no. W CLASS STRUCTURE AND THE FEMALE CHARACTER IN ANTHONY TROLLOPE'S THE WAY WE LIVE NOW Mary Sterner Lawson A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 1975 la. © 1975 MARY STERNER LAWSON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT A significant element of The Way We live Now is Trollope's acutely sensitive delineation of female characters differing in class, ambition, temperament, and experience yet alike in being caught within and restricted by the system of social structure in the novel. In creating these char­ acters Trollope did not, as he says he did, just "take the whip of the satirist" into his hand to expose "the commercial profligacy of the age." His female characters, particularly, are more than character types functioning as satirist's tools in an indictment of the Victorian Age. His stance toward them is ironic, but his sympathy for them prevents his char­ acter delineation from being satiric or embittered. Two chapters provide background material, one on the novel and its era and one on class structure in the age and in the novel. These precede chapters—usually focussing on a single character who provides a springboard to discussion of a major issue relevant to that character, the novel, and the women of the age—on the young woman in love, marriage, spinsterhood, the lower class girl, the heiress, and the outsider. The conclusion reached in this study is that the effects of class structure on female characters of the novel are several and complex. The norms expected within societal groups and classes are often at odds with individual needs and desires, and require some sacrifice on the part of the woman. This may cause mental conflict, because deviation from the norm by refusing to sacrifice one's personal desires is not tolerated well or at all by one's social equals. The conflict may resolve itself in acceptance of the norm. Or the conflict, the strictures that cause it, and dissatisfaction with one's class and its values may inspire a romanticism that tries to ignore the values and biases of one's class. Generally the result of a woman's rejection of societal values is an essentially futile rebellion from the reality of the world that tries to restrict her and an eventual return to her own class level where she is in actuality more at ease. Society is a powerful force and class biases are not to be denied. To remain within the circle of London and country gentry society, or any other circle, a woman must reckon with that circle'sr'Structural rules. Ill TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION............................ ........... 1 I. THE WAY WE LIVE NOW AND ITS ERA......................10 II. CLASS STRUCTURE IN THE VICTORIAN AGE AND IN THE WAY WE LIVE NOW............................... 24 III. THE YOUNG LADY IN LOVE............................... 49 IV. MARRIAGE.............................................. 73 V. THE SPINSTER.......................................... 98 VI. THE LOWER-CLASS GIRL................................ 121 VII. AN HEIRESS............................................ 140 VIII. AN OUTSIDER.......................................... 163 IX. CONCLUSION........................................... 179 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................... 191 In 1954 Walter Allen noted that "Trollope’s later novels have not received the attention they deserve." Of these later novels, Allen lauds The Way We Live Now as "one of the remarkable novels of the language.”''' The twenty year period since then has produced criticism that begins to give The Way We Live Now its due, but that criticism too frequently focuses on Trollope's stated purpose in writing it, i.e., to 2 expose "the commercial profligacy of the age." In addition, critics prefer to view the novel as indicative of the "moral indignation of an aging, if not an old man," indignation 3 . giving vent to bitter satire. Views of the novel as a satiri­ cal expose have not changed appreciably since Henry James said of it that "a more copious record of disagreeable matters 4 could scarcely be imagined," except that twentieth century critics are not as repelled by the disagreeable as James and earlier critics were. The frequent view of The Way We Live Now as a powerful diatribe against corrupt business and political practices is not arrived at without some reasoning. This novel is massive and complex, and its structure is such that its web of corruption has at its center a well-wrought figure who tends to readily 1 2 draw attention, Augustus Melmotte. Also Trollope’s statement of his intent in writing The Way We Live Now tends to draw attention to features in it suggesting it is an indignant expose*. And as a novel The Way We Live Now*s structural web and subject matter are undeniably significant. But Trollope does far more than just expose commercial profligacy, and his attitude, his tone, is not best described as indignant or embittered. Thus it seems to be time now for a new view of The Way We Live Now, a view looking not toward it as a satirical expose, but toward a significant element of the novel that gets short shrift in critical approaches bent on defining Trollope's tone as indignantly satirical. This significant element is the acutely sensitive delineation of the several women characters capable of and often exhibiting great strength and determination yet caught within and restricted by the system of social structure in The Way We Live Now. Previous critical studies have partially probed the Trollope canon in the light of Trollope's obvious interest in the re-creation of the social structure of the age, the delineation of the English girl, and the realistic creation of many types of characters, but to date no single intensive study has been made of Trollope's characterization of women in a single novel and of how those women manuever in the para­ doxically rigid yet flexible class structure. Such a study is in order, is viable, for several 3 reasons. Although one hesitates to focus on a part rather than the whole novel, The Way We Live Now is of such sheer breadth and complexity that a study trying to embrace it in its entirety could hardly do justice to it. Therefore, by thoroughly studying a part of the novel—yet a part that is integrally and significantly related to the whole, one can hope to come to a clearer comprehension of the fiber of The Way We Live Now. And Trollope's particularly effective char­ acterization of the women in the novel—their conflicts and anxieties, their bids for freedom and bows to convention— is a salient feature and an integral part of the novel. Further, Trollope’s finesse in characterizing women differing in matters of class, temperament, ambition, and experience attests to his facility as a novelist. And viewing Trollope’s approach to placing these women within the kind of class structure he creates in the novel helps to establish the tone he takes toward the social milieu of his fictional world and toward the society of his age. It is important to note the tone Trollope takes toward his fictional world, and it is his tone that is misinterpreted in previous criticisms of The Way We Live Now. Trollope him­ self did not feel he was creating any embittered view of the social milieu. In fact, he considered himself to be a recorder of the common experiences of average and representative men and women from various classes within the social structure. Thus, according to his autobiography, he was most pleased 4 with Nathaniel Hawthorne's statement that his novels are Just as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of the earth and put it under a glass case, with its inhabitants going about their daily business, and not suspecting that they were being made a show of. Trollope's response to this statement that he quoted in the autobiography was that he had always desired to "hew out some lump of earth," and to make men and women walk upon it just as they do walk here among us,—with not more of excellence, nor with exag­ gerated baseness,—so that my readers might recognize human beings like themselves, and not feel themselves to be carried away among the gods ot demons.5 Trollope's readers have always recognized how very human and realistic-seeming his characters generally are. However, his contemporaries, and other readers down through time to us and our contemporaries, acknowledge that Trollope's own particular province in the realm of character­ ization is the delineation of the English female mind. An 1877 Edinburgh Review critic found Trollope to be "a middle- aged or elderly gentleman worming himself into the hearts and confidences of young ladies and identifying himself with g the innermost workings of their minds." In Partial Portraits, Henry James noted Trollope's bent: "Trollope settled down steadily to the English girl; he took possession of her, and turned her inside out. He never made her the subject of heartless satire. ; he bestowed upon her the most serious, the most patient, the most tender, the most copious consider­ ation. "7 This "tender, copious consideration" is in evidence 5 in his fictional women of The Way We Live Now. The tone he adopts toward these women is, though he at times does not condone their behaviour, one of a novelist attempting to act as observer and recorder of those women under the glass case, yet an observer clearly sympathetic with the anxiety they experience as a result of the dilemmas in which he has placed them. The bases for their dilemmas are rooted in the funda­ mental issues at hand in the novel, a knowledge of which is crucial to an understanding of the female characters and their conflicts.