Explore how one of the stereotypes we have studied on this course (e.g. the fallen woman, or the self-made man) is represented in one or more texts.
Fallen Women is a Victorian concept to address women who had sex outside of marriage. It was considered an immoral act because women were taught that giving in for their sexual desires was a sign of weakness, and only those who were strong enough to repress them could create a good morally influenced household. Women who challenged this mentality by engaging in sexual relationships or working as prostitutes were considered a threat and excluded from society. These two were closely linked, since many times, sexually active girls would get pregnant and after been repudiated by their families and forced to survive by themselves, they were obliged to become prostitutes- the only possible way for a woman in the Victorian period to obtain money. Thanks to the reports of the Foundling Hospital, an institution that took care of out of marriage babies, it is known that the most frequent cause of these pregnancies was rape and assault; women who had been drugged, raped and later abandoned by the father.[footnoteRef:0] This essay explores the stereotype of Fallen Woman in Victorian poetry and how it is represented in the poems of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Jenny[footnoteRef:1], Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market[footnoteRef:2] and Augusta Webster’s A Castaway[footnoteRef:3]. Firstly, it discusses the representation of Jenny, a Fallen Woman who by representing her as a lovable woman is given a broader identity than of a prostitute. Secondly, it examines the victim role of Goblin Market’s Fallen Woman through the manipulative nature of the goblins and Laura’s final redemption. Lastly, it analyses the strong and assertive Fallen Woman of A Castaway through the feminist monologue of Eulalie which denounces patriarchy as the root of prostitution, to finally argue, that the Fallen Woman, overall, is depicted as the consequence of not only the woman’s decisions but also of the society who pushes and engages with it. [0: ] [1: ] [2: ] [3: ]
In Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Jenni, the Fallen Woman is portrayed just as a profession, not as the whole identity of the woman. The narrator is one of the characters and his monologue occupies the whole story. In his monologue, he gives a broad depiction of Jenni and her life which makes Jenny a complex character in the eyes of the reader. This facilitates the understanding of Jenny’s circumstances instead of straightforwardly judging her for working as a prostitute. The mention of Jenny's dreams and childhood are key to make her character more complex. The speaker is trying to tap into her unconsciousness by trying to interpret her dream of living a life of economic abundance: ‘Perhaps the subject of your dreams, / These golden coins’ (lines 341-342). Even if he can not know what is going on in her mind due to her sleep, he is interested in knowing and is trying to understand her better. The speaker also explains how Jenny used to live in the land when she was a child, and how her innocence made her wonder about the city:
When she would lie in fields and look
Along the ground through the blown grass,
And wonder where the city was. (Gabriel Rossetti, 130-132)
That innocence is lost when she arrives in the city years later because she was forced to enter into prostitution out of necessity; the city's wealth ends up being something just to look at: ‘When, wealth and health slipped past, you stare/Along the streets alone’(lines 149-150). By talking about her past and her unpleasant welcome to the city, the speaker acknowledges that lack of resources was what pushed Jenny into prostitution, not her immorality. It shows that as a human being she has a history, and her identity goes beyond the limits of a Fallen Woman.
It is this sympathy towards her, the vocabulary he uses to describe her ‘fair Jenny mine’ (line 7) and ‘fresh flower’ (line 12) and his resentment towards other male customers which point out that the speaker has feelings for Jenny:
But most from the hatefulness of man
Who spares not to end what he began,
Whose acts are ill and his speech ill,
Who, having used you at his will,
Thrusts you aside. (Gabriel Rossetti, 83-86)
His fondness and sympathy towards her reinforces the idea that Jenny is not just portrayed as an immoral woman, but also as a lovable woman. In addition, the speaker describes Jenny as a rose shut in the book. Amanda Anderson argues that Jenny's comparative to as a rose depicts her as a contaminating power. ‘the rose represents the crushed 'flower within the soul'; the book, at least initially, is the corrupting medium. It becomes impossible to apprehend the pure woman as a reader without reading her as compromised. Here, it is reading itself that corrupts, and the pure woman is defined against such a possibility only through the defensive gesture of prohibition.’[footnoteRef:4] In other words, the dirty morality behind prostitution or all sex out of marriage is a contagious trait that risks the pure morals of all respectable ladies. However, roses symbolise not only beauty but also love and romance. Moreover, when a rose is kept shut in a book and is protected from the air, it does not get damaged. The same way, Jenny would maintain the beauty of her persona, by keeping her away from the socially approved women and their conventionalist influence. This reinforces the speaker’s feelings for Jenny and her portrayal as a woman, not just as a Fallen woman. [4: ]
Robin Sheets disagrees with this argument by defending a pornographic interpretation of Jenny. He defends that Jenny is a pornographic story where Jenny’s only role is to be a prostitute. He supports his argument with Susan Griffin’s opinion on pornography: 'pornography is an expression not of human erotic feeling and desire, and not of a love of the life of the body, but of a fear of bodily knowledge, and a desire to silence eros.'[footnoteRef:5] In other words, the male speaker gains power in his language by being the only one with a voice and by guessing what she Jenny is dreaming without questioning it. For Sheets, male language control over the other part is a key feature of pornography; the genre, observed Griffin, 'expresses an almost morbid fear of female speech.’[footnoteRef:6]. However, considering Jenny a pornographic story is inaccurate because it does not fit with either the two common definitions[footnoteRef:7]: firstly, there are no explicit descriptions of any sexual act, and secondly, even if the figure of the female is silent there is no violent context that supports the interpretation of pornography. [5: ] [6: ] [7: ]
In addition to portraying the Fallen Woman as much more than a fallen character, David Bentley argued that the stereotype of the Fallen woman is approached objectively at the beginning of the story to initiate self-reflection in the reader. The first paragraph provides a descriptive picture of the prostitute which incites the reader to think about the issue of prostitution beyond the bad reputation of prostitutes and includes the topics of sin, lust and therefore, the men who reinforce this activity into the discussion As he stated, ‘The reader should leave ‘Jenny’ with a consciousness of the ‘self-questionings and all-questionings’[footnoteRef:8]. His argument makes sense because the story is filled with ambiguities that do not allow specific judgments or very biased opinions to be formed. For instance, his monologue hints that he likes her but he still decides to leave her, he judges other male customers but he is one of them and he goes to a prostitute to have sex but ends up not having it. The way the Fallen Woman is represented in Jenny does not limit the woman to her fallen condition; it explores her previous life, her dreams, and mentions the customers as part of the issue. [8:]
In Goblin Market, the Fallen woman takes the role of a victim who deserves to be saved. The fruit is a symbol for sexual desire and the act of eating it symbolises the sexual act. Laura is drugged by the goblins so they can have sex with her and ‘take’ her virginity, an evil act that positions her as the victim of her ‘fall’.
Regardless of her temptation, Laura initially refuses to buy the fruit reasoning a lack of money:
‘Good folk, I have no coin;
To take were to purloin:
I have no copper in my purse,
I have no silver either. (Christina Rossetti, 116-19)
The goblins do not see a problem with this as long as she pays for the fruit with a lock of her hair. This shows how careless about money they are and how being merchants is just an excuse to expose themselves to the young ladies they were trying to have sex with for the first time and corrupt them. The sexual depiction of the fruit-eating narration (‘She sucked and sucked and sucked the more/.../ She sucked until her lips were sore’ lines 134,146) supports that after biting the fruit, Laura was enchanted to have sex, which implies that the fruit must have had some sort of drugs inside, for her to suddenly allow the sexual activity. It is interesting that after this event she can not hear the goblins' cry anymore because after getting what they wanted from her, she was no longer a target. Goblin Market, therefore, puts the evil nature of the goblins as the central theme of the story, and as it is proven with the redemptive end, it removes Laura of her 'fall's' blame.
However, some blame Laura accusing her of drug addiction and thus, justifying her Fallen Woman reputation. Victor Roman Mendoza states that at the end, Laura 'kicks her drug habit'[footnoteRef:9], this would imply that she had previously eaten many forbidden fruits and that the one that is shown in the story would not be the first one. It is an unfounded argument to blame Laura’s fruit consumption to her drug addiction, not only because the goblins persuaded her initial negation but because she states in the story how ‘she never tasted such before’ (line 132), which can not support the idea of an addiction but can indeed support the idea of her first time having sex. [9:]
A religious perspective also supports Laura’s victimisation of Laura. First of all, Christina Rossetti had a religious background that influenced her works, Goblin Market, being one of them. Jerome J. McGann explored in Religious Poetry of Christina Rossetti that Rossetti was ‘Anglican and severely orthodox in her public profession’[footnoteRef:10]. Secondly, Laura represents Eve, who transgresses the rules by eating the forbidden fruit, and the goblins represent Satan. Like Christ, Lizzie faces the consequences of Laura’s act, who has to go back to the goblins and suffer their violence and sexual harassment in order to save or redeem Laura: [10: ]
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Stamped upon her tender feet,
held her hands and squeezed their fruits
against her mouth to make her eat. (Christina Rossetti, 405-407)
The redemptive end allows the idea that Fallen Women did not deserve to be punished, because many times they did not have all the responsibility of their misdeed, it takes two parts.
The Fallen Woman in Webster’s A Castaway is portrayed as a strong and independent woman, who does not feel ashamed of her job since it gives her economical freedom, 'I own it. And what then?’ (line 86). Eulalie's monologue claims gender inequality as the primary cause of women entering the prostitution world. As much as she prefers to be independent through prostitution over submissive and restricted through marriage, she condemns the fact that this is the only way for a woman to obtain economic freedom. Her feminIst voice is reflected when she addresses the root of women's problem, patriarchy.
She might be selling her body for money, but the respectable ladies who judge her have also sold her body and freedom for the money that marriage brings. Her monologue blurs the divisions between all women by arguing that getting married or entering prostitution, are both consequences of women's incapacity to support themselves; because society does not educate them to do so, they just educate them to be good wives:
Well, well, the silly rules this silly world
makes about women! This is one of them.
Why must there be pretence of teaching them
what no one ever cares that they should know. (Webster, 394-397)
Some argue that the way she judges married women and even other prostitutes at some point, indicate her lack of social concern. Therefore, she can not be considered a feminist or empowering if she is tearing other women down for their life decisions. Sutphin argues that Eulalie 'calls into question even progressive attempts to resolve problems associated with prostitution, particularly the rhetoric of sisterhood and redemption'[footnoteRef:11]. Eulalie initially creates that division and talks poorly about the married ladies, however, she does it out of pain and as a defensive mechanism. This is reflected with the drastic change of narrative tone when she goes from insulting the customers (‘ not such a mighty task/ to pin an idiot to your apron-string’ lines 111-112) to recalling her submissive youth next to her brother: [11: ]
Only, I think, my brother –
I forgot he stopped his brotherhood some years ago –
but if he had been just so much less good
as to remember mercy. (Webster, 480-483)
Therefore, the division some critics argue Eulalie makes is also a division that lives inside of her: between her past of a proper lady and her present of a Fallen Woman. By coming to terms with this conflict (‘Well, after all, there's not much difference/ between the two sometimes’ lines 652-653) she also accepts the one between proper ladies and fallen women. In the end, they both make decisions for their economic survival, whether it is through marrying or through prostitution:
Do I not know this,
I like my betters, that a woman's life,
her natural life, her good life, her one life,
is in her husband, God on earth to her,
and what she knows and what she can and is
is only good as it brings good to him? (Webster, 404-409)
It is just a matter of choice: a Fallen Woman in the eyes of the society, or A Fallen Woman in her own eyes because she can never satisfy her life curiosities or be economically independent.
None of these poems represent the female character as a corrupted woman. Jenny, Goblin Market and A Castaway address the situation which in the eyes of society made them Fallen Women but they also provide a wider description of the characters, making their identities more complex. Jenny is a lovable woman, Laura is a victim of the goblins’ sexual vices and Eulalie is an assertive woman who does not fear to speak up about the real problem of society, a patriarchy which demonises independent women and causes prostitution. The three poems attempt to raise awareness about the undeserving label Fallen Women have, because they never fall by themselves, they are pushed to do so.
References
Primary Texts:
- Rossetti, Christina, ‘Goblin Market’, The Norton Anthology English Literature, E (2006).
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, ‘Jenny’, The Norton Anthology English Literature, E (2006).
- Webster, Augusta, A Castaway, (London: Macmillan and Co., 1870).
Secondary Texts:
- Anderson, Amanda, 'Dramatic Monologue in Crisis: Agency and Exchange in D. G.
- Rossetti's 'Jenny'', Tainted Souls and Painted Faces, (United States: Cornell University Press, 1993).
- Bentley, David, ‘Ah, Poor Jenny’s Case: Rossetti and the Fallen Woman/Flower’, University of Toronto Quarterly, 50 (1980).
- Griffin, Susan, Pornography and Silence: Culture's Revenge against Nature (New York, 1981).
- McGann, Jerome J.,‘The Religious Poetry of Christina Rossetti’, Critical Inquiry, 10 (1983).
- Mosk Paker, Lona, ‘Symbol and Reality in Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market’, PMLA, 73(1958).
- Nead, Lynda, ‘Fallen Women and Foundlings: Rethinking Victorian Sexuality’, History Workshop Journal, 82(2016).
- Roman Mendoza, Victor, ‘Come Buy: The Crossing of Sexual and Consumer Desire in Christina Rosetti’s Goblin Market’, English Literary History, 73 (2006).
- Sheets, Robin, 'Pornography and Art: The Case of 'Jenny'', Critical Inquiry, 14 (1988).
- Sutphin, Christine “Human Tigresses, Fractious Angels, and Nursery Saints: Augusta Webster’s ‘A Castaway’ and Victorian Discourses on Prostitution and Women’s Sexuality.”, Victorian Poetry, 38(2000).
- Tucker, Herbert F., ‘Rossetti's Goblin Marketing: Sweet to Tongue and Sound to Eye’, Representations, 82(2003).
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