English Literature: The Novel Essay

The depiction of a charhood as an emancipated slave has been traditional to prissy literary period. Numerous romances and literary works were written in the form of a womanhoodly sex activity scream, which did no. compound a womans assign in the then edict, only when on the contrary, confirmed the unever-changing hearty prejudices towards wo manpower. sexual practice identities and the related complaisant issues chip in hold up the central elements of the two novels Eliza Haywoods Fantomina and Wilkie collinss The adult fe staminate in snow-c all all overed.The two novels have shown that the tender mental synthesis of the priggish societal club did non kick down distributively blank for free grammatical construction of the maidenlike sexual activity identicalness. Moreover, by overlap the cut backaries of the separate behaviour, women did not revive their pistillate sexuality personal identity, but doomed themselves to social and weird failu re. The two novels discuss the fe staminate prominence in the view of social threats, which usually appe ard in the form of gender prejudices, norms, and gender threats. No matter, what a woman could be, The Woman in albumen and Fantomina jump the irresistible fe staminate nervous strain towards self-identification.It seems that both collins and Haywood show, how women of the puritanical ordination were difficult to preserve their inner world, the female identity, and their female face, steady when that face had to be hidden infra mask masks. with the use of masquerade and deception, many of Haywoods characters freely give up their virtue, part others hold strong to it, making them beed and subject to greater consequences. Self-identification and masquerade initially seem the two incompatible elements. However, much(prenominal)(prenominal) combination makes the female struggle for their self-identification even more arduous and vexationful.The puritanical orderin g puts a woman in a pip, in which masquerade serves the best rescuer from the pressured reality the reality pressured by norms, prejudices, and increase male domination. Among the middle classes, patterns of employment, with the increasing legal separation of home and working environment, and the rise of commuting, unneurotic with the consolidation of the assumption that a male head of a household should be able to provide for the female members of his family, without them having to defer paid work, contributed to the establishment of clearly demarcated void time and space for both women and men (Flint 2001, 19)However, while male dominance and male financial favorable do gave men luxuriant freedom and capable space for exercising their leisure cravings, women were totally deprived of such(prenominal) freedom rights. The Woman in White and Fantomina are the two stories of what a Womans patience bunghole pull through, and what a Mans resolution can achieve. The insuf ferable strength of the female character, imagination, and ingeniousness strike the indorser. The masquerade and the male desire to deprive a woman of the already woolly identity mystifys a manifestation for the contemporary reader.The use of masquerade, deception, pain, and suffering addresss a woman to the situation, when she is no longer able to distinguish the truth from lies, but where she continues thought-provoking gender and social hierarchies. The narrative space presents a struggle for authority that in the end reaffirms the social and institutional placement quo. Those individuals who threaten and transgress conventional boundaries of law, narrative, and gender are punished. On the one hand, such striving to re-affirm social female authority does not lead to any positive consequences.On the other hand, women in prudish novels exhibit their preoccupation with their real social position and the opportunities they possess to change this position. She no before heard he unexpended the Town, than making Pretence to her Aunt, that she was going to visit a relation in the Country, went towards lav, attended by two Servants, who she found Reasons to quarrel with on the Road and dischargd Clothing herself in a Habit she had brought with her, she forsook the Coach, and went into a Waggon, in which Equip season she arrivd at Bath (Haywood 2004, 65)The two novels re-affirm the discussed struggle for authority in the two different forms while Fantomina uses masquerade as the means to confirm her superiority over Beauplaisir, Collinss woman herself receives the victim of such masquerading male ambitions What had I done? Assisted the victim of the to the highest degree horrible of all false imprisonments to shunning or case loose on the wide world of London an unfortunate creature, whose actions it was my duty, and e very(prenominal)(prenominal) mans duty, merci fully to control? This scream of conscience has real become the expression of the unfortunate and unbearable social position of a woman. To mercifully control that was the task of the Victorian society in terms of every woman. antique traditions have led the women of the Victorian age to the most false and horrible imprisonments which a society could create that imprisonment appeared in the form of societal dominance over female identity in general, and over the behaviour of separate married and exclusive women, in particular.Although Eliza Haywood implies that unmarried women are especially vulnerable to societal attitudes towards them, Wilkie Collins refutes this intellection and shows that a married woman is very likely to lose her spiritual authenticity under the pressure of male preponderating influence. blush despite the never-ending dash to gender freedom, women in these two novels face the wall of misunder cornerstoneing and never changing social attitudes. It seems that by reading both novels, we create an objective picture of what a woman could be in Victorian society.A woman could every call for the path track of social struggle, or to become a victim of this struggle surrounded by men. It seems that both authors were trying to reassure their readers in that the depict events and the described gender struggles had slide fastener to do with their Victorian reality. By fleshy their women for what they wanted to achieve, Haywood and Collins tried to come down the significance of their writing, and to show the prevalence of social identity over personal feelings and thoughts of women. masquerade and unrestrainedness these are the two uniform lines, which Haywood and Collins exercise to enkindle their righteousness, and not to be blamed for being as well as open with their readers. Madness and masquerade these alike lines lead women to their ultimate moral and spiritual failure, which re-defines their social position and shows that any mad desire to break social norms cannot lead to anything full(a). The rifled c harms of Fantomina briefly lost their Poignancy, and grew unflavored and insipid and when the Season of the Year inviting the keep company to the Bath, she offerd to accompany him, he made an Excuse to go without her. Fantominas masquerading attempts and plans ultimately lead her to losing her virtue, but she acquires a new feeling of something inevitable in her life. Masquerade for Fantomina becomes a double failure, expressed in continued block out which gradually becomes insipid, and in awarding Fantomina with Child. The masquerade has not certainly been the best solution to harbor Fantomina from losing her identity, although in many instances, such masquerade has been the only means to be herself.Byrd writes that The racy could not go on ever, because it began with deceit. peradventure if the heroine had seduced Beauplaisir under different circumstances with her esteem and virtue still in tact, they would have been able to live happily under the confines of marriage. (738) However, in this surviveage Byrd either lies to herself, or appears extremely subjective in her judgments. First of all, Fantomina had no other carriage but to initiate her love combat with Beauplaisir through deceit.Victorian society did not forgive freedom of behaviour and gender expression by unmarried women. Second, although Haywood implies that aline love cannot be founded on disguise and lies, the society did not give Fantomina any other relegate to conquer Beauplaisir. Third, by suggesting that a marriage could become a glorious opportunity for Fantomina, Byrd initially denies the permanent consequences a marriage could bring to a woman, as in case with Collins The Woman in White. Marriage, about which Byrd writes, in Collins plot serves the role of managing womens minds who in different ways stand as figures of deviance and transgression and in doing so, it offers to Collinss more conventional readers a reassuring reestablishment of the social mark and womans place in spite of appearance it. What has Marian achieved by writing to Lauras lawyer to inform about Persivals and Foscos plot? What has Marian achieved by taking over the partially masculine features of being less passive, more mobile, and importantly more decisive in her actions?The reader may ap judge her for holding sufficient courage to fight against the societal circumstances, but the reality proves the opposite. Although Marian is confident that Lauras life itself might depend on her quick ears and faithful memory , the Victorian society does not give Marian a reliable chance to prove her abilities and the right to exercise her gender identity to the fullest. Her diary (a textual expression) and her body and consciousness (spiritual expression) are severely punished as soon as she leaves her home and transgresses the boundaries of the earmark behaviour. Marians behaviour and free strivings again and again re-affirm the position which Haywood took in her Fantomina, and w hich Collins was initially trying to relieve oneself in his The Woman in White. Victorian society does not forgive such trespassing. The punishment for recess the boundaries of the socially appropriate behaviour may take various(a) forms, from false asylum imprisonment, to pregnancy or illness. Marians eyes become large and wild, and looking at me with a strange terror in them pain and fear and grief written on her as with a brand. In the unprovoked of Victorian orthodox traditions of gender identity, Marian may appear an unwomanly woman. Even when the sound of pens mark is replaced by the sound of dress rustling, the society does not grant Marian with feminine identity anymore. It becomes evident that as soon as a woman dares to pass the limits of the usual female behaviour she is forever tied to new stereotypes, and has no chance to return to her previous realities.Simultaneously, none of the women described by Haywood and Collins displays any push aside desire to again bec ome zipper but a woman, condemned to patience, propriety, and petticoats for life. Conclusion Collins ends his novel with the spirit of a good woman which Marion represents. Her painful transformation asserts the status quo of Victorian gender traditions, and the social failing of a woman who decides to break them. It is very probable, that both Collins and Haywood display a growing concern of what a woman could be if a man left her to act as the pleased. Collins and Haywood plainly fail to lead their women to the victory of their gender identities, and seem to choose another way as soon as each of the female characters reaches the middle of the bridge. two novels start with the encouraging desire to prove that society is tragically and disastrously persecute in depriving women of their social and spiritual identity. both show female strength and courage in the face of the threats, which the Victorian society could pose on them. The novels reflect a similarkind of tension am ong an identification with transgressive figures who challenge social conventions and a distinct uneasiness about the full economic and legal empowerment of those stout women who so attracted men. (Byrd 1997, 737) With the development of each novels plot, both authors become explicitly troubled with what consequences the freedom of female identity can cause. Certainly, Collins and Haywood have succeeded in depicting their women as pressured by the orthogonal and unnecessary societal norms.Simultaneously, they have created an word-painting of the inevitability of social punishment for breaking the boundaries of the appropriate social norms. By reading both novels, the reader acquires full grounds of what a woman had to experience and to endure under the pressure of Victorian male dominance. Despite the fact, that Haywood initially judges and sympathises with the social position of an unmarried woman, the life of a married woman in Collins view appears no better than that of Fant omina, who has lost her virtue before being bound by any socially meaty marriage ties.Both authors have successfully shown the inevitable inequality of social position between men and women in Victorian era Laura, Marian, and Fantomina are the three victims of profuse societal control over their full-strength female identities.BIBLIOGRAPHYByrd, A. Eliza Haywood The Rise of the Woman Novelist and Her chemical reaction to Feminine Desire Through the make believe of the Masquerade. The ripe linguistic process Review 92, no. 3 (1997) 734-39. Collins, W. The Woman in White. Oxford orbs Classics. Oxford Paperbacks, 1998. Craft, Catherine A.Reworking Male Models Aphra Behns modal(a) Vow-Breaker, Eliza Haywoods Fantomina, and Charlotte Lennoxs Female Quixote. The Modern Language Review 86, no. 4 (1991) 821-38. Flint, K. The Victorian Novel and Its Readers. In D. Deirdre ed. , 17-36. The Cambridge assistant to the Victorian Novel, Cambridge CUP, 2001. Gaylin, A. The Madwoman Outs ide the Attic Eavesdropping and taradiddle Agency in The Woman in White (Critical essay). Texas Studies in Literature and Language 43, no. 2 (2001) 304-33. Haywood, E. Fantomina and other works. Broadview cabal Ltd, Canada, 2004.