, Blanche, dear?” Blanche. “I was trying to count the freckles on your face, Miss Sandpole, but I can’t!”………...………………………………..28 Figure 4 ‘Removal of Ancient Landmarks’ Punch (June 25, 1881)…………………….31 Figure 5 ‘Vicarious Generosity’ Punch (December 20th , 1879)………………………...34 Figure 6 ‘No Sinecure’ Punch (July 20, 1878) Proud Mother (to the new Governess). “And here is a pencil, Miss Green, and a note-book in which I wish you to write down all the clever and remarkable things the dear children may say during your walk……………………………………………………………………………....36 Figure 7 ‘The Governess’ by Richard Redgrave (1844)………………………………...37 Figure 8 ‘The New Governess’ by Thomas Ballard (1877)…………………………….38 Figure 9 ‘A Young Turk’ Punch (July 17, 1880)……………………………………….39 Figure 10 “She Only said, ‘My Life is Dreary.’” Portraits of the People , 1840………...39 Figure 11 ‘WANTED, A GOVERNESS’ The Leisure Hour (December 15 th , 1853)….43 Figure 12 ‘A Helpless Governess, Miss Renault. (Circa 1890)…………………………52 Figure 13 Frontispiece to ‘The Full and Early History of Harriet Lane, Wainwright’s Victim,’ Published by T. Taylor in London (date unknown). This booklet was probably published in late 1875 or early 1876, since Wainwright is depicted as at his hanging, and he was hung in December of 1875…………………………….65 Figure 14 Frontispiece depicting the flagellant-governess character Miss Mary Wilson. Likely first published in an early nineteenth-century edition of The Exhibition of Female Flagellants , and reused by pornographic publishers in the 1860s and 1880s for books like The Romance of Chastisement ……………...……………116 Figure 15 Illustration from Verbena House , likely published by William Lazenby (circa 1882)……………………………………………………………………………117 Figure 16 Another illustration from a French edition of Verbena House entitled Les
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