Ms. Henderson

“FALLEN” WOMEN AND FALLING WOMEN

The Fallen Woman• A figure especially prevalent in the Victorian mindset and featured often in Victorian art• A woman who has lost her innocence• Fallen from the grace of God•Has relinquished her chastity• A woman’s “fall” was viewed as both a cause and effect of prostitution• Any clandestine behavior (especially cavorting in the woods!) could lead to the ruination of a young lady’s reputation. If the poor lass had “fallen” in the eyes of her peers, the truth of her chastity – intact or otherwise – would be the first casualty.

Suicide: “the female malady”First, the reality: women in the 19th century consistently committed suicide at a lower rate than menNow, the myth! One of the more pernicious methods of “othering” in the Victorian period was the perpetuation of suicide as a female conditionMargaret Moyes’ suicide captured the (rather macabre) Victorian imagination

The (largely male) Victorian rationale for the “female malady”• More women were committed to asylums than men*; therefore, more women must have committed suicide.•Woman is a lesser man, a weaker being, both physically and mentally; therefore, women would more easily fall victim to suicidal impulses.•Women’s violent acts against themselves and others were the natural outcomes of their “indulgences” and their longing to “unsex” themselves (rejecting “the womanhood which God has given her”).• Suicide was linked to “willful womanhood” and a woman’s capacity for “vengeful fury”.

* More women WERE committed to asylums, often diagnosed with hysteria or sexually deviant behavior.

Lovelorn suicideThe question instantly asked of Margaret Moyes (and of all women who met a violent end) was “Was she crossed in love?”

VR (Victorian Rationale): Because of their strong passions, women thwarted in love leapt to self-destructive behavior.

VR: If a man had been a woman’s sole reason for existence, losing that man meant a woman’s indifference to life.

SEDUCED, “FALLEN” WOMEN WERE ALSO SUPPOSED TO HAVE A PROPENSITY FOR SUICIDE.

The Victorian Gentleman on Women

“[Women possess] strong passions and

intensely erotic tendencies, much muscular strength

and a superior intelligence for the

conception and execution of evil.”

“Once she gets the upper hand and

flaunts, she’s the devil – there’s no other word for it,

she’s the devil…as soon as you’ve taken pity on her she’s no longer to be pitied. You’re the one to be pitied then. And so she-wolves [grow] in

the place of pet dogs.”

Cesare Lombroso, 19th century criminologist Edward Burne Jones, painter

The image of female suicideA proper lady knows that drowning is most poetic. Falling from a height is also graceful and angelic.

“Bloodier” suicides are braver and more manly. Shooting oneself would be unseemly for a lady.

If you would like to accentuate your feelings of desperation, trying throwing yourself into the Thames. It is an effective symbol for “the end of the line”.

This young lady earns extra style points for falling from a bridge into the Thames.

The Cult of Ophelia

The Cult of Ophelia•Ophelia was a sensation and preoccupation among the Victorians• She is the quintessential drowned woman• “The contrast between loveliness in death and guilt in life, between willessness and willingness, was what the Victorians wanted to see in art about suicidal women. It amounted to a kind of necrophilia.”• “[The Victorian attitude about female suicide] was the price of retaining the displacement of self-destruction to women in a patriarchal society that was dedicated to championing male mental and physical superiority and to rationalizing sexual differences.”

Imagery of the feminine• Goddesses• Circe and other sorceresses• Diana (Artemis)• Femme fatale: seductress,

destroyer• The devouring woman and

her serpentine hair• Woman as monster: vampire,

harpy, siren, mermaid, succubus, medusa• Judith, Salome

• Ophelia• Fallen woman• The Woman destroyed by

Love in all its Forms and Fates• Women in chains:

Andromeda, Iphigenia• Dead woman in a boat• Victims and martyrs

Female power Female powerlessness

Imagery of the feminine• Briarose or Sleeping Beauty• Embowered maidens• The Adoring Woman, waiting

or abandoned• Lady of Shalott• Odalisques and Orientalism• Pre-Raphaelite women

Objects of desire

The Pre-Raphaelite WomanFocus on the face

Large, luminescent eyes

A web of long hair, tendrils

Powerful bodies, striking necks, stunning features

Expressions embody enigma and distance

Poses often static rather than active

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “Found”