Of Victorian Literature....

The frivolous nature in which George Eliot has given over to her rendering of childhood is an appreciable fact. However for her to have rambled on for pages and pages together on the same is quite scandalous to her readers, specially when we are certain of her remaining childless. As a student, I still can at parts relate to her scenes of childhood, ofcourse perfectly relating to The Mill on the Floss is quite impossible unless one is a protagonist therein. The Novel is a fictional account rooted in reality and is very autobiographical in nature, and she can thus go on and on and on with her feelings as a spurned sister and daughter. Being dutiful in the Victorian era was all that was required of a woman, being dutiful thus meant going to church, marrying respectably and having no opinion of ones own what so ever. Society has come a long way from this, thank the fore mothers!! and the suffragettes.

Coming back to the nature of childhood in The Mill on the Floss, is it really as generalized a scene of childhood, as one perceives it to be? Certainly, for Maggie Tulliver to so unconditionally love so unworthy a brother, is as good as Louisa's affectation for Tom Gradgrind, and he is ,bluntly put, despicable. Very ironically i could also conjecture that Maggie's brother is also named Tom, the same as the villainous robber in Hard Times. Before I draw censure on such views i would ask for some patience in reading the rest of this.

Now Two novels can hardly be ratified into a common consensus, but then the generalization i refer to is quite a nomenclature for the scenes of Childhood found in these two samplings of Victorian Literature. For in both cases the sisters are induced by the author to irrationally love a foolish brother, Tulliver a narrow minded stickler for bygone principles and Gradgrind a thief by all accounts. Though Dickens would find it beyond his art to put it in such a way as George Eliot has elucidated, he too claims the duty of the sister in unconditionally loving their brother. The only saving grace is that he is far from rambling on, on just one thread.

Having said this let me now bring in my defense of why and what is it that really annoys me! enter Jane Austen with Pride and Prejudice, and Charlotte Bronte with Jane Eyre. With Austen it is an obsession to get married, considering that she did not get married, so much more the pity. Before coming to Charlotte Bronte I'd like to explain its connection to The Mill on The Floss, Jane Austen refused to Marry rich Harris Bigg-Wither, and moved in with her brother Frank on the death of her father, in Southhampton. Later on she lived on the graces of another brother, Edward at his cottage. By this I hope you have drawn the same links as i have.

Dickens I admire (and this should make my stance very clear) because he has reversed this prodigious economic dependence on brothers in his novel Hard Times. Tom is in fact dependent on Louisa for keeping him in luxury and lethargy. However, her marriage is the means for this dependence. Which again brings me to an irksome point, which I hope will be clear by the end of this, arrived at after a reference to Jane Eyre. the Principle protagonist, the namesake of the novel, Jane Eyre herself, defies the conventions of Victorian Society. Having no family to speak off, she can not take the alternate route all the other women barring that in Hard Times, do (seeking support from a brother). She seeks her own maintenance, through the role of a governess. But eventually in a very sadistically romantic way she is returned to the conformity of Victorian women, the male dependence. Rochester plays out this shelter in Jane Eyre and validates the inferior status appropriated to women. Lastly I came to the last female writer of the Victorian era included in our syllabi, namely Christina Rossetti.

The Goblin Market is a poem celebrating sisterhood, thus circumventing for almost its entire course male dominance, I said 'almost' because just when you thought here is a woman author who is unafraid of societal disdain and had the balls, so to speak, in giving her female protagonists complete authority. The last stanza abruptly brings us to the scene where Laura and Lizzie are MARRIED!!! My irritation now should be very clear. All that is left is to pose a question that annoys me no end.

Why are we studying literature that is called feminist when clearly It appears differently!!! Marriage is the only way out for the Miss Bennets, Miss Eyre, Laura and Lizzie (who I am severely disappointed in) Miss Gradgrind (the only saving grace here for she breaks away from a foolish marriage, thus Dickens is my hero). While Maggie Tulliver is 'drownded' as the novel prophesies through the ominous Mrs Tulliver. There is no Independent Way out!! Even Louisa is eventually dependent on her father.

Lastly I am aware of the circumstances with respect to Educational opportunity women in the Victorian Age were permitted, thus enforcing their dependence. Whom so ever permits this as an argument against my observations, to them I Would only address a referral to the concise life histories of Each of the Authors ( you can look up wikipedia for this purpose), barring Dickens for reasons simple as him not being as embroiled in feminism as the remainder I have mentioned, are. Going into that myself would take up too much of your time, but if you have reached the end of this dear reader, I sincerely Thank you for your forbearance and patience.