by Michelle Zambrana

Introduction
Victorian single women in the middle and upper class were expected to explore charity and community service as a way to help the poor. The attitude of “ rich are busy, poor can wait” was supposed to be overturned, so that a “ poor are busy, rich can wait” attitude could alleviate the growing poverty within the lower class. Miss Crawley’s blatant disregard for the poor, in addition to her zealous behavior, would normally be shunned in Victorian society, but because of her status, her irate behavior is overlooked. Her love for French culture was unusual for a woman of her status, but French novels, along with various types of British “ sensation” novels, were a popular form of entertainment among Victorian women.

French Influence
After the French Revolution of 1789, the British followed events in France very closely. British museums have an extensive collection of French artifacts, especially literature by Alexander Dumas and Emile Zola. The French novel was under much scrutiny, due to the French novelists love of realistically portraying dramatic, grotesque events in an erotic fashion. The novels portrayal of their heroines was shunned as well. “Their contents included tales of adultery, bigamy, passion, crime and general unladylike behavior and were especially disliked for the overt presentation of sexuality in their leading female characters” (“ Women’s Reading Materials”) The French novel was easily identified by a distinct yellow cover, beautifully illustrated by Vincent Van Gogh in his painting “Parisian Novel (yellow books).” Unfortunately, the British Medical Journal “ The Lancet” thought otherwise. French novels were deemed responsible for social “ diseases” such as lesbianism. French novelist Victor Hugo, most famous for “ Les Miserables”, in which a convict seeks redemption after 19 years in jail, and slowly rises from lowlife scum, to factory owner. This type of social mobility was definitely not something Victorian England would want endorsed. Emile Zola explored adultery and indiscretion most famously in “Therese Raquin”, in which a woman has an affair with her husband’s friend, and the two lovers to kill the husband. The vulgar, ostentatious stories that were painted by the authors were exactly what middle /upper class women were drawn to, because it was an escape from the prim and proper expectancies of their everyday life.

Sensation Novels
The “ thriller” novels of the Victorian period, Sensation novels caught the interests of authors such as Margaret Oliphant and were often referred to as “ masterpieces” long after their publication. Although some sensation novels involved mystery and science fiction, most explored the secretive nature of high-class women, marriage as a “ sinister” event, drug use, and the social criticism of gender roles in Victorian society. Oliphant had much appreciation for Sensationalist writers, although she herself is a writer whose inspiration hardly had any artistic appeal. “ At no age, so far as we are aware, has there yet existed anything resembling the extraordinary flood of novels which is now pouring over this land …There were days, halcyon days -- as one still may ascertain from the gossip of the seniors of society -- when an author was a natural curiosity, recognized and stared at as became the rarity of the phenomenon. No such thing is possible nowadays, when most people have been in print one way or other …” (Sensationalist Reviews). The novels explored the dark underbelly of society, providing women readers with women who live outside of their own realms of society. “ The heroine of this class of novel is charming because she is undisciplined, and the victim of impulse; because she has never known restraint or has cast it aside, because in all these respects she is below the thoroughly trained and tried woman.” (Sensationalist reviews).

Further Information

http://www.womenwriters.net/domesticgoddess/wellreadlinks.htm

http://www.worldreviews.com/BOOK0008_JAN2001.htm

Works Cited

Victorian Sensationalism Online http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~mactavis/vso/)

French Literature (http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/Literature/DF_literature5.shtml)

Women’s Reading Material (http://www.nearwell.com/downloads/Chapter2_LC.doc) Sensationalist Review( http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~mactavis/vso/reviews/reviews.htm)