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Construction of the Fallen Woman in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century English Novels

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Construction of the Fallen Woman in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century English Novels ABSTRACT SAVING ADAM, SAVING EVE: CONSTRUCTION OF THE FALLEN WOMAN IN EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH NOVELS Coventry Patmore’s idyllic ode to his wife, “The Angel in the House,” came to epitomize the notions of the Victorian woman of perfection. In the poem, Patmore details the selfless dedication of his wife to their children, her unadulterated commitment to him, and her unquestioning subordination to his authority, all attributes that would go on to define the Victorian feminine ideal. The term “angel in the house” soon would be quoted infinitely and this portrait of womanly perfection helped to solidify the societal expectation of the Victorian female. This thesis explores the antithesis of the angel in the house—perhaps we can call her the demon in the street—the fallen woman. In the Victorian Era the near obsession with the fallen woman in fiction becomes dominant in Victorian literature and social ideology. Threads of the portrait of the fallen woman begin being woven into a re-imagining of the Miltonic fall in the eighteenth century, and if we track the evolution of the fallen woman in the eighteenth and nineteenth century English novel, an interesting pattern emerges: Male authors who engage the fallen woman trope perpetuate Eve’s displacement from Eden as punishment for her sins against her husband and Father, casting her off onto a new society. The female authors of these centuries, on the other hand, revise the Miltonic tradition and create an ending in which the woman who commits the ultimate sin against the patriarchy, fallenness, is not displaced but able to find recovery in all-female societies within her homeland. Kelly Marie Clifton May 2013 SAVING ADAM, SAVING EVE: CONSTRUCTION OF THE FALLEN WOMAN IN EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH NOVELS by Kelly Marie Clifton A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English in the College of Arts and Humanities California State University, Fresno May 2013 APPROVED For the Department of English: We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student's graduate degree program for the awarding of the master's degree. Kelly Marie Clifton Thesis Author Ruth Jenkins (Chair) English Laurel Hendrix English John Beynon English For the University Graduate Committee: Dean, Division of Graduate Studies AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION OF MASTER’S THESIS X I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of authorship. Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be obtained from me. Signature of thesis author: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you, first and foremost, to Dr. Ruth Y. Jenkins. It was in your classroom that I discovered the fallen woman, and discovered myself as well. I can’t begin to tell you what your guidance and support has meant to me. To Dr. John Beynon, without the inspiration from your classes, this project would be sorely reduced by half. To Dr. Laurel Hendrix, some of the fondest memories I have of my academic career are in your classroom. To the three of you, collectively: your passion for your subjects and compassion for your students make you not only wonderful professors, but wonderful people. I am so proud to have learned from you. Thank you to the friends and family I have neglected, or complained to, or snapped at while on the road to completing this project. This journey could not, would not, have been completed without your love for and belief in me. To the matriarchs in my life, my Mom and Grandma: I am so thankful to have had such amazing female role models. Your generosity and love knows no bounds, and I can only hope to follow the example that you both have set. To my Dad who has always supplied a sea of books, knowledge, and conversation. Your love of learning fostered the same in me. To my brother who has been my confidant, commiserator, and comic relief all of my life: I can’t imagine who I would be without you. You are the best and the brightest. To the women in my life, my own “sisters”: we have laughed and cried together, fallen and been redeemed together—I suspect the reason I felt drawn to studying redemptive sisterhoods in the first place was because I had one of my own. v v Finally, to my husband Jeffrey: Thank you for being a wonderful man. You are my heart and my anchor. Thank you for not only accepting this journey, but absolutely embracing it. Your belief that I couldn’t possibly fail made me believe that I could probably succeed. Here’s to the next chapter, sunshine. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................ 1 CHAPTER 2: FOREGROUNDING THE FALLEN: RICHARDSON’S PAMELA ........................................................................................................ 7 CHAPTER 3: DICKENS’S DEVIANTS: FALLEN WOMEN IN DAVID COPPERFIELD .......................................................................................... 23 CHAPTER 4: HAYWOOD’S HAVEN: RECLUSION AS RECOVERY IN THE BRITISH RECLUSE .......................................................................... 42 CHAPTER 5: SISTER SAVIORS: GASKELL’S “LIZZIE LEIGH” AND RUTH ........................................................................................................... 59 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 80 WORKS CITED ..................................................................................................... 82 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION The World was all before them, Where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow Through Eden took their solitary way. Paradise Lost XII 646-49 This peaceful portrait of the first children, walking hand in hand out of Eden to face the new, wide world together, ends Milton’s masterful retelling of the story of Genesis. This end is also a fit beginning for exploring the reconstruction of Milton’s literary sons and daughters, who take up the story of the fall, if abstractly, and revise it anew. From the Biblical story of Genesis to Milton’s epic retelling, the tale of the temptation and fall of man is, in reality, the story of the fall of woman. Eve is the original archetype of the fallen woman—the woman who is seduced into sinning against the patriarchy, her Father and husband. In the Victorian Era, the tale of the fallen woman, whose origins can be traced back to the Biblical fall, becomes an outright obsession. Threads of the story of the fallen woman begin to be woven into narrative fiction, and tracking the evolving script of the fallen woman in the eighteenth and nineteenth-century English novel allows an interesting pattern to emerge: both male and female authors adopt the myth of the fall of Eve but also revise it. Instead of Milton’s tranquil portrait of the two original sinners being exiled together, strengthening their bond through their shared punishment, the harmonious ending is demolished through the literary treatment of the fallen woman. Male authors show us that the answer to the problem of the fallen women is displacement; in doing so, they revise the Miltonic fall by exonerating the male from punishment for his share in the sin—instead of 2 2 both participants being banished from their homeland, only the female is displaced. Their contemporary female authors appear to uphold this sentiment but in fact subvert this script by placing the fallen woman into all-female societies that are still within her homeland. Instead of displacing the fallen woman, they re- place her into an alternative space of female redemption. Whether the author is male or female, however, the engagement of fallen woman mythology creates a space to redirect blame away from the author’s own sex in adapting the story of patriarchal punishment of the first fall. Two iconic works in feminist criticism, Nina Auerbach’s Woman and the Demon and Gilbert and Gubar’s The Madwoman in the Attic, both specifically ascribe the fallen woman of Victorian literature to Milton’s Eve in Paradise Lost. Both works also highlight the important cultural significance of Milton’s transforming the fall from an act that garners punishment for both Adam and Eve into an act that rests on Eve’s shoulders alone. Gilbert and Gubar note that “the Miltonic problem of the fall [is] a specifically female dilemma” (219). Burdening Eve and her descendants is illuminated by the fact that in the decades after Milton’s epic was published, the fall of Eve transfers itself onto the female in society and in literature by way of the cultural demonization of the fallen woman. Everything about the fallen woman is reminiscent of Milton’s Eve: of course the term itself is a nod to Eve, but Eve and the fallen woman are further bound by their sins against the patriarchy (the transgression of the rules set out by her male authorities) leading to her villainy, shame, and punishment through banishment. Auerbach goes on to illuminate this further: “At Eve’s fall, Milton tells us, ‘Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat / Sighing through all her Works gave signs of woe, / That all was lost’ (PL, IX, 781-784). In Victorian revisions it is the woman alone who is wounded, sighs, laments, and is lost; indifferent Nature 3 3 simply reclaims her” (160). In these versions, as well as in eighteenth-century revisions, not only does Nature abandon Eve to suffer the consequences of her sin alone, Adam abandons her as well. Unlike the Miltonic tradition, the male participant in the fall is left unpunished, free to continue life without consequence. The issues that led to the recasting of Eve as the sole recipient of punishment are intrinsically linked to the recasting of females in English society in general.
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