did some reading

[beccaelizabeth]

I have read 200 pages of Victorian novel.
So far there's an heiress, a poor man, and an aristo. I think we can guess the rest from there.
The fact the aristo is deep in debt and stands to gain £20,000 if the heiress dies does not bode well for her. Or someone. There's a definite Doom hanging around here.
... so so so bored.
... really, it's hard to get invested in the dilemmas of people who wouldn't be in a bind at all by modern mores. She doesn't love him, she just promised her dad she'd marry him. And her guardian is being an idiot, not even with her best interests at heart or anything complicated like that, just because he doesn't want to be bothered. I don't know, would a 20 year old still have a guardian in charge of her money in any circumstances? Would they need to draw up a contract for where her money goes when she marries and have her guardian override her wishes, or could she just be the boss of her own stuff? It's clearly stupid to do it this way with men doing all the deciding.
So I'm bored. She should just go :-p and marry the drawing teacher and have a messy divorce when she grows up a bit. Or maybe just go to college, or art school, and meet a lot more drawing teachers and maybe some models.
The plight of people trapped in what Victorians considered acceptable options for nice girls is difficult to sympathise with when the only sensible option from here is to just make new rules.
So it's a total grind trying to read this stuff.

Also, I keep on getting distracted by Atlantis stuff. Maybe I should actually watch the show at some point.


Now I get to read theory stuff. ... or, since that made me feel all arrgh, possibly take a break for some hours. I appear to be nocturnal but that doesn't mean I have to study all night.

Comments

[legionseagle]

I'm fairly certain that I know the novel you're thinking of and a 20 year old is still legally a child at that date (as they were until the early 1970s), divorce is not available for women unless their husband both commits adultery and cruelty, bigamy, desertion or sodomy; even if they divorce they will never see their children again, and the usual penalty for trying to "make new rules" as you put it, for a woman, is to be considered insane and probably locked up (I'm trying to avoid spoilers but given the novel was published in 1870 or thereabouts not trying all that hard).

[doyle]

Additionally - I assume we're talking about The Woman in White here - further education wouldn't have been an option for a woman living at that time, even if her guardian was inclined to allow it. Girton wouldn't be established for another ten years, and I believe art colleges were only just starting to accept women. (I'm reading a history of women's education in Britain, so this is forefront in my mind at the moment)

[legionseagle]

I really admire Collins as a feminist writer - he really is extremely good at both seeing the limitations on his female characters and saying "This is what they have to work within and it should not be so."

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*
I think the last time I picked up this book I got as far as him introducing the poor half sister and going on about how ugly and man like she was, and gave up on it. But I've read lots past that now, and it doesn't go on about her being ugly, and the gender stuff is interestingly complex.

[legionseagle]

The ugliness stuff is all from the artist's point of view, anyway, and he's not the world's most reliable observer when it comes to women.

[beccaelizabeth]

good point. now I've read some other characters bits they're all showing off biased viewpoints and what they're not seeing that the reader is. it gets more interestings.

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods a lot*
yep, TWiW.
I know all those limitations are part of why we're studying it, and we'll read it for attitudes to gender and all that.
I just... sometimes it feels like fighting the last war, like we spend all our time finding out how uncool the past was, and really, we knew that.
I'm kind of ready to move on.
still, we're only doing this until christmas.

[baronjanus]

Try to imagine how pathetic today's "choices" will seem in a hundred or two years. Things we consider set in stone. Deep modern angst. Can't wait.