Appunti di Lingua inglese iim: epoca vittoriana e opere letterarie, Appunti di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica Appunti di Lingua inglese iim: epoca vittoriana e opere letterarie e più Appunti in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! ENGLISH LITERATURE ii/m LESSON 1 The aim is to introduce to works of fiction that were forgotten and have been recently recovered. It’s an act of recovery, digging up novels of 19th century fiction and find out whether these novels are interesting. Mary Seacole was a nurse in the Crimean War. She was shortly popular and then she disappeared. She was rediscovered and we will see in what ways. She is a good example of forgotten author rediscovered posterity. Elizabeth Braddon: popularity, oblivion and then again popularity. She produced various novels that met the interest of the readers around 1960s. She was a sensational writer (sensationalism). Most of recovery projects have to do with women’s works that were forgotten and discriminated. 3 books ---> Charlotte Riddell, she is interesting because she wrote about topics considered just for men at the time: commerce, economic, finance, life of businessmen. She was a popular writer in the city of London, but was then marginalized because of her sympathies, very much anti-capitalist. Victoria Cross explores the life of a young English women, the sexuality of this women away of England, set in India. She lived most of her life in India. She disappeared until the late 90s. This is the 50% of the work: we have to search in the digital archives of the Victorian Age for potentially interesting titles, authors etc. we have to do our own analysis. Sites: At the circulating library, Internet Archives (dove possiamo cercare il pdf del testo). We will have to do a conference paper until the end of the semester. We have to make the novel interesting. (=corresponds to oral exam) The second part of the exam is the essay: has to be between 2500 and 3000 words. It is a comparison between two novels (a specific aspect or angle that two novels have in common). The specific argument of the essay will have to be discussed with the professor. Bibliography which includes all the titles that she provides us with that are included in the materials needed for the exam. There are few articles for each novels. LESSON 2 What does literature offer us? Representation, immersive record (the ability of literature to make us co-participants), communication and a product made of language (language is the tool). Everything can become a piece of literature. Approaching literary texts: we can consider different levels of approach. 1. We read because we enjoy reading= does not need to be experts 2. Intellectual level= includes analytical approach, it analyses the text to understand better how it works --> we contribute to emphasize the cognitive value of literature filtered through the language. Multiple interpretations are possible. Writing a literary analysis essay: 1. Critical reading: consider the several levels of reading of the texts, the structure, the narrative voice (the tone, the register, is the narrator sarcastic, is the narrator telling the reader to dislike the characters, is the narrator sympathetic to the characters?) and the conflict. 2. Making a thesis: formulate our argument enough to have a research question. (In this text I’d like to argue....). The critical essay is more sophisticated, the thesis can be a question or a couple of questions. 3. Write the conclusion. Literary analysis It’s a form of detective work: it’s not a simple recounting, but an exercise in connecting the clues that the texts give us. The clues can be found in the language, in the plot, in the narrative (=look for repeated patterns, often found in metaphors, imagines and structure) -> we can have a strong pattern related to colors, to objects, there can be characters associated with elements. We can also find clues that send us back to the context, a phenomenon widely debated at the time (the novel gives clues to what kind of context is being evoked). If we read the novel not knowing anything of the context, we fail to understand a big part of the text. We can look at certain text to connect it with other novels. Close reading It’s officially the method of literary criticism. It was first developed in 1920s, based on criticism and still works today. Step 1  Read to get the general idea.  Highlight the important parts. men must go to work --> what is the ideology in there? It tells women to be happy about this discrimination). We also have Communism as ideology. An ideology is a discourse about values that pretends to be universal while serving one class, one gender, etc.. Ideology is used in many ways: to describe a cohesive set of political values, to describe a set of ideas, to describe an official set of beliefs and ideas associated with a political system. Our analysis should balance: 1. Close readings of textual details 2. The bigger picture 3. Other critics’’ interpretation. LESSON 3 Overall situation of the 19th century. The Victorian Era conventionally begins in 19th century when Victoria was coronated in England. Conventionally the Victorian Era goes from 1837 to 1901 (her death). 1830s: the spread of the spirit of reform (reform Bill of 1832). The aristocracy had all the political power  this reform marks the begin of a new Face of democracy. The middle classes, the capitalists, who were behind the progress began to take part to Parliament. We will have to wait until 1870 to have the first Education Act (education compulsory) to educate the people to avoid the social anarchy and social conflicts that were determined by lack of education. The 1840s is characterized by economic depression (the ‘hungry forties’). There wasn’t enough for anyone, it was the decade of unrest and militant intervention in order to improve the conditions of life of the working classes. Awareness of this situation was high in the 1840s, also women writers were beginning to represent it. 1850s/60s was the age of equipoise, it was the age of stability and prosperity: England congratulated itself with the Great Exhibition of 1951. 1870s/80s another period of economic decline, because of increased global competition, but the empire continues to expand. Some decline in the economy because of the entrance of Germany and US in the international trade. 1890s: a new wave of social changes. We have movements like anarchism, socialism, feminism that changed the cultural frame in which people operated. Many writers challenging gender norms (period of sexual anarchism) and many women writing. The 19th century Britain was the richest nation and the most powerful empire of the globe. Its imperial reach covered one quarter of the surface of the earth by the end of the 1880s. it was the first industrialized country, and the population growth was massive. People moved from the country to the industrialized cities looking for jobs -> massive shift from an agrarian to an industrial wage economy, with all the benefits and disadvantages of this new system. The middle classes, which are the protagonist of the cultural production we are going to analyze, consolidated the economic power first, and then also cultural power. They also gained political power thanks to the reform of 1832 and 1837. The Great Exhibition of 1851 was the first world’s fair, a showcase of Britain’s industrial dominance and technological innovations. It was characterized by positive and self-congratulatory mood. But obviously, also critical voices were heard. Thomas Carlyle (1843) produced many pamphlets and book in which it was appreciating but also pointing out contradictions with what went wrong in this period. (“England is full of wealth, of multifarious produce, of supply for human want in every kind; yet England is dying of inanition”). Many intellectual saw major contradictions = widespread poverty for people hardly subsisting on low wages. 70% of the population was considered poor. There were also public wealth issues: inadequate housing and slum conditions. In fact, 4 choler epidemics stroke between 1831 and 1866. The industrialization produced not just factories and jobs, but a new regime of facts. Question about “how do we knew this reality?” tool for understanding what was happening= Blue Books (social investigations to know people life conditions and suggest possible solutions). There were contradictions but the Parliament was not unaware, and they did something to try to understand what was happening. The Blue Books were interviews of people, so they were witnesses which make these books particularly interesting for novelists (they would make the fiction more accurate = interconnection between data and elaboration of novelists). Writers were at the forefront of social protest, and their voices did not go unheard. The social problem novel Dickens, Hard Times Gaskell, Mary Barton and North and South Kinglsey, Alton Locke Eliot, Felix Holt, the radical Definition: It refers to novel that were generally written in the late 1840s and 1850s which take its subject- matter large scale problems in contemporary times. They have specific features: attempt to comment and stimulate debate about matters of general public and political concern. They try to address the discontent of the increasingly impoverished and degraded working classes (represent the point of view of the working classes) Educational intent (to change the mind of people), Socio-political intent (play a role in the social and political life of the nation), critique (critique to industrialization and the effects of it), imagining solutions (imagine ways in which the impact of industrialization could be migrated). Other examples of literature of protest – we also have poetry. Elizabeth Barret Browing – “The Cry of the Children” Thomas Hood – “The Song of the Shirt” These poems of social protest were couched in a sentimental format, with the voices of the children and women exploited by industrialization. Working class writers Their favorite genre was the Memoir (autobiographical format) to describe the conditions in which they were forced to work that time. Robert Blincoe, Ellen Johnston, Ebenezer Elliot (Corn Laws rhymes) 1815: the Government had passed the Corn Laws to protect the interest of landowners. The price of bread went up and were unable to buy bread. This situation reached the period of crisis due to crop failures in the country (=1840s the “hungry forties”) and convinced the Parliament to repeal the Laws in 1846. presented as the highest expression of womanhood. Motherhood was the pinnacle of a woman’s experience, the sum of her total expectations revolved around marriage and the family. Philanthropy and charity were kind of works for women, to improve the quality of life of the poor. These kinds of activities gave them the possibility to appear in the public sphere out of the sphere of the family. Middle-class men were also assigned to certain values: the sphere of politics, work, economy. The idea that the masculine virtues were linked to values as courage, strength, self-help, drive, sharpness confidence, vision, and resourcefulness. Men were called upon to protect on their national and imperial interests, but also their wives and daughters who were incapable of bearing the harsh reality of the world. Plenty of self-help books were written to instruct people on how to behave in middle-class families. But middle-class families could not afford living with only one salary, so there was the contradiction of working women and the ideal of women in Victorian times. Upper-class women did not have the same restriction as middle-class women in terms of accessing to financial capital and founds. This smooth narrative of the separate sphere was just a narrative, it was not a picture of reality. The Victorians were aware of the distance between ideals and their realization. All the texts that we will be investigating analyze these contradictions. The spheres were never all that separate, and even if they were expected to embrace certain gender norms, it is important to realize that in their lives and in the writing norms could and were questioned, challenged, and adapted to different circumstances. The 19th century is also the century of emancipation, that allowed more freedom to women and more freedom to manage their own wealth and to become more independent.  Matrimonial Causes Act (that created the Court of Divorce) in 1857 and 1878. Made possible to women to get divorce if they were in a marriage that was abusive.  The Married Women’s Property Act in 1870 and 1883. Women became legal owners of the money they earned, and they could directly inherit property. John Stuart Mill (1869) The Subjection of Women: it is a clear denunciation to the condition of women. “The subordination of one sex to another is wrong in itself…it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality.” The British Empire During Queen Victoria the empire expanded and grew steadily. In many ways it became the kind of the engine driving the capitalist supremacy of Great Britain. 18 major territories were added in the 19th century. Imperial expansion was motivated by the desire to increase trade and finding new markets, exploiting resources. This economic reason was bound up with political and cultural project of dominion, based on the idea that the Victorians gave to light to barbarian races, who need civilization. The expansion was supported by pseudo-scientific arguments about the inferiority of dark-skinned people and a sense of responsibility towards those regarded as ‘inferiors. (‘The white man’s burden’ - Kipling) The paternalistic argument was based on a false sense of benevolence. This was a popular ideology of that time. The realties between colonized people and the colonizers were often couched in paternalistic terms.  Consensus was not absolute: plenty of women raised voices in order to abolish domination over the colonized.  Abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and slavery in British possession in 1837.  Indian Mutiny (rebellion of Indian men employed as soldiers by the British) in 1833  Various wars (Crimea, Afghanistan, South Africa) Popular support for the empire reached its peak in 1880s and 90s with Jingoism  big expressions of national pride by Queen Victoria to inspire admiration. Literature of the empire  Adventure stories for boys, featuring tales of manly prowess in the service of the empire  Travel and exploration narrative abounded  But also anxieties and doubts about the ability to hold the empire together (es. The Heart of Darkness depicting imperial greed, exploitation and corruption among traders in the Congo) Faith and Doubt Another important aspect of Victorian Culture is faith and doubt. What was happening to religious beliefs in an era of cultural and scientific discoveries? There was both religious doubt and religious feeling. The Scriptures were questioned because of the advancement of scientific discourse  Christian certainties were destabilized: scientific rationalism, empiricist methods, secularism, and skepticism. Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution rejected the idea that human beings were created by God. The term “agnostic” was coined during Victorian times (a person who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of God). However, there is also lot of religious beliefs in the stories which were written, the religious framework is integral part of Victorian people. But  popularity of religious movements stressed the importance of individual’s personal relationship with God, humanitarian activism and of missionary work. Religion was a very convenient container of women activism also. Cultural trends We don’t much associate Victoria culture with ideas of entertainment, but it was a big business. There was the idea of entertainment for all classes. For example, the theatres: many places were created from novels, also using special visual effects. However, the actress was still considered within the sphere of prostitution. And then museum and galleries gained ground in the 19th century, it became part of the “educational idea”, whereby the ruling class hoped to achieve more social cohesion. Print culture Magazines, journals, printed materials that were freely available at moderate prices in libraries. The Illustrated London News (1842), the first illustrated weekly paper. There were plenty of publications of novels in these journals (es. Dickens) Modes of publication  The three-volume novel: why? Because there was a special agreement between publishers and libraries. Publishers did not know how many copies the book will sell, the libraries agreed to purchase certain number of copies. Books were very expensive.  Serialization of fiction: the monthly or weekly serial. Es. Dicken’s, Pickwick Papers. Realism: the prevailing narrative mode George Eliot oriented reflection of realism, she was very popular in 19th century. “Good art is near reality”. For Eliot, art had a ‘sacred’ purpose  it offers a representation of real life that reflect aspirations, habits and desires of readers = realism was the best mode suited to achieve this purpose. Realist novels:  Multi-plot lines and a range of characters from different strata of society  Detailed description of landscapes, city, streets, domestic interiors  Close attention to emotionally characters’ motivation. Why was realism appealing? - Gender identity: she is first and foremost a nurse (tending to the need of others), in a way she is the angel of the house exported outside the house. - Travel narrative: the book is a travel blog, describes someone who does not fear of travelling. It’s an uplifting story, it is a self-help legend. - “Corrective histories” (recovery project): she is the target of the recovery project, the way in which she recovers the voices of forgotten women. The history that has been rewritten is the history of the Crimean war, of the nurse and the British Empire itself. Good example of racialized woman, a colonized subject, who uses every tool at her disposal in order to become a more active servant of the empire. She identifies with the colonizers, the position she develops for herself is intriguing. She is not particularly rebellious towards the British rules in her country. Chapter 1 – Self-representation The tone of her voice is assertive, determinate. “I don’t know what it is to be indolent…I don’t fear action”. This is not the domestic sphere of passivity, but it is the masculine sphere of action. “some people call me a female Ulysses”, a strong epithet, she is appropriating the myth and the legendary legacy of heroes such as Ulysses, she is a bold voice. Style of the presentation  She acknowledges the Creole identity.  Explains her personality on the basis of racial features and stereotypes.  Insists of her strong will, curiosity and determination.  Capitalizes on the reputation she had gains as a nurse and hotelier and businesswoman. Chapter 1: Racism. Already in Chapter one we see many episodes of racism: “I am only a little brown, a few shades duskier than the brunettes whom you all admire so much...but my companion was very dark, and a fair subject for their rude wit.” = she acknowledges the existence of racism, even if she presents it as “to poke fun”. She declares that she is a descendant of slaves, but she is “almost white”, she is the daughter of her father. There are always two sides: she is upset because she is the victim of racism, on the other hand she is trying to emphasize to what extend she is not with the blackness that is attributed with her friend. Chapter 2: Businesswoman This identity is related and presented initially in chapter 2 soon after she tells us that her husband is died and she has no intention to marry again. “Although it was no easy ting for a widow to make ends meet, I never allowed myself to know what repining or depression was, and so succeeded in gaining not only my daily bread, but many comforts besides…”. “Sometimes I was rich one day, and poor the next”. Is the condensation of the Victorian discourse: idea that business is a struggle, with ups and downs. Entrepreneurship comes an alternative to the marriage plot: instead of getting remarried she ups for the profession. She repeats the same narrative in many Victorian text which tells us that you spend your own life in making money, but money is not really that important. To survive your business, need to be profitable, but it is a vulgar activity, and when you talk about it you have to specify that you do for happiness. Another aspect of the Victorian culture: adapt to failure, that is an integral part of succeeding in business. Failure is not demonized, is something that happens, you just need to deal with it. Chapter 3: The female traveler Another identity that she conveys t her reader is that of the female traveler: she undertakes many rischious journeys. She describes inhospitable landscapes, the diseases, the horrible view of man dying of fatigue of traveling. These descriptions are full of colorful details that support her image of resilience and plenty of racism. The place that she travels to are interesting zones where the habits and customs of civilization are suspended: a world like central America at the time, populated by ruthless conquistadores. She is very good at observing how this mixed crowds of Americans and British behaves in ways that are low standards of civilization: the first thing she notices is that these people are all equal in contradicting the rules of their own societies. There is also an equality in terms of gender: women are looking for gold as well as men. Many of these women cross-dressed for these journeys, to avoid the kind of lascivious comments. The social rules that prevail are flaunted in the rough scenario of transit places=you have more freedom from restrictive ideology, and also more danger, necessity is paramount (opposed to the delicacy of civilization). She distinguishes from the gold digger gong to California, and the ones who return from California (the women “appear in no hurry to resume the dress or obligations of their sex”). In the book we also find entertaining descriptions of gold diggers at rest: what they ask for, at they pay for little luxuries she provides at the hotel. The book has a comic undertone, she tries to tell her stories also by episodes with humor (this comic tone contributed to the success of the book). Chapter 4: Nursing patients She has the opportunity to be of service to the people. Mrs. Seacole speaks as the authors of the narrative, reflecting or anticipating hypothetical reaction of readers of her stories. It is a good example of self-reflection. She plays the card of “feminine care” (the desire to be of service, while also being entrepreneurial). The ideology of femininity can be used to further the individual ambitions of a very adventurous woman who travels the earth but does not seem transgressive (she emphasizes her action as stemming from feminine qualities such as “care”, devotion and self- sacrifice). There is another side to this self-sacrifice: she gets paid for her medical service by those who can. She still manages to earn money wherever she goes (both in America and Crimea). Monetary information is not absent, it is conveyed is a manner that seems irrelevant, but she provides to describe everything. She makes sure that her skills are distinguished by folklore and religious beliefs when she comes in cure for some diseases. She specifies that her skills are scientific. Chapter 5: Hotelier in Cruces. After the war she return to be an hotelier in Cruces. She gives the Victorian reader a precise estimate of what she was charging the clients, the cost of the meals. She was interested in improving her business: the guests were very unpolished and rough. They sometimes tried to cheat and were interested in gambling (she condemns this activity). Someone famous comes through the door and she gives a sketch of this famous personage, a notorious woman cross-dresser (Lola Montes). This woman was a dancer and adventurer, who pretended to be Spanish and assumed the stage name as Lola Montes. She was notorious for her many weddings and marriages; she was also known to cross-dress and the new of her “evil fame” was widespread. The female figures that appear in this story are in most cases, controversial figures woman that cross-dress, female gold-diggers, notable for their lack of femininity, but also famous performers like Lola Montes, openly disregarding gender roles. Mrs. Seacole unconventional femininity is put in perspective by other examples of women experimenting with alternative subject positions. Even though mid-Victorian culture may have celebrated the domestic virtues of angelic middle-class women, it was also largely interested and curious in the exploits of “other” women and cross- dressers who did not follow the conventions. The success of Seacole’s autobiography testifies that readers were very much interested towards alternative modes of female subjectivity. Furthermore, the fact that the story takes place in places at Seacole’s account concentrates on odd quotidian moments, snapshots of everyday life: soldiers at rest, not battling, looking for comforts and human understandings. Chapter 14 We see how the discourse of money and business is interwoven with a discourse of ‘care’. She understands that she needed money to provide for the sick, in the absence of public subsides. Seacole itemizes the provisions she has cleverly accumulated before departing and she lists them. It is a proud list.  Self-promotion strategy (catalogue of merchandise – reads like an advertisement for her store)  Heroic version of British commerce, in the hands of a capable woman  The ‘what if’ point of view  to make the reader place in the position of the sick.  Engaging strategy (to engage readers instead of alienating them by describing battles and war scenes) As she approaches the end of this account, she reflects on the text she has written. Seacole addressed formal issues, questions of representations relative to the materials of her story. Self-consciousness of her own literary operations. She is aware that her topic is already the subject of different representations  hence the need to justify her narrative and apologize for imprecisions. A key to achieve success was not to report the facts but to give a captivating account of local events, that were missing in the official channels. And there were difficult to provide since she had relations with the soldiers and socialized with them all. - She recognizes her ‘unhistorical exactness’. - Does not claim historical accuracy. - Inaccuracy was also due to her being busy all the time, mixing medicines or baking. - She is creating a distinction with those who read of the war from their own position and those who were there. So, she says that there are different visions of the war, and the ones who are there have not enough time to be accurate. Commentary – pleasant battles? When she specifies the war, she makes a strange emphasis on the ‘pleasant’ aspect. (es. Description of the battle of Tchernaya). The battle is presented as aesthetically pleasing (no bloodbath)  probably is a coded message: despite much public controversy, the British were right in sending troops to the war (because the public opinion was controversial about participating or not to the war). On the representation of war Victorian war stories were also accounts of works, of services rendered to the soldiers (while in many accounts of war we hear stories of heroism, suffering, futility, criminality and trauma). In fact, Seacole can be viewed as much as a doctor as a sutler (figure of businessman that made profits from war suffering). Chapter 19 The Armistice was signed on 14 March 1856: peace wasn’t good news to Miss Seacole, who made a fortune by helping soldiers and victims. War was good for business, and with the Armistice and peace, there was a drop in prices and devaluing of her stock, she finds overstocked with things that she cannot sell to anyone anymore. Her return home was a mixture of feelings. Something she cannot fully sympathize with the happiness of those who are going home. There are similarities between the disappointed veteran with nothing to do and the impoverished businesswoman without a fixed home. She is very honest, she likes the idea of peace but doesn’t like the idea of going home, because she does feel she has not a home. She is no longer a nurse, a sutler, a hotel owner. The only thing that remained to her is to tell the story of her life in her own way, this is her second mission. There is a lot of pathos on things that had gone lost: plenty of details on how she had to manage the losses, the destruction. Conclusion Emphasis on shame: declaring bankruptcy and failure was still stigmatized by society, she makes clear that she does not feel ashamed, she may have failed but she does not consider herself a failure. She is presenting herself as a veteran in poor health without money, but her ruin (and this is another strategy to distance herself from the stigma of failure) is the reason of her success. (“Would this have happened if I had returned to England as a rich woman? Surely not!”). The lack of final profits, the catastrophe, the trauma of bankruptcy is what saves her reputation from ruin. Ruin becomes a positive outcome, or she wants to make the reader believe it, for this belief activate their sense of sympathy. And indeed, there was some charity  some of her friends established a Seacole Fund to help her with money. The memoir ends with the list of names of those who helped her. She dies in poverty few years after she returned, she never launched other business. MARY ELIZABETH BRADDON Aurora Floyd (1863) This is fiction, no longer an autobiography. So, it has sensationalistic features. The novel was initially serialized in Temple Bar, published by Tinsley  they invested in the genre of sensationalism, they understood that was important to encourage a different type of fiction and they did so, producing many interesting novels. Braddon describes it as a “simple drama of domestic life” emphasizing not sensationalism but its opposite = domestic surroundings into which the extraordinary irrupts, that is the center of the novels (everything that contradicts the domestic sphere). Mary Elizabeth Braddon  She was born into middle-class family in 1835.  Her father was a partner in a firm of solicitors, reckless wit money and his work.  Financial ruin of the family results in Braddon experiencing the separation of her parents.  Braddon’s novels, as a consequence, are plenty of feckless father figures (the father figures can be very negative in her novels, except for Aurora Floyd where it is not so negative).  She talks about the middle-class life, which was precarious and fragile.  Shen she was 22, she becomes an actress  controversial profession. (entering the theatre was considered a scandal, a fall from respectability, but provided her with money). Her family opposed this decision.  She only had marginal roles and had never big success. So, she turned to novel writing, and she publishes in 1859 a comedy (The Loves of Arcadia9 which was well received in the theatre. She met a guy who gave her some support to get her into the publisher’s world. After she left the stage, she lived for some time in Yorkshire. In 1861 she met a publisher and have an illicit relationship with him, because he was married to a woman that was incarcerated in a mad house. (to say that the Victorian tolerate them in society) crime lurked behind the façade of middle and upper-class respectability. And both attracted the population by turning this façade away. Consider the broader context in the sudden interest in detective stories: the Detective Department of Scotland was created in 1842, there were people who looked like normal people, but they were actually spying on you.  this created anxieties about the surveillance of the middle-classes. Dickens, in his Household words, spoke highly about this new team of police detective. He advertised the new established department. Also, he defended the art of detection as something useful against working-class crimes. But, by the 1860’s detectives were at work to help the crimes committed also in the middle-classes, so the angel in the house becomes a potential suspect. Matrimonial Causes Act in 1857  according to the act, husband could divorce if he could prove her adultery, and for a wife if she could prove violence, adultery, extreme cruelty, desertion etc. = detectives were needed to prove these misdemeanors mobilized a whole of new army of detectives. The angel of the house, become a dark angel with secret weather in her past or presence (Aurora Floyd is a dark angel). Bad press Sensationalism broached subject that many Victorians thought inappropriate. A. Trollope produced of the few defenses of sensationalistic novels. Conclusion SN were subversive without ordinarily addressing political issues, SN stripped the veils from Victorian respectability and prudery. It appeared that it was a hidden truth to uncover. Sensationalism exposed bigamists and adulterers, vampires, and murderesses, thinking that by subverting the conventions of realistic fiction. Sensationalism probed gender roles and push the boundaries of the ideology of separate spheres. Society was not ready to accept that level of transgression and disruption. Aurora Floyd: Overview  The novel questions assumptions concerning femineity and the purity of home.  She is an antithetical heroine associated with horses, hunting, and riding, which is particularly challenging.  Domestic sphere appears under siege: under challenge by the secrets by Aurora Floyd and the consequences of her secret decision.  Aurora secret is that she was seduce from a young man from an inferior class, this secret hunt her like a shadow. Braddon’s justification for this choice of “guilty” character, she wouldn’t be the heroine of the stories. (“a perfect woman, is women without history behind”).  Emphasis on the use of color in the description of Braddon: more words than would be necessary which create a pompous description, plenty of red. It is an explosion of colors, meant to create an image of red (color of passion, not a random choice) = the crimson is not a random choice, is the color of passion, of blood etc.  this opening scene anticipates a story of passions, bright lights, and lurid shades. Chapter 1  Information about Aurora’s family: a family of bankers in a small country, financially stable and successful for decades. Her father, however, marries an actress (lower class) producing instability.  The narrator often expresses her opinions on social mores.  Enduring vision of actress as prostitute = narrator derides provincial moral standards (why do we critic a woman who provides entertainment, when is the way she makes money?)  The narrator teases the reader from his position of respectability and likes to scam him. LESSON 10  Narrator cites literary resources: the narrative is plenty of references of fictional plots, poems, and literature sources of all kinds. (intertextuality is characteristic in Braddon)  this implies that the story is new and has connection with other stories. This insistence in one way of saying that she may appear repeating another story, but her story has a twist.  She emphasizes the unconventionality of the story, marking the difference from romantic or realistic models. Chapter 2  She is presented as extremely unconventional, going beyond stereotypical gender roles. (she prefers to have a rocking horse instead of dolls).  She nurses a secret: the narrator does not tell us, she simply alludes to impending dark times  Aurora goes to Paris, she talks about a mysterious man, allegedly dead.  Aurora and her cousin Lucy go shopping in London  this means that the novel was interested in new (and old) commodities and the commercial life of London.  Braddon describes several items, this strategy (reference to real stores) was typical of the silver-fork novel. Chapter 3 • Male characters – Talbot Bulstrode, proud and single, of good descent, and with some money. • Not married yet, looking for the perfectly virtuous woman. • How the vision of Aurora strikes Talbot. The use of metaphors that Orientalize Aurora: she is compared to her drink, which was an oriental drink. We have inflated language: Aurora is intoxicated brilliantly beautiful. • How the vision of Aurora strikes Talbot: • Inflated language thick with adverbs and adjectives • Aurora’s beauty effects an immediate intoxication of the mind and body: compared to an Indian drink, Bang, an infusion of cannabis. • Compared to Cleopatra in crinoline, traces of Orientalism. • But her first question to him is about horse races, an indelicate subject. Aurora and horses: • She loves riding, hunting, and the turf – her fascination with masculine sports signal rebellion against female education; she uses stable and riding slang. • Widespread debate in the 1850s and 60s on women and riding: these were the years in which the pursuit of fox hunting – associated with the masculine qualities of courage, cool headedness. Chapter 4  Dichotomy – fairness vs blackness, Lucy vs Aurora, domesticity vs sensationalism.  Talbot devotes much attention to Aurora, and the novel describes the mind processes of the man.  Chapter 12: we will describe why Steeve Hargraves is so important. (he is cruel to dogs  Aurora explodes and hits back Hargraves, and he reacts with violence to violence). Aurora is not only an unconventional woman, but she also not tolerates violence. Women are not supposed to be violent, and not supposed to bring a whip (frustino) and to use it against other humans.  Thie episode is presented with a mixt of roughness and sublimity. Something that mixes beauty and horror. Mellish is terrified and sends her away back home and pays off the trainer (he is fired but given a lot of money)  Mellish condemns Aurora, which becomes not only the subject but also the object of violence and pays the trainer a big sum (2 years of salary).  Throughout the narrative Aurora is identified with her dog, she socializes with animals: the trainer attack on the dog could be represented as an attack to Aurora (as if the trainer had kicked her)  the trainer is the embodiment of male violence within the home and is rewarded for his performance, while Aurora il chastised by John Mellish.  It brings on the surface submerged themes that the novel had been exploring. You could say that there’s a sense in which Aurora’s unconventionality is being punished. Chapter 14  Lucy and Talbot  The narrator’s comments on Lucy: she is to be pitied for being such a good domestic heroine!  She is presented as a good character as we are supposed to sympathize with, there is a double take in the way in which Aurora is presented. Lucy is to be pitied for being such a good domestic heroine, for being an innocent and pure creature. On the one hand we saw Aurora and her transgressive behavior, on the other hand the author focuses on a more stable and predictable character. LESSON 11 We are following a few threads in this novel: the style of sensationalism, one of the features is the narrator constantly providing commentary on the story she is telling us (on the base of which we will form or judgement). Chapter 16 • The male body: here enters the villain (James Conyers), Floyd’s groom who married Aurora in Paris, and the new Trainer at Mellish Park (once the other has been fired after kicking Aurora’s dog). • Introduction of the new trainer (pinnacle of sensationalism): masculine figures are usually not described in details, and also her attention on the characteristics of the body of the man. • The villain exerts an enormous attraction: he is handsome, he is the epitome of beautiful masculinity. There is an undercurrent of eroticism linking Aurora to this man. • The reader is expected to experience the same kind of attraction for him that Aurora felt- the description appeals to the sense of sight but indirectly evokes the pleasure of touching. • Reader, imagine what Aurora must have felt, in her body, the erotic charge. So imagine, and forgive her sin! • But then, we go back to the original order: the moralism is expressed in the form of dichotomy  beauty corresponds to inward ugliness (bello fuori brutto dentro). Elliot says, “people are not any better because they have long eyelashes”. • The author gives us hints of physiognomy: reading personality traits from exterior superficial features. • Aurora can no longer deny that she knew this person, that he worked for her father. (John is appalled at the idea that a servant knows Aurora’s secret) • The danger from below  the narrator provides comments about how dangerous could be for middle classes to ignore the knowledge of the servants. (lot of classism in this novel). The domestic sphere is threatened from the inside by both ‘dangerous’ middle-class woman and inquisitive working-class operatives (whose power increase the more secrets they get to know). • Hargrave also is in contact with Conyers: he confesses the violent dreams about Aurora (cutting her throat). Chapter 19 • Aurora asks her father for a huge sum of money but is not willing to give explanations. He agrees. • Eroticism also in the scene where Aurora is in close quarters with the young bank clerk, who is intimidated by her. They seat at a small table, their knees touch, but the details are not described = the author imagine the scene and imagine the feelings of the young bank clerk when touching the woman’s legs. • The author turns a very vulgar and dirt object (money) into something clean (the banknotes were clean, white) and elegant => That’s how Braddon turns a vulgar situation into something more acceptable Chapter 27 • There are new characters: Mr. Prodder, Aurora’s uncle, and the detective Mr. Dork. • Conyers is found dead (shot), Aurora is interrogated by the detective, her secret becomes unbearable. Dork discovers the certificate of marriage and passes it on to Mellish. • Aurora discloses her secret to Talbot, we have a full confession of her secret. • There is an esplicit reference to physical attraction, Aurora’s sexual desire and romantic fantasies that drove her to marry the groom, believing the fake stories he paddled about himself. • Talbot responds to this confession of sexual guilt by infantilizing Aurora (“poor child”) • The domestication of Aurora begins with Talbot’s response and continues in the subsequent pages. LESSON 12 The narrator’s commentary  after the confession the narrative turns into a detective novel with interesting plot twists. Aurora becomes a mother and that’s how the novel closes = full acknowledgment that this eccentric story of violent deeds and transgression has explored the dark sides of bourgeoisie and banished them form the final part, (more conventional type of bourgeoisie). The kind of closure that is demanded. The fact that Aurra ends up in the domestic sphere legitimizes the exploration of eccentricity, transgression, and irregularity. the closure of his domestic tragedy predictably reaffirms the values that Aurora’s story had questioned. The story can be sensationalistic but also reassure at the end. Aurora was often condemned because considered an unnatural and dangerous woman (the adjective unnatural was common in the 19th century) her character is readable in many ways. A new  Alongside the representation on daily life, she focused on the anxieties of this volatize world. There was no welfare state or gaining any help from public body, it was full of opportunities but also full of danger => this idea was successful because it focused on what people were experiencing.  In 1871 her husband declares bankruptcy and debt that had to be repaid. He felt ill and never resumed trading. She starts to produce ghost stories to repay his debts. Also, she kept writing novels and increase her productivity to ern money. This was a traumatic event to her and had to build her life again =she became poor and determined to repay the debt her husband had contracted.  A darker outlook prevails in her fiction after this episode. The city novels se wrote in those years, are very powerful exploration of all the anxieties and realities of economic stagnation, lack of progress, competition from Germany, from the US. (the economic situation of England was stagnating too). These novels lack of the propelling force we see in novel of the 60s and 70s of the possibilities of capitalism.  Her first novels were pro-capitalist novels, and this was maybe the reason for which she was forgotten (she believed in the opportunities offered by capitalism and freedom of commercial modernity  these beliefs didn’t go well with the critics that later analyzed her works). The Race for Wealth  It was serialized in a magazine (One a Week)  It begins with a young man working in the streets of the city of London and thins gives the author to say something of the city of London (the city is the hearth of London, where all began) and she is very fond of telling s the histories of the little streets, the churches, and other realistic details. (you can take the novel as a guide).  Typical begging of her novel: a young man with talent and no money, and great emphasis on his great expectations (that may turn into failure, but we will see this). He is the typical hero, and there is also the typical reader involved. Commentary  The commencement of the story is different from Aurora Floyd, it is focused on a male hero and his predicaments.  This is a London novel (London is the co-protagonist)  The reader is a co-traveler following Lawrence’s footsteps towards unsavory locality. The narrator cannot judge this character.  Characteristics: extreme realism, plenty of attention to commodities (for example, the first local when Lawerence is Lower Thames Market, where fish fruit and spices were sold = it is the hearth of market life. She indulges in the description of shops and commodities with extreme realism.)  She shows ambiguous situation ii order to introduce what will be an ambiguous novel, in terms of moralistic judgement we are used in Victorian culture.  She writes of the middle-classes for the middle-classes, she goes into the place where things are exchanged, no delicacy. Chapter 1  The first chapter is a deliberate assault on the readers’ nostrils (she describes the smells of the market). It is sensational in its own way because it is so focused on the messiness reality of a place. It is a novel truer to life.  The first chapter announces a novel in which impurity, in different spheres of life, is central: is a sign of daily trade => ‘adulteration’ in the representation of business, ‘adultery’ in the representation of private life. Attentive to details and realities other novels had ignored so far.  She celebrates the city: literary celebration of this corner of the world, now associated with trade and commerce, but once the neighborhood of nobility. She is interested in connecting history and present is because modern activities are more habitually considered vulgar and non-prestigious, so she needs a connection to prestige somehow. She needs a strategy to ennoble things.  She prepares the readers to consider the middle-class heroes as followers from the big heroes of the past, and as people worthing of having their own stories narrated and celebrated in the novels: the past justifies the interest in the reality of today.  Chapter 1 ends with a dialogue between Lawrence and his father: Lawrence is determined and goes to London despite of his father advice (= the country has nothing to offer, business is vulgar etc.) => the father’s advice is what Riddell wants to challenge in this novel. LESSON 13 We are reaching a point in which the author celebrates the rich past of the city of London. Chapter 2 - Welcome to Limehouse! Food Adulteration - Joshua Perkins is a manufacturing chemist, is in the business in the food and drink adulteration. He is presented to us in the novel. What readers are offered is a difficult position: they are being told that he is a decent guy, but he is manufacturing commodities that are sold for what they are not, is trivial. Many indignant voices were race against the debatable moral order against this position: this character is unique; he tries to depict a diverse reality form what medias produced about food adulteration. - He is presented as moderately successful, he is not a villain (despite of his work), and the narrator does not judge his occupation: in fact the author “the world is not all honest...” the reader accepts that it is an ambiguous situation, the novel explores these phasis in which boundaries between right and wrong are questioned. - Riddell is a contemporary novelist, so she produces novels about business and the contemporary realities.  in the 1850s and 60s food adulteration and gastronomic frauds were a widespread phenomenon that did not go unnoticed. In the 1851 attention on this topic was brought by a doctor who published a study which proved how harmful adulteration could be, Arthur Hill (Hassall’s study). This provoked a big public debate. - This debate was part of a larger debate, the immorality of market practices and capitalist endeavors ended up being immoral, and people used to cheat. Consumers were not protected against that many frauds that were done.  in this debate the language is interesting “the fraud upon our stomach”, “there is an ugly little monster of most insidious habits to make a way in our stomach, and when there, to work all the mischiefs in his power”. - The idea of ingesting adulterated food was widespread in England. To this strong indignant tone, did not correspond an equal action in Parliament, which were slow in their attempt to react. It took several years to come up with declarations and put an end to this phenomenon, because the laissez-faire ideology (the strong believe that market should be left in itself). In 1875 effective legislation provided a mechanism for punishment. Given this context we can conclude that adulteration is an example of the tolerated commercial misconduct, an ambivalent matter, in England. The story is set in a time before the Act of the  The daughter of Mr. Perkins, she is the embodiment of ‘bad form’. She is messy, fat, she has strong appetites and sticky fingers and thick legs, which Lawrence considers offensive and disturbing. She has a way of ‘flinging herself around’.  Bad form is an index of the character distance from the rules of etiquette.  Ada is the displacement of the negative with what is not displayed in relation to Mr. Perkins (despite his occupation) but to her.  Her physical presence evokes lack of restraint and the disorder of a self-indifferent to strict codes of behavior.  Ada is a young woman, and in the novel, she also has admirers as well as detractors. Ada is seen from a dual perspective: Lawrence and the narrator and the perspective of a very tolerant mother that enjoys her vivacious and not restraint daughter. Her mother is someone who gives voice to criticism to what can be angelic domestic femininity embodied by Olivine. The mother defends the ugliness of this character -> the novel I offering female character with mix feature, but not Olivine, that embodies the ideal of purity (that end up being criticized from the narrator for her innocence = lack of experience)  Larence’s harsh judgement are partly shared by the narrator (‘she is such a forward piece of vulgarity’).  Dual function of Ada: on the one hand attracts negativity and embodies a kind of freedom only a few women have access to.  While Ada remains a marginal character, Olivine is central in the story. LESSON 14 Olivine Sondes  Olivine Sondes is a proper lady, initially she is a little girl who is presented almost like a child. A paragon of innocence = angel in the house (who Riddell is not particular liking).  The narrator offers a commentary whenever olivine innocence is on display, she remains a fully moral figure, but the narrator criticizes her, due to an education that for women is not enough (not enough to survive in the world).  According to Riddell, women can cooperate, but they cannot cooperate if they only mean to be dolls.  The criticism is not overtly negative, it questioned the appropriateness the system of education in which Olivine grew up.  Olivine is intended to be the moral center of the novel, an island of purity in the midst of much pollution  the narrator constantly shows us that she is unable to face the complications of life, too harsh for her.  Lawerence and Olivine get married, it is not a happy marriage and Lawrence has an adulterous relation with Etta. Olivine is the ingenue part in the adultery plot, but the narrator pushes her sympathy towards Lawerence, not towards Olivine. Adultery  Adultery is another grey area, another zone of ambiguity towards which Riddell was interested.  Adultery is real and is presented as a plausible outcome of two marriages that were wrong from the beginning. It is also presented as a possibility that is compared to business partnership. You can break a business partnership, as well as a marriage.  The conjunction of adulteration and adultery could be viewed as one further testimony of widespread mid nineteenth-century anxieties about the immorality of commerce invading the domestic realm and adulterating private life (according to Rebecca Stern).  Adultery has to do with individual choices, there is much more reflection around this difficult situation.  TRFW features two heroines (one fair, one dark): Olivine and Henrietta Alwyn (daughter of a wealthy capitalist) = Etta is described as a ‘flirt’, willful woman, Etta belongs to the same typology of female character as Aurora). Lawrence falls in love with her, but she is forced by her father to marry another man. She is used as an exchange object between two men. Filed marriage.  Lawrence turns to Olivine (the angelic domestic woman), when they go to honeymoon, he already has sign of disinterest.  Narratives of marital discontent are frequent in the English fiction, in the novel there is a lot of attention to houses where the characters live. Houses that Riddel likes to describe pretending that they are really located to specifical locations (she also gives real addressed). She insists in representing houses that are disappearing, the domestic sphere appear shaken already before adultery intervenes breaking up the marriage: Riddel encourages he reader to consider the margin of progress as something that destroys to make room to modernity.  The disappearing house is the ideal of domesticity that is quickly losing ground, as testified by the failed-marriage-plot.  The attentions he pays to failure is in relation to business= private failure vs business failure – what kind of rules are truth for each of them? She rejects the separation of the spheres. A marriage can be broken and can fails as well as a business.  This is a tale of instant failure, especially in a scene in which Riddell exposes the feeling of being trapped in what is her wedding.  Comparison: while in business there is a second chance, after marriage you do not have alternatives. => people are modernizing their lives through industrial revolution, and then there is the sphere of domesticity where things are not changing fast as they should. The private sphere is still regulated according to old fashioned notions. The idea of divorce that should not be accorded so easily is not modern, is something that clashes with the modernity of the public sphere. Comment - Just as Lawrence, the adulterator, was deserving the sympathy of the narrator and the reader, so the husband in love with another woman, conscious of his errors, ought not to be condemned. - The other thing that the novel indulges n is the reflection of Lawrence impure desires for Etta. We are constantly in Lawrence’s mind and the comment that goes with it explains adultery ad the result f involuntary passion, of attraction.  his feelings ask for freedom, the freedom to rectify one’s mistake, to dissolve matrimonial partnerships and to modernize the private sphere.  Riddel is writing in a time when divorce is legal, according to the Matrimonial Act of 18657, but even if there was a law very few people accessed to divorce. A lot of family preferred not to, to this legislation id did not correspond a culture that accepted it.  The significance of wedlock as a more or less permanent bond was stronger than anything else. Percy  He is the second businessman, that falls in love with Olivine after Lawrence has started a relationship with Etta.  Percy says to Etta to ask for divorce, Olivine seemed to be convinced to what Percy is suggesting. So, at the end of the novel divorce becomes a possibility, but it is included to LESSON 15 Speculation is one of those themes that generates ambiguous response: there is not a straight response (positive or bad), especially in a novel where food adulteration is not condemned as an illegitimate form of business. Secondly, Riddell defines the competition between Lawrence and Percy = in the case of Lawrence, when the author is describing his productivity, she indulges in the idea that speculation is associated with innovative practices that give chance to the business and push it forward. When Riddell is writing about gambling (mostly equated in Victorian discourse) she used a metaphor, to describe the Race for wealth between Percy and Lawrence, as if to encourage the gambling. As Lawrence becomes more an adulterer and speculator, Percy slowly emerges as the alternative hero: he is steady, he works in a regular business and is in love with Olivine. Lawrence’s risk-taking propensities attract increasing emotional attention. Riddell’s impure style At the level of style also there is the tendency to excess.  Amplified philosophical reflections of life, they coincide with the beginning of each instalment.  Prolonged dialogues: frequent self-referential observations that yank the reader away from the comfort of mimesis.  She uses different registers basing on characters’ characteristics. (a style that mimics the impurity of content).  This is not an indignant novel, contrary to the national mood towards food adulteration. She has a unique vision about adulteration. The novel takes unresolved ambivalence as its starting point, redefining the business sphere of business as intrinsically flawed or inconsistent, framed on the one hand by dishonest but not illegal practices and on the other not condemning them.  The tolerated contamination of right and wrong prevailing in the market does not inspire a didactic tale hinging on the ideal of purity of the domestic sphere.  The attraction of the impure works against the certainties of melodramatic binaries, producing a different sort of realism. ANNIE SOPHIE CORY Anna Lombard (1901) The New Woman Novel The Victorian fin de siècle was an age of tremendous changes, the emergence of new theories and challenges to tradition. Educational and employment prospect of women were improved. It was a time in which the reality of women was changing. There was a new air of sexual freedom, emphasis on the importance of pursuing new sensations lead to sex and sexuality playing an important part in the search for new experiences. Changes in gender identities were not just linked to women, but also involved man: the ‘dandy’ became an accepted view of masculinity. Men were being feminized while women masculinized. Many female novelists wrote negative things about these women. Origins of the term ‘New Woman’: in 1894 Sarah Grand was the first women to use this term. Once this term was in the public sphere, it indicated all new request women were making in order to improve gender balance. The 90’s were the decade of the New Women fiction: es. The Heavenly Twins, The Woman Who Did It, Jude the Obscure. Towards the end there was a change in perception: the ideology stated that women did have not sexual desire, but only for reproduction. But there was a reaction, and many women wrote about their erotic feelings (es. Victoria Cross in this Novel Anna Lombard). The women went from being a total angel of the house to being the sexual predators. Some women writers wrote stories where sexuality is presented as adventurous, and Anna Lombard is an example of celebration of joyous sexuality. Annie Sophie Cory (1868-1952)  Victoria Cross was her pseudonym.  She was born in India and educated in the UK; her father was a major in the Army. The family was a literary family.  In her novels she defends women’s education as fundamental to equality.  Sexual sensationalism is an explicit feature of her fiction, but her life was not scandalous.  She was quite aggressive with publishers, a woman who defended her interests: she has a business-like personality, fiercely independent and used aggressive negotiating tactics. => but she did not hang out in literary circles, she was rather a recluse.  Her first publications were: Theodora and The Woman Who didn’t  both texts evoke New Feminism and Decadence (prevailing cultural formations in the 1890s). Recurrent features and themes  Male narrator: allows her to explore sexual passion in more explicit terms.  Exotic settings: displacement of transgressive behaviors outside of national borders.  Exploration of controversial topics.  Interracial relations (often ignored by contemporary reviewers).  For Cross, India is a sexuality liberating space where educated and adventurous English women seek alternatives to traditional marriage and gender roles.  She is aware of the political and cultural anxieties that interracial relationships would arouse, so she has her own strategy to represent why the attraction, and how is this union (between an Indian man and an English women) is characterized.  Reversal of gender roles  women are the subject of strong desire, male hero associated with virtuous passivity.  Dubious, ambivalent masculinity  Gerald vs Gaida  Emphasis on sexuality  1. Eroticization of Indian environment (the exotic nature is described as sexual overtone) 2. Centrality of the body.  This novel is considered delicate, the writer is audacious but not too much. Anna Lombard (1901)  Anna Lombard sold six million copies, the most widely read novel of its day. It also captures many concerns and preoccupations of the fin de siècle, including sexuality feminism, New Woman and New Men.  The novel is presented as an intellectual achievement, as it makes readers ‘think’ their assumptions, it enables the reader to understand how women feel.  But there is infanticide: why? LESSON 16 Preface  Gerald = Christ  he forgives the sinner, raises the fallen, comforts the weak. He reclaims the pagan and almost lost soul of Anna.  Anna refuses to fix a date for the marriage, Gerald is puzzled. His justification is interesting: he described Anna as an emancipated woman, ahead of her time, she belongs to the next century (=her thoughts are respected)  the legitimation from a male character, is needed in the story, and this is the narrator voice (so the readers are expected to follow the narrator’s judgments).  Anna is presented in the text only indirectly, through Gerald’s words  since it was Gerald who provides Anna’s point of view, this had to be accepted by the audience. And this has an effect => differences appear admirable, rather than questionable. Anna never has to clash against harsh judgment.  Gerald compares Anna to figures of strong women in history, also controversial, like Caterina Sforza (notorious and evil woman)  this comparison is ambivalent.  Anna has doubts about being associated to this evil woman, but Gerald says the good traits are more than the evil ones, is instructing Anna on how to valorize and appreciate her strength and courage.  At the end of the story, Anna herself will commit suicide, so the association will become not so distant to the character of Anna.  Gerald is idealizing the object of his love  the whole tableau is presented as a male fantasy. Chapter 4  Gerald discovers Anna is secretly married with an Indian servant, she has accepted Gerald’s proposal knowing she has a union with an Indian servant  he witnesses Anna’s encounter with the Indian servant in Anna’s bedroom. (full voyeuristic understanding)  Gerald suffers because he has to witness a sexual encounter, and he hears by their voice the intense passions and vibrations. He goes mad with jealousy, but he does not go mad, he is not violent.  Gerald imagines Anna had been speaking with a child, and that he imagined everything. So, he confronts himself with Anna, she explains very honestly her irresistible passions towards this man. These passions drive her, and because she is a woman, and respectable, she does not only have sex with the servant, but she marries him. (interracial marriages were discouraged) => The transgression here is mostly the union with an Indian servant and the fair English lady.  When she first speak in the novel, she speaks the language of carnal love (she speaks in Indian during her encounter). She is represented as a woman perfectly understandable of her desires.  All of this is very transgressive for the 19th century standards of decorum: she is not only admitting to having strong sexual desires, but she has also chosen to satisfy them with a native.  The Indian Gaita is turned into a sexual object, so in a way Anna is exploiting the male Indian body, differently from Gerald who did not exploit the body of the girl.  Anna explains ‘there are different kind of love’. ‘Gaida is a beautiful toy to me’.  Anna is the imperialistic exploiter. (New Woman but also upholds the negative values of the empire) => GENDER ROLE REVERSAL.  The question of race is central in the novel, the fact that she marries him is controversial.  Shen Anna speaks of Gaida, she speaks harshly and underlines her sense of superiority. Sentimental education How the structure of the narrative induces readers to understand the perspective of Anna and of the narrator. The reader has to be educated to accept different gender roles. Cross presents Anna with an unconventional woman, with unconventional thoughts and choices. The narrative frame that we have analyzed is an important component with which Anna’s actions are presented. We know that the perspective from which we receive the narrative is Gerald’s, and there is an intern focalization on Gerald, who adjusts himself to accept Anna’s actions. The novel has an intense focus on the processes of adjustment, what mental processes he goes through so that he does not kick her away  That’s the kind of education the reader is offering to the reader, to instruct the reader of becoming more acceptable towards unconventionality, providing him with a new sentimental education. In this experiment she has a woman acting like a man, and the man has to find ways to deal with this unconventional situation. The structure of the novel is important= without the narrative frame, Anna maybe would not be allowed to act like this, without s frame tat mediated with Anna’s actions. It challenges readers to develop a different understanding and become New Man and New Women. The focus on Gerald’s thoughts allows the narrative to show change in the making, as Gerald embraces different way of thinking. He is proud of being different from the mass, he is proud of his unconventional morality. He also not does what other would have done, to imprison or kill the servant. In this process, Gerald turns himself into the champion of self-sacrifice. LESSON 17 Gerald’s position in two different cultures: English and Indian. The mix of Indian culture, that portray women who are involved in more than one relationship (indigenous culture provides examples of different gender relations es. the divinity Draupadi). This exercise in comparative analysis allows Gerald to be more accepting about what Anna is doing and to justify her. However, Gerald is not only interested in Indian culture, but he is also aware of how horrifying interracial unions were to his contemporaries. So, Gerald is trying to be sensitive to indigenous culture, but he remains attached to British view of the Indian natives as a physical danger because of their spirit of revenge (prejudices come back even in Gerald’s view). This novel is always balancing old racial prejudices and the kind of new understanding on new gender relations and the role of comparing different cultures. On the one hand Indian culture represents a legitimation, on the other hand Indian themselves are always described as an inferior race, lacking moral sense, and being guided by passions and instincts.  but WE notice this, the novel does not. Gerald does not consider this a contradiction, nor did the first readers of the novel. The physical description of Gaida, who is the object of sexual attraction of the woman. We have a full description of Gaida; the narrator emphasizes his physical attraction. (“he is like a king coming to audience”, “he seemed a superhuman”, “the face was of the Greek type in the absolute oval of its contour”). This character is at the same time pure, he is set apart from ordinary humans, his beauty is unlike from ordinary humans, is in line with classical standards. He seems a work of art, he exerts a powerful ‘magic’, which makes Anna a sort of victim. Against this magic, even Gerald is powerless. This description of force which Gaida embodies, absolves Anna from the ‘sin’ of giving in to temptation. She was helpless.  sexual desire is presented as a woman’s prerogative, but the novel constructs an apparatus of justification that turns Anna’s will into a paradoxical form pf passivity. Because this unconventional stuff is represented in a delicate way, it is more acceptable for readers. This emphasis on dual love is a striking admission, which now becomes credible after a long description of Gaida’s superhumanity. Chapter 5  Is devoted to the narration of the ‘great fete’ which shows where English man pass their time when not in service.  It is a sanctioned form of sociality, Gerald is critical to this type of entertainment, as if it might bring to a delightful social and friendly intercourse (in fact, the Indian are not guest of the party, they are confined in the gardens, only whites are allowed in the party and the Indian are not served any food).