Dickens

Charles Dickens May 2, 2007 [Title] The Victorian Era produced one of the most interesting literary concepts, the image of the fallen woman. Victorian writing depicts the fallen woman as a mute, enigmatic icon. In the eyes of Victorians, female pre-marital sexual experience was a precursor to ruin and prostitution. Men’s sexual activity was inevitable and understood, while the ideal woman had to be asexual and domesticated. This difference between the Victorian man and woman was not simply a sexual one, but echoed the active and passive roles they assumed in every sphere of life. Dinah Craik explains this approach in his work entitled “A Woman's Thoughts About Women,” stating, “The difference between man's vocation and woman's seems naturally to be this — one is abroad, the other at home: one external, the other internal: one active, the other passive. He has to go and seek out his path; hers usually lies close under her feet” (7). This image of the fallen woman is prominent in the works of Charles Dickens, who at times broke from the conventional image to present a more sympathetic view, as in David Copperfield, yet also in Oliver Twist resorted to the negative portrayal. To understand the role of the fallen woman in Dickens’ work, one must first consider the development and nature of the popular competing images of the idealized woman versus the fallen women, and then compare the different manifestations of the fallen woman within the works of Dickens. In Victorian Britain, the images of both the idealized woman and the fallen woman arose from a communal view of the role of women, which was shaped not only by cultural norms, but also by legal standards that codified her subordinate status. Essentially, Victorian women were second-class citizens. They had few legal rights and almost no political rights. By law, a married woman was the property of her husband, and her possessions, even her children, belonged to her husband (Auerbach 27). Before 1857, divorce was nearly impossible – only ten occurred each year – and even when, divorce legislation was passed in 1857, a man could divorce his wife for adultery, but a woman could only divorce if adultery was accompanied by cruelty (Woodhouse 260). No notion of the “no-fault” divorce yet existed, leaving most failed couples bound together, with the woman least able to escape. These legal divisions helped form the idealized image of women, which was influenced by the Christian Bible, as in Ephesians 5:22: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife.” Many then believed that men and women are born to fulfill different roles: men to command, and women to obey men and bear and raise their children. These divisions were made more palatable to both genders by the idealization of respectable Victorian women. One such common image is the myth of the “angel in the house,” named after an 1854 poem by Coventry Patmore, which portrays women as innocent creatures who need male protection; the best form of protection is confinement in a solid, middle-class home (Auerbach 52). Along with the concept of the “angel in the house” is the notion of “separate spheres,” where men deal with public business, women with private (James 55). Women's sphere of action is moral, while that of men is material. Women inhabit their own worlds where they nurture the nation's values. Women are not just housekeepers, but embodiments of pure virtue, humble and submissive. In the Victorian era, femininity did not define itself by sexual pleasure; however, the ideal of Victorian masculinity was defined by sexual pleasure and conquest. For Victorian women, sexuality was not a shared act of pleasure, it was an obligation. While sexuality today can serve many roles such as intimacy, pleasure, and procreation, the Victorian wife’s sexual role was solely to provide legitimate procreation. Contrastingly, respectable society viewed that prostitutes were sexually intimate with men because they enjoyed sex. However, prostitutes did not necessarily “enjoy” their sexual encounters with men, as many tended to believe. For most, prostitution was their only means of survival. Lower-class women had few options when it came to earning a living, and once she entered the profession, the Victorian public did not allow her back into “respectable” society. Indeed, prostitution arose as a new type of “slavery” during the Victorian era. “Respectable” men and women would lure young women, usually from a lower-class background, away from their homes and sell them into prostitution (Landow). Even on the off chance that a young woman escaped her “bondage,” she was not welcome back into her family with open arms. She was an outcast because she was “damaged goods.” Most of the these young girls were not welcomed back into society because they were perceived to no longer be of value. In most classes, the goal of a young Victorian woman was marriage; marriage not only benefited the woman, but also her family. However, if a family had several daughters and one was “ruined,” the reputation of the other daughters would be tarnished as well. Unfortunately, there was little help for these young girls or any other prostitute. Married men sought out partners in the anonymity of the teeming metropolis of London, which led to a large increase in prostitution and unsanctioned sexual relationships. Dickens and other writers associated prostitution with the mechanization and industrialization of modern life, portraying prostitutes as human commodities consumed and thrown away like refuse when they were no longer profitable (Langbauer). In this climate of both legally restricted sexuality and pervasive prostitution, the archetype of the Victorian fallen woman took firm root. This image is chiefly derived from John Milton’s depiction of Eve in Paradise Lost (Auerbach 29). Based on traditional Christian notions of woman as the daughter of Eve, the idea of the “fallen woman” states that women are innately prone to corruption. Victorian society creates a rigid separation between pure, ideal women and immoral women. Many Victorian male writers liken the image of society in ruin to the fallen woman. Some, such as Sir Alfred Lord Tennyson, portray these women as sinister and manipulative (30). However, in Charles Dickens’ novel David Copperfield, he paints a different portrait of these women as poor creatures who are not the enemy of society. Dickens’ depictions of women, both ideal and fallen, frequently taken from his personal experience. He was involved in philanthropy, including the Urania Cottage, which was a rescue home for recovering prostitutes. In May 1846, a woman named Angela Burdett-Coutts approached Dickens regarding setting up a home for the redemption of prostitutes (Perdue 27). Coutts was a deeply religious woman whose religious beliefs, like those of Dickens, were expressed in a practical way. She had become extraordinarily wealthy unexpectedly and her family background with its radical traditions “had prepared her for a pragmatic approach to using her fortune for the good” (32). Together, Coutts and Dickens planned a safe haven that would offer a new, more compassionate approach to the treatment of fallen women. Other organizations, such as the Magdelen Society, were harsh and unsympathetic to these women (34). While the Magdalen Society had “aided” prostitutes since the mid-eighteenth century, the years between 1848 and 1870 saw a considerable increase in the number of institutions wishing to “reclaim” these so-called fallen women from the streets and retrain them for entry into respectable society, usually for work as domestic servants (35). By this time, the prevelance of both prositution and efforts to combat it had made the theme of prostitution and the fallen woman a staple feature of mid-Victorian literature and politics. The women who entered in and out of the Uriana Cottage could easily have been the inspiration for Nancy's sad resignation to her fate in Oliver Twist, or Little Em'ly's passive shame in David Copperfield. However, Dickens, unlike his contemporaries, chooses to allow some of these fallen women to redeem themselves. He differs from many of his contemporaries because, since he was not of the same social rankings, his lack of higher class gave him a more privileged vantage point outside the social hierarchy. In some works, Dickens rejects the simple stereotypical image of the fallen woman as a woman who was abandoned, shunned, and painfully aware of her own culpability. Victorians expected such a woman to behave as if she were ashamed and profoundly unhappy. The deep-rooted abhorrence of such deviant behavior, especially in a culture that idealized sexually passive female behavior, was widely felt. Yet in David Copperfield, when Little Em’ly and Martha embark on a new life in Australia, these women are able to be reborn, so it seems, without sin or shame. Despite Martha’s own desire to die, Dickens chooses to go against typical Victorian standards and allows her to save herself. Through her own admittance of guilt and her active role in finding Little Em'ly, Martha is welcomed back into the good graces of the Peggotty family; because of the Peggottys, Martha is redeemed. She accompanies the family to Australia and eventually leaves them to marry and set up her own household, albeit, “four hunded mile away from any voices but their own” (Dickens 738). Martha Endell, a minor, but vital character in David Copperfield, is not tempted and tricked into sin as Em'ly is. Through Martha, Dickens explores the concept of moral weakness which leads to a fallen state; a subject of great interest in a society that believed in the natural moral superiority of women. Martha, the “shadow,” that follows and haunts Em'ly has simply, “gone wrong.” Martha begs Em'ly to help her get to London. The reaction of the Peggotty family, in some ways the moral measure of this novel, is sympathetic but shows their repugnance to Martha's fall. The illustration shows the weeping and un-bonneted Martha at a distance from the others, alone. Her unkempt appearance is a signifier to the reader that here was a young woman with no regard for social mores. The Peggotty's reaction shows their inherent and naive moral superiority, both to other characters in the novel and possibly also the reader. They will help but cannot accept her. Ham says of Martha, “It's a young woman, sir — a young woman that Em'ly knowed once, and doesn't ought to know no more” (Dickens 288). Em'ly says prophetically that she herself is, “not as good a girl as I ought to be,” and begs the others to help Martha who, as she says, “will try to do well" in London. The cause then, of Martha Endell's fall, is her own moral weakness. Although at a first reading it may seem that Dickens intends to deal more harshly with Martha in response to her deviance as the plot unfolds the reader realizes that redemption is possible, even for Martha. In a society that felt that women were the guardians of morality, Martha's deviance is doubly shocking. Her unhappiness seems only right and proper and Dickens' readers would have expected it. Dickens uses Martha to explore the idea of moral culpability, which leads to a fallen state; a subject of great interest in a society that believed in the natural moral superiority of women. Martha though, is saved, possibly to the surprise of contemporary readers but perfectly in tune with Dickens' pragmatic approach to his Urania Cottage inmates. This positive image of the fallen women in David Copperfield was one that Dickens wished for all the occupants of Uriana Cottage. In a letter to Angela Burdett-Coutts, Dickens wrote, “the Government would assist you to the extent of informing you from time to time into what distant parts of the world women could be sent for marriage, with the greatest hope for their future families” (Engel). Though Dickens expressed such good will, and may have shown some mercy on these fallen women in some of his writings, he does not entirely allow fallen women to escape censure, despite depicting them as characters worthy of sympathy. Like Dickens, the writings of individuals such as Henry Mayhew and Charles Booth began to open people’s eyes to realize that prostitution was in fact a social problem rather than just a normal, inevitable facet of urban life. Peter Ackroyd, Dickens most recent biographer, states, “Dickens sympathized most readily with prostitutes. He is reported to have said that, ‘he was sure God looked leniently on all vice that proceeded from human tenderness and natural passion’ ” (537). However, it appears that, for the most part, Dickens suppressed his sympathies greatly when dealing with the fallen women in his novels. Dickens expressed his compassion towards the inhabitants of Urania Cottage in a more practical and pragmatic manner. While Critic Edmund Wilson observes how Dickens was unable to “get the good and bad together in one character,” perhaps Dickens uses these exaggerations to demonstrate the social injustices among class (27). Charles Dickens, similar to Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, gained much material from his intimate interactions with the lower classes of society. Dickens did not avoid the subject of the fallen woman in his own writing; he explored the problem in his novels, his letters, and his prose work illustrating a diverse and complex approach to both its causes and treatment. Typically, in his time, if women were passive sexually then prostitutes must be deviant, corrupted either by their own waywardness or by the immoral advances of men. Whatever the case may be, these women deserved to be spurned and derided, if only to discourage others from following a similar path. In his novel Oliver Twist, Dickens provides the reader with the typical Victorian notion that fallen women are unable to be redeemed. Nancy, the prostitute in Oliver Twist, meets a bloody end at the hands of Bill Sikes. The description of Nancy's death is particularly vivid, perhaps as a reprimand to any reader still unsympathetic to Nancy: “he had struck and struck again [. . .] there was the body -- mere flesh and blood, no more -- but such flesh and so much blood” (Dickens 353)! Before Nancy's death she was offered a sanctuary by Rose Maylie and Mr. Brown, “a quiet asylum, either in England, or, if you fear to remain here, in some foreign country” (353). Nancy's refusal to accept salvation reflects the difficulty experienced by many; to be “saved” so often meant separation from every known thing. Dickens appears to accept the reader's view of her life as irredeemable; the fallen woman in fiction would commonly die, often at her own hand, as a result of her crime. Nancy appeals to Rose Maylie's sympathy, asking, “Look at that dark water. How many times do you read of such as I who spring into the tide” (354). A similar scene is echoed in David Copperfield when Martha is on the brink of the Thames: “I know it's like me!” she exclaimed, “I know that I belong to it. I know that it's the natural company of such as I am! It comes from the country places, where there was once no harm in it -- and it creeps through the dismal streets, defiled and miserable -- and it goes away' like my life to a great sea, that is always troubled -- and I feel that I must go with it” (582)!The fate of the fallen women in these two novels then, with the exception of Martha, is in keeping with the stereotypical fallen woman the Victorians expected. Abandoned, shunned and painfully aware of her own culpability; Victorians expected such a woman to behave as if ashamed and deeply unhappy. Even when Dickens’ fallen women are depicted as sympathetic characters, they still must suffer punishment for their indiscretions. As Victorian society gained a more insightful view of women, the archetype of the fallen woman began to dissipate. The views of society shifted, partly due to the portrayal of these women in popular literature. Dickens’ works grow with the enlightenment of society. His earlier work, Oliver Twist, portrays Nancy as a “ruined” woman, while in one of his latest works, David Copperfield, the two morally wounded characters, Martha and Little Em’ly, are redeemed in the end. As the condemnation of society lessened in this period, reducing the dramatic infamy of sexual indiscretion, writers such as Dickens could explore women's behavior in more nuanced approaches than the stark dichotomy of the ideal woman and the fallen woman.