Michael Spaulding

Gender Structure in Victorian Literature

Page |1

Gender Structures in Victorian Literature The entire system of gender dynamics has been molded and evolved in such a complete way over the course of Western Civilization that it has filled every nook and cranny of all aspects of human life. Even the very law we use to defend the rights of women has been written by men. Our political system was built by male thought process; I have never heard of the Founding Mothers of America. It shackles everyone around it and claims their perceptions, demanding that they age and learn while the clever, hidden perspective is slowly and effectively consumed by hungry minds. But a few brave souls have stood up against this living mechanism over time. In the late 1700s, Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher, and Marie-Jean-AntoineNicolas Caritat, a French revolutionary, both argued for equality between the sexes (Caritat). And then Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792); this book is often considered the of the keystone compositions of feminism (Walters). But it wasnt until the mid-1800s that history sees a reflourishing of feminist thinking. Around that time, famous author Jane Austen grappled with issues that women faced during her time (Shields). In an era when gender issues had become contentious, John Stuart Mill wrote the powerful analysis of gender issues, The Subjection of Women (1869). His deconstruction of the complex system of constrictive regulation and expectation provide an insight into the ways that inequitable gender dynamic are manifested in liter[ature] (Richardson). Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of Englands most famous poets (Christ and Robson) during the 19th Century. She was well known for her moral engagement with the issues of her day and used literature as a tool of social protest and reform (Christ and Robson). A political issue of much concern for her was the issue of gender equality. This is most notable in her two poems To George Sand, A Desire (1844) and To George Sand, A Recognition

Michael Spaulding

Gender Structure in Victorian Literature

Page |2

(1844). Elizabeth Browning performs two feats in these poems: first, she gender-bends George Sand by blurring the line between male and female in an effort to emphasize the common human aspect of Sand rather than gender; second, as a prerequisite, and catalyst, to the gender-bending, Browning concentrates on the true genius characteristic of Sand to use as the reason Sand can triumph over such ascribings. In A Desire, George Sand is described as a person with organs originating from both male and female, the large-brained woman and large-hearted man (Browning). Browning notes that Sands poetic strength sanctifies her with holier light. The purpose of reinforcing Sands qualifications and reputation within the first poem is that Browning is going to set it against opposition. This opposition is presented in two parts. The first part of the opposition is seen in the gender-bending which manifests itself as setting women equal to men, but the second part of the opposition is symbolized by the lions (Browning).The lions as the poem presents them seem two-fold in meaning. Browning says they are the lions of [Sands] tumultuous senses, meaning her own internal struggles, but also the source of those struggles, i.e., the feminist struggle as projected by men and their influences. A Recognition takes these beliefs farther into feminist territory and opens with the declaration that George Sand dost deny / The womans nature (Browning). This is important because it is the affirmation that gender is a social construct and the properties that follow it are not fact, but fiction. Not only does she deny it though, but with a manly scorn (Browning); again, these focuses on androgyny and gender bending emphasize the equality between genders. After some righteous feminine rage, represented by George Sand burn[ing] the world in a poet-fire (Browning), we finish with the same concepts we saw in the first poemascending to heaven and casting off the gender title that man has ascribed. Browning believes that God will unsex George when she reaches heaven (Browning). Gender issues were a large concern during the 19th Century, and

Michael Spaulding

Gender Structure in Victorian Literature

Page |3

especially in the artistic world. Many women felt creatively stifled because their work would automatically be credited as scribblings rather than art when presented; a good example is Charlotte Bront who was praised for Jane Eyre when she wrote it under the pen name Currer Bell because critics thought she was a man, but when they learned that she was a woman a lot of negative criticism was hurled at her and her novel. Just three years later, Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote The Womans Cause is Mans (1847) in an effort to address the contemporary debate over womans proper role (Christ and Robson). The poem discusses the fact that society has constructed faades that parade as a force that seem to keep her up, but in reality is oppressive and does drag her down (Tennyson); her, of course, being the female gender. Tennysons emphasis on the idea that society is still running on barbarous laws is reiterated when he comments that the current state of affairs is parasitic. To him it seems natural that women and men should grow side-by-side and he questions, if women cannot maintain the same basic rights as man, how shall men grow? because we must grow together. Men and women amplify each others success in a healthy relationship, because the womans cause is mans and they rise or sink together (Tennyson). Virginia Woolf once wrote in Granite and Rainbow: An Essay in Criticism that the greatest writers lay no stress upon sex one way or the other. Virginia Woolf believed that to become a whole person, one needed to have an androgynous mind; Tennyson feels the same way. He writes, Yet in the long years liker must they grow; / The man be more of woman, she of man; / He gain in sweetness and in moral height, / Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; / She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, / Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind; / Till at the last she set herself to man, / Like perfect music unto noble words (Tennyson). This is what we should strive for, a full understanding of the other gender. The only way to become a

Michael Spaulding

Gender Structure in Victorian Literature

Page |4

complete person is to understand the differences between genders and to embrace and emulate them in ourselves. He doesnt try to retard gender down to something insignificant, but rather embraces it and encourages mankind to realize that we are all in this life together. Without each other, he pleads, we are only half ourselves (Tennyson). His poem is written with unity and similar to a lecture while Brownings poems I discussed above were written in a spirit of defiance and reverence. To the same end though, they both work toward. Mill, Browning, and Tennyson are all saying the same thing: there is an unjust power at work. And they all recognize why the problem seems so hard for people to recognize and why it is so sustainable; Mill answers this problem in the form of a questionBut was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it? (Mill). It was this question that demanded action. Gender inequalities had reached a boiling point in the second half of the 19th Century and a lot of the awareness and righteous anger that had spread was due to the distribution of literature and art. Societies evolve, and the law does with it. Society cannot reach the ideal (i.e., equality) unless all of its parts are fully realizedthe elimination of all prejudices begins with recognizing we have them. That is what Tennyson and Mill focus on the most. Tennyson and Mill seem to be appealing to the male crowd, while Browning is appealing mostly to women. But this is what it takes, a full spectrum of intelligent, broad-minded individuals to cut away all the excess and recognize problems for what they are. One of the most brilliant, touching, and righteous dissensions from the majority opinion on the subject of legal oppression might be found in the 1896 Supreme Court Case of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 539 (1896). Mr. Justice Harlan wrote his dissension about the legal domination of one body of peoples over another, even though it was deemed permissible under the law of that time, stating that any implication of one person being superior to another does interfere with the full

Michael Spaulding

Gender Structure in Victorian Literature

Page |5

enjoyment of the blessings of freedom to regulate civil rights, common to all citizens, upon the basis of race, and to place in a condition of legal inferiority a large body of American citizens now constitutionally a part of the political community called the People of the United States, for whom and by whom, through representatives, our government is administered. This view taken by Harlan resonates strongly with the feminist movement. For any person to be subjugated by another in any way, legal or not, is in direct conflict with equality and freedom. So it is important for all people to strive to achieve the ideal, pursue equality, and fight uphill battles when justice is the apex. I was going to say Amen, but I wasnt sure of the etymology of the word and it sounded kind of sexist, so maybe Ill just say Awomen as compensation. Note, these last two sentences (of which this one is one of the two) are completely out of tone with the rest of the essay.

Michael Spaulding

Gender Structure in Victorian Literature

Page |6

Works Cited Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. To George Sand A Desire. The Norton Anthology Of English Literature: The Victorian Age. 8th. E. Ed. Christ, Carol, and Christine Robson. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2006. Print Caritat, Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas. On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship. Trans. Vickery, Alice Drysdale. The Online Library of Liberty. Garden City Press. 1912. Web. 20 July 2012. <http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle= 1013&Itemid=99999999>. Christ, Carol, and Christine Robson. The Norton Anthology Of English Literature: The Victorian Age. 8th. E. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2006. Print. Mill, John Stuart. The Subjection of Women. The Norton Anthology Of English Literature: The Victorian Age. 8th. E. Ed. Christ, Carol, and Christine Robson. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2006. Print Richardson, Leslie. ENL 4260 Midterm exam. ENL 4260: Victorian Literature. Florida International University. 18 Jul. 2012. Print. 21 Jul. 2012. Shields, C. Jane Austen. Penguin Group USA, 2005. Print. Walters, Margaret. Feminism, A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, USA, 2006. Print. Woolf, Virginia. An Essay In Criticism. Granite and Rainbow. Mariner Books, 1975. Print.