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The Epitome and Portrait of Modern Society: Ouida As Social Barometer of the Victorian Era

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The Epitome and Portrait of Modern Society: Ouida As Social Barometer of the Victorian Era University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2013 The Epitome And Portrait Of Modern Society: Ouida As Social Barometer Of The Victorian Era Lorraine Michelle Dubuisson University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Dubuisson, Lorraine Michelle, "The Epitome And Portrait Of Modern Society: Ouida As Social Barometer Of The Victorian Era" (2013). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 555. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/555 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “THE EPITOME AND PORTRAIT OF MODERN SOCIETY”: OUIDA AS SOCIAL BAROMETER OF THE VICTORIAN ERA A dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English The University of Mississippi by LORRAINE DUBUISSON May 2013 Copyright Lorraine Dubuisson 2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT The Victorian Era was one of great social flux; tremendous advances in science and technology called into question deeply held religious beliefs while the changing legal status of women threatened to undermine traditional views of gender roles. Industrialization and the driving economic force of capitalism led to rapid urbanization as well as contributing to shifting class boundaries. In addition, the purpose and responsibilities of the Artist/Poet and, indeed, of art itself were closely scrutinized and hotly contested. Most frequently, historians and scholars of literature have looked to authors such as Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Oscar Wilde, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson when charting the progression of the various social anxieties that informed the Victorian age. These, along with other authors considered part of the canon, offer valuable insight into nineteenth-century values, and their voices are those most frequently cited as representative of Victorian attitudes and concerns. However, another, and less familiar, writer offers equally important commentary on the period. Ouida was a British author well known for her best-selling sensation novels of the 1860s and her novels of society written in the following decades. She published prolifically, sometimes releasing more than one novel in a single year. Ouida was widely read in her time, and though her work is not currently studied by a significant portion of the academy, her voice was an important component of the chorus of Victorian authors writing about gender, class, scientific development and the relevance of art and the artist. As a result, Ouida offers a vital perspective on Victorian life that deserves the attention and scholarship afforded to canonized writers of this period. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I express my deepest appreciation for my husband, Josh Hill, and my daughter, Emma Hill, whose support made the completion of this degree possible. I would also like to thank my committee—Dr. Natalie Schroeder, Dr. Ben Fisher, Dr. Colby Kullman, and Dr. Sheila Skemp— for their encouragement and professional expertise during this process. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………………ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………………..iii 1. INTRODUCTION: “THE TEMPER OF THE AGE”: VICTORIAN SOCIAL ANXIETIES..1 2. “A CURIOUS POSSIBILITY OF FIENDISH EVIL”: THE CHANGING ROLE OF WOMEN…………………………………………………………………………………………19 3. “NOUGHT ON THE EXHAUSTED SURFACE OF A DEAD EARTH”: THE EVILS OF PROGRESS……………………………………………………………………………………...84 4. “FOES OF VULGARITY”: THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE ARISTOCRACY………..109 5. “THEIR HEAVEN OF SMALL THINGS MAKES HIS HELL”: THE THREAT TO GENIUS AND ART……………………………………………………………………………145 6. CONCLUSION: “A NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERARY PHENOMENON”………..167 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………172 VITA……………………………………………………………………………………………180 iv 1. INTRODUCTION: “THE TEMPER OF THE AGE”1: VICTORIAN SOCIAL ANXIETIES The Victorian Era was one of great social flux; tremendous advances in science and technology called into question deeply held religious beliefs while the changing legal status of women threatened to undermine traditional views of gender roles. Industrialization and the driving economic force of capitalism led to rapid urbanization that “bred a sense of captivity, of helplessness, of claustrophobia” (Altick 77) as well as contributing to shifting class boundaries. In addition, the purpose and responsibilities of the Artist/Poet—he to whom Thomas Carlyle ascribes access to “the sacred mystery of the Universe” ( On Heroes 114)—and, indeed, of art itself were closely scrutinized and hotly contested. Not surprisingly, this social flux generated a curious amalgamation of fear and optimism that is broadly manifested in the literature of the period. As Richard D. Altick remarks in Victorian People and Ideas , “Victorian literature is, among other things, the record of a society seeking ways to adjust itself to conditions as revolutionary as any we face today. The Victorians found themselves living in a world whose novel demands they were wholly unprepared to meet. It was a crucial moment in modern history” (73). In the seventeenth century, James Ussher hypothesized from biblical evidence that the Earth was created by God in 4004 B.C.E. (Altick 99), a view widely held by the European intelligentsia. Advances in geological and biological sciences during the Victorian era soon cast doubt, however, on Ussher’s timeline for creation. 1 Ouida. “The Sins of Society.” Views and Opinions . London: Methuen and Company, 1896: 5. 1 The progress of geological and paleontological studies in the first half of the nineteenth century, climaxed by Alfred Wallace’s and Charles Darwin’s simultaneous announcement of the theory of biological evolution . made it evident that the “past” had to be measured not in centuries or millennia but by geological ages stretching back hundreds of thousands of years. (Altick 99) In Memoriam , written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson and perhaps the most famous poem from the nineteenth century, contains a passage in which the poet wrestles with the impact of evolution on his faith. Tennyson writes, “Are God and nature then at strife, / That nature lends such evil dreams?” ( In Memoriam 55.5-6). Tennyson’s ultimate conclusion is to reject neither science nor faith but rather to “[reaffirm] the possibility of keeping that faith . without denial or evasion of such knowledge as might seem to encourage a purely agnostic approach to the unknowable” (Buckley 85). Despite Tennyson’s reconciliation of science and faith, other Victorians remained profoundly uncomfortable with the growing tension between religion and scientific discovery in this period. As well as grappling with the compatibility of faith and science, Victorians endeavored to find universal physical laws to govern every aspect of the natural world, including all facets of human life (Houghton 33). Many of them had “faith in the existence of ultimate truths in religion and ethics, in politics, economics, and aesthetics (as well as natural sciences)” (Houghton 14) while others struggled with the disconcerting concept of relativity that emerged in an age of “competing philosophies which called all in doubt” (Houghton 12). In Sartor Resartus , for example, Carlyle avers that science cannot uncover the laws of nature because nature is unfathomable; he distrusts that those universal laws even exist to be discovered (107). Skepticism rooted in the scientific process drew many of his contemporaries to the same 2 conclusion for different reasons: “the scientific view that all things, material and human, were in constant flux, changing under the inevitable influences of many and complex factors, could make all truths seem relative only to a particular moment” (Houghton 15). This new relativity was both liberating and deeply distressing to the Victorians. Coming down firmly on the relativist side of the argument, John Stuart Mill says in On Liberty , “To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty” (253). Inextricably bound up with the Victorians’ sometimes uneasy preoccupation with scientific advancement is the notion of progress, a general belief in the “natural and organic development” (Houghton 29) of society towards some better state. Although the industrialization of this period ushered in many helpful innovations such as the steam engine, that same industrialization was also responsible for increased urbanization, environmental devastation, and appalling labor conditions that threatened to undermine the notion of progress in any positive sense. In John Ruskin’s hands, the black smoke that billowed from steam engines becomes a metaphor for what Altick calls “the whole state of modern man, poisoned, choked, and blackened as he was, body and soul, by the industrial system” (39). In response to the plethora of social ills surrounding the growth of industry, many Victorian novelists chose to focus on the plight of a labor force for whom working conditions deteriorated as industrialization advanced. Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South , Charles Dickens’s Hard Times , and Benjamin Disraeli’s Sybil are but a few of the novels that tackle this theme. Capitalism, the driving force behind industrialization, contributed
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