Grant Allen Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen • B
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Grant Allen Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen • b. Feb. 1848, Alwington, near Kingston, Ontario • d. October 1899, • Father, Irish church minister • Mother, Charlotte Catherine Grant, from Longueuil family – in Canada since 1746 • Allen was tutored by father; left free to explore the vicinity of the St. Lawrence • Sickly child • Moved to New Haven, Connecticut in 1861 • Instructed by Yale tutor • 1862 – sent to England – King Edward’s School • 1867 – Oxford; Merton College Scholar – student of Classics • Awarded B.A. in 1871 • First publication: “Two Portraits” 1869 • Tutored at Oxford and taught at Brighton College, Cheltenham College and Reading Grammar School • First wife was an invalid, who soon died 1 • 1873 – married Ellen Jerrard • Taught in Jamaica 1873-76 as chair of Mental and Moral Philosophy at an experimental school for black students • College failed and Allen returned to England • Had a son 1878 • Attempted to make a living from writing • Typically spent winters abroad due to respiratory problems • Supported Irish Home Rule, the Fabians, women’s rights and was an atheist • Died of complications of malaria, contracted in Venice in 1899 • Prolific writer • Affected by social currents of biology, socialism, emancipation, • Published 30+ novels, short stories, a volume of poetry, longer fiction, daily articles for the Daily News of London, and over 30 non-fiction books. Topics included Darwin, Spencer, anthropology, botany, socialism, the Woman Question, travel writing, and numerous scientific essays • Considered fiction a ‘default’- first love was philosophy and science • Wrote fiction under a pseudonym: J. Arbuthnot Wilson • Found his science fiction and ‘ghost’ stories paid bills so he could devote himself more fully to his non-fiction interests 2 The Woman Who Did • Pub. 1895 • Written in Perugia, Italy in 1893 • Allen feared it wouldn’t be published; bequeathed manuscript to Bodleian Library • Novel was bestseller; twenty editions in the first year • Banned in Hartford, Connecticut • Allowed him to work on his study of taboo in modern civilization: The British Barbarians • Representative of New Woman Literature and changes of fin de siècle • Exposed the double standard of Victorian society • Contemporary reception is mixed Victorian Gender Roles • Separate spheres of public and domestic space • Men deemed biologically suited for intellectual affairs, politics • Women thought to be lower on evolutionary scale since controlled by womb • Women handled the home, children, domestic financial arrangements • Men governed, women obeyed • Most significant female duty was child bearing and sacrifice • Moral conscience of family, restored purity to husband when he returned from degenerate, public space • Women maintained the culture of the race • The Angel in the House 3 The Angel in the House “…Man must be pleased; but him to please Is woman's pleasure; down the gulf Of his condoled necessities She casts her best, she flings herself. How often flings for nought, and yokes Her heart to an icicle or whim, Whose each impatient word provokes Another, not from her, but him; While she, too gentle even to force His penitence by kind replies, Waits by, expecting his remorse, With pardon in her pitying eyes; And if he once, by shame oppress'd, A comfortable word confers, She leans and weeps against his breast, And seems to think the sin was hers; Or any eye to see her charms, At any time, she's still his wife, Dearly devoted to his arms; She loves with love that cannot tire; And when, ah woe, she loves alone, Through passionate duty love springs higher, As grass grows taller round a stone. “ Coventry Patmore - 1854 Victorian Dress for Women 4 Socio-cultural Environment • 1859 – Contagious Diseases Act – Acceptable for single or married middle class and upper class men to visit prostitutes – 422 cases of venereal disease/1000 men in Army. Act made it legal to force women believed to be prostitutes to have a medical examination for VD. – If women found to be infected, they were hospitalized for 3 months – Meanwhile, men continued to infect other women (NB – syphilis was not curable until the 1940s when antibiotics were invented.) – Act repealed in 1886 • 1882 – Married Women’s Property Act – married women were given property rights for the first time • 1891 – Act passed that denied men conjugal rights to wives’ bodies without wives’ consent • 1893 – Legitimation League – demanded equal rights for illegitimate children • 1895 – Edith lanchester committed to an asylum by her father for living with her lover without marriage; friend got her out. The diagnosis was ‘ínsanityresulting from ‘over- education’” (Heilmann) • 1897 – National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies demanded the vote 5 • 1891 census: 2.5 x 10 6 women and 1.6x106 men; women who didn’t marry were forced to find employment/education or resort to prostitution • Commentary of the time suggested that they migrate to the colonies for the eligible bachelors believed to be in excess • Previously women’s work largely low-paid factory jobs and domestics, most professions closed to women, so forced to marry • fin de siècle – women’s employment roles shifted; women were office staff (typewriter invented), store clerks (glass windows), nurses, teachers and some jobs previously reserved for men • 1897 – 9 women’s colleges in London – fear that education would undermine reproductive capacities of women – use up their reproductive energy • Women could study at the women’s equivalent of Oxford or Cambridge (ie. Sommerville, Newnham or Girton College) but were not allowed to take a degree until 1948 6 Marriage in the fin de siècle • Anxiety that lack of marriage would contribute to downfall of society, lack of children, dwindling of British Empire • Debates in periodicals: ‘Does marriage hinder a woman’s self-development?’ • Marriage seen a failure because – Men didn’t take it seriously enough – syphilis was rampant – Marriage seen to enslave women, form of legalised prostitution • Mona Caird’s article “Marriage” in Westminster Review, 1888 • Daily Telegraph newspaper responded with a column ‘Is Marriage a Failure?’ • generated 27,000 letters • Caird’s argument was that wife’s role was demeaning (housekeeper, nurse, governess, property): “In most cases, the chain of marriage chafes the flesh, if it does not make a serious wound....” (197). • Ideal marriage was “free” – legal bonds not necessary in the presence of love, trust and friendship, a woman’s economic independence, right to her own body 7 The New Woman • ‘Woman Question’ prevalent debate in periodicals, newspapers • Term originated from essay by Sarah Grande, “The New Aspect of the Woman Question” in 1894 • Used phrase ‘the new woman’ • Within 2 months, the phrase was capitalized and in print everywhere • Woman Question debated: – Women and the law – The nature of marriage – Women’s role within the family – Prostitution – Nature of female sexuality 8 What is the New Woman? The New Woman • Well-educated • Articulate • Desires economic independence • Marriage no longer sole objective • Speak of sexual matters • may be sexually active outside marriage or abstain from marriage or sex for political reasons • Went to Girton college, hence a ‘Girton Girl’ • Rode a bicycle • ‘Rational dress’ 9 • Bicycles provided opportunities for freedom of movement • Demanded more flexible clothing • Provided opportunities for unchaperoned activities 10 • Travelled unescorted • Smoked in public • drank • Rejected separate spheres • Seen as both decadent and progressive • Male dandy (Oscar Wilde trial) and New Woman were seen as threat to existing gender roles and maintenance of Victorian society – effeminate man and masculine woman • Woman who refused traditional role was seen as unsexed, unruly, threat to family, Punch, 27 April 1895 – Oscar Wilde trials “When Adam delved and Eve span No one need ask which was the man Bicycling, footballing, scare human, All wonder now, ‘which is the woman?’ But a new fear my bosom vexes; Tomorrow there may be no sexes! Unless, as end to all the pother, Each one in fact become the other.” Angry Old Buffer 11 Depictions of New Woman • Severely dressed: man’s tie, knickerbockers • Masculinized, muscular • Long stride • Overly educated • Athletic 12 • Allen’s essays: • “Plain Words on the Woman Question” (1889 – Fortnightly Review) • “The Girl of the Future” (1890 Universal Review) • Believed women should marry and have at least 4 children to perpetuate the race • Also believed in emancipation, but it couldn’t interfere with female’s ultimate objective which is reproduction • Sign of civilization that men can provide for women during women’s childbearing years • “A woman ought to be ashamed to say she has no desire to become a wife and mother” (Plain Words 214) • Education should train women how to “suckle strong and intelligent children, and to order well a wholesome, beautiful, reasonable household….” (215). • “For being a man, I, of course, take it for granted that the first business of a girl is to be pretty” (216). • Yet, he also wrote: • “The position of women was not a position which could bear the test of nineteenth-century scrutiny. Their education was inadequate; their social status was humiliating; their political power was mil; their practical and personal grievances were innumerable: above all, their relations to the family – to their husbands, their children, their friends, their property – was simply insupportable” (217). 13 • “Make your men virile: make your women womanly. Don’t cramp their intelligence: don’t compress their waists: don’t turn them into dolls or dancing girls: but freely and equally develop their feminine idiosyncrasy, physical, moral, intellectual. Let them be healthy in mind: if possible (but here I know even the most advanced among them will object) try to preserve them from the tyranny of their own chosen goddess and model, Mrs. Grundy. In one word, emancipate woman (if woman will let you, which is more than doubtful) but leave her woman still, not a dulled and spiritless epicene [androgynous] automaton” (Plain Words 218).