Charles Dickens

Subverting the Victorian feminine ideal … but retaining the right to personal chauvinism

Realism in Dickens: grit

Feminism…sort of“Despite some misgivings, Dickens was broadly

sympathetic towards the idea of property rights for

women, publicly intervening in 1868 … in the debates

on the first Married Women’s Property Bill” (Wynne

59)

Vulnerable working women – protection from

“unreasonable lower-class men”

In Bleak House, Victorian gender models are

reversed: Skimpole and Turveydrop act like ideal V.

wives

Skimpole: parody! financially dependent on JJ,

foppish, feminine, “I am a child,” irresponsible

Dickens “overtly promotes an ideology of

womanhood, however, at the same time […]

modifies and subverts that ideology” (Ayres 2)

Conflict complicating domestic ideology in

Dickens:

Patriarchs do not automatically deserve the

respect they command from their privileged social

positions

Women, regardless of being exemplars, are

unable to effect moral or social change

Many women succeed (they are happy and do not

die of brain fever or end up in the workhouse,

Newgate, or, worst of all, America) outside

domesticity (Ayres 3)

Esther Summerson: Guppy

loveGuppy’s first proposal… he’s seen her once:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZL-SwOmYJ8

Guppy stalks Esther (p.186-187)

Guppy rescinds his proposal after Esther’s pox

(p. 568-569)

Guppy proposes AGAIN once she has

recovered:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KN9rRuAS88

&feature=related

although the “text constructs Esther as an

exemplar of womanhood and a female advocate

for domesticity, it also struggles to convey

Dickens’ understanding of women, and at the

same time to convey a Victorian woman’s

attempt to understand herself. This is no easy

task because Esther is constantly being either

defined or effaced by other people” (Ayres 141)

Esther’s lesson

“Though the lesson of the narrative is that

discipline is expected of women, to deny

themselves, the narrative itself suggests that self

denial is no natural behavior for women” (Ayres

152)

Esther’s self denial is torment -- though she is

the Angel of the House, she never knows herself

completely except as how she is defined by

others

Dickens’ legacy

Works Cited

Ayres, Brenda. Dissenting Women in Dickens’

Novels: The Subversion of Domestic

Ideology. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,

1998. Print.

Wynne, Deborah. Women and Personal Property

in the Victorian Novel. Farnham: Ashgate,

2010. Print.