Gender Ambiguity, Domesticity and The Public Space: The Case of Wilkie Collins’s <i>The Woman in White</i>

Debora Antonietta Sarnelli

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17

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Gender Ambiguity, Domesticity and The Public Space: The Case of Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White

Debora Antonietta Sarnelli

Published in English Language, Literature & Culture (Volume 5, Issue 3)

Received: 1 September 2020 Accepted: 23 September 2020 Published: 12 October 2020

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Abstract

Starting from Linda Brannon’s “the Doctrine of Two Spheres” (Brannon 2004) and Barbara Welter’s “the Cult of True Womanhood” (Welter 2000), the contribution aims at analyzing how the “Doctrine of Two Spheres” is clearly visible in Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White (1859), where the main protagonists’ personalities and behaviors reveal both the preservation and subversion of the separate spheres ideology. The novel is shaped around the dichotomy between two half-sisters, that embody two contrasting forms of femininity. Laura epitomizes the Angel in the House, Marian, by contrast is a liminal figure, characterized by gender ambiguity. She is masculine in her physical appearance and in her behaviors. She constantly moves between gender roles and between the public and domestic space. Similarly, the two male protagonists of the novel, Walter and Count Fosco, are at the antipodes of each other. Walter, after a ‘bildung journey’ towards masculinity, acquires the typical masculine attributes of a Victorian man. Count Fosco, like Marian, is characterized by gender ambiguity. He moves between gender roles, disclosing feminine features and cherishing ladylike habits. In the end, Fosco and Marian’s gender ambiguity is punished with death: death by assassination for the villain, symbolic and social death for Marian the spinster, thus re-establishing Victorian gender roles.

Published in	English Language, Literature & Culture (Volume 5, Issue 3)
DOI	10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17
Page(s)	116-123
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Gender Ambiguity, Domesticity, Womanhood, Sensationalism, Victorianism

References

[1]	Brannon, Linda. “Gender Stereotypes: Masculinity and Femininity,” in Gender: Psychological Perspectives. Boston: Pearson, 2004, pp. 159-185.
[2]	Welter, Barbara. “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860”. American Quarterly 18.2 (1966): 151–174.
[3]	Boardman, Kay. “The Ideology of Domesticity: The Regulation of the Household Economy in Victorian’s Women Magazines”. Victorian Periodicals Review 33.2 (2000): 150-164.
[4]	Allen, Emily. “Gender and Sensation,” in Pamela K. Gilbert (ed.), A Companion to Sensation Fiction. Oxford: Blackwell, 2011, pp. 401-413.
[5]	Miller, D. A. “Cage Aux Folles: Sensation and Gender in Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White”. Representations 14 (1986): 107-136.
[6]	Pykett, Lyn. “Collins and the Sensation Novel,” in Jenny Bourne Taylor (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Wilkie Collins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 50-64.
[7]	Knight, Stephen. Crime Fiction 1800-2000. Detection, Death, Diversity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
[8]	Pykett, Lyn. The Sensation Novel. From The Woman in White to The Moonstone. Plymouth: Northcote House, 1994.
[9]	Gaylin, Ann. “The Madwoman Outside the Attic: Eavesdropping and Narrative Agency in The Woman in White”. Texas Studies in Literature and Language 43.3 (2001): 303-333.
[10]	Diamond, Michael. Victorian Sensation, Or, The Spectacular, the Shocking, and the Scandalous in Nineteenth-century Britain. London: Anthem Press, 2003.
[11]	Pykett, Lyn. Wilkie Collins (Authors in Context). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
[12]	MacDonald, Tara. “Sensation Fiction, Gender and Identity,” in Andrew Mangham (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Sensation Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 127-140.
[13]	Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. London: HarperCollins, 2001.
[14]	Taylor, Jenny Bourne (1988). “The Woman in White: Resemblance and Difference-Patience and Resolution,” in In The Secret Theatre of Home: Wilkie Collins, Sensation Narrative, and Nineteenth-Century Psychology. London: Routledge, pp. 98-130.
[15]	Auerbach, Nina. “Old Maids and the Wish for Wings,” in Woman and the Demon: The Life of a Victorian Myth. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1982, pp. 109-149.
[16]	May, Leila Silvana. “Sensational Sisters: Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White”. Pacific Coast Philology 30.1 (1995): 82-102.
[17]	Collins, Richard. “Marian’s Moustache: Bearded Ladies, Hermaphrodites, and Intersexual Collage in The Woman in White,” in Maria K. Bachman and Don Richard Cox (eds.) Reality’s Dark Light: The Sensational Wilkie Collins. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2003, pp. 131-172.
[18]	Henderson, Leah. “Wilkie Collins and Oscar Wilde: Challenging Intersections Between the Male and Female Gaze in Victorian Popular Literature”. FORUM: University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Journal of Culture & the Arts 27 (2018): 1-11.
[19]	Stone, Pamela K., Shapiro Sanders, Lise. Bodies and Lives in Victorian England: Science, Sexuality, and the Affliction of Being Female. New York: Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2020.

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Debora Antonietta Sarnelli. (2020). Gender Ambiguity, Domesticity and The Public Space: The Case of Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White. English Language, Literature & Culture, 5(3), 116-123. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17

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Debora Antonietta Sarnelli. Gender Ambiguity, Domesticity and The Public Space: The Case of Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White. Engl. Lang. Lit. Cult. 2020, 5(3), 116-123. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17

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Debora Antonietta Sarnelli. Gender Ambiguity, Domesticity and The Public Space: The Case of Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White. Engl Lang Lit Cult. 2020;5(3):116-123. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17

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@article{10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17,
  author = {Debora Antonietta Sarnelli},
  title = {Gender Ambiguity, Domesticity and The Public Space: The Case of Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White},
  journal = {English Language, Literature & Culture},
  volume = {5},
  number = {3},
  pages = {116-123},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ellc.20200503.17},
  abstract = {Starting from Linda Brannon’s “the Doctrine of Two Spheres” (Brannon 2004) and Barbara Welter’s “the Cult of True Womanhood” (Welter 2000), the contribution aims at analyzing how the “Doctrine of Two Spheres” is clearly visible in Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White (1859), where the main protagonists’ personalities and behaviors reveal both the preservation and subversion of the separate spheres ideology. The novel is shaped around the dichotomy between two half-sisters, that embody two contrasting forms of femininity. Laura epitomizes the Angel in the House, Marian, by contrast is a liminal figure, characterized by gender ambiguity. She is masculine in her physical appearance and in her behaviors. She constantly moves between gender roles and between the public and domestic space. Similarly, the two male protagonists of the novel, Walter and Count Fosco, are at the antipodes of each other. Walter, after a ‘bildung journey’ towards masculinity, acquires the typical masculine attributes of a Victorian man. Count Fosco, like Marian, is characterized by gender ambiguity. He moves between gender roles, disclosing feminine features and cherishing ladylike habits. In the end, Fosco and Marian’s gender ambiguity is punished with death: death by assassination for the villain, symbolic and social death for Marian the spinster, thus re-establishing Victorian gender roles.},
 year = {2020}
}

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TY  - JOUR
T1  - Gender Ambiguity, Domesticity and The Public Space: The Case of Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White
AU  - Debora Antonietta Sarnelli
Y1  - 2020/10/12
PY  - 2020
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17
DO  - 10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17
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JO  - English Language, Literature & Culture
SP  - 116
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PB  - Science Publishing Group
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AB  - Starting from Linda Brannon’s “the Doctrine of Two Spheres” (Brannon 2004) and Barbara Welter’s “the Cult of True Womanhood” (Welter 2000), the contribution aims at analyzing how the “Doctrine of Two Spheres” is clearly visible in Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White (1859), where the main protagonists’ personalities and behaviors reveal both the preservation and subversion of the separate spheres ideology. The novel is shaped around the dichotomy between two half-sisters, that embody two contrasting forms of femininity. Laura epitomizes the Angel in the House, Marian, by contrast is a liminal figure, characterized by gender ambiguity. She is masculine in her physical appearance and in her behaviors. She constantly moves between gender roles and between the public and domestic space. Similarly, the two male protagonists of the novel, Walter and Count Fosco, are at the antipodes of each other. Walter, after a ‘bildung journey’ towards masculinity, acquires the typical masculine attributes of a Victorian man. Count Fosco, like Marian, is characterized by gender ambiguity. He moves between gender roles, disclosing feminine features and cherishing ladylike habits. In the end, Fosco and Marian’s gender ambiguity is punished with death: death by assassination for the villain, symbolic and social death for Marian the spinster, thus re-establishing Victorian gender roles.
VL  - 5
IS  - 3
ER  -

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Author Information

Debora Antonietta Sarnelli

Department of Humanities, University of Salerno, Salerno, Italy

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APA Style

Debora Antonietta Sarnelli. (2020). Gender Ambiguity, Domesticity and The Public Space: The Case of Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White. English Language, Literature & Culture, 5(3), 116-123. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17

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ACS Style

Debora Antonietta Sarnelli. Gender Ambiguity, Domesticity and The Public Space: The Case of Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White. Engl. Lang. Lit. Cult. 2020, 5(3), 116-123. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17

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AMA Style

Debora Antonietta Sarnelli. Gender Ambiguity, Domesticity and The Public Space: The Case of Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White. Engl Lang Lit Cult. 2020;5(3):116-123. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17

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@article{10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17,
  author = {Debora Antonietta Sarnelli},
  title = {Gender Ambiguity, Domesticity and The Public Space: The Case of Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White},
  journal = {English Language, Literature & Culture},
  volume = {5},
  number = {3},
  pages = {116-123},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ellc.20200503.17},
  abstract = {Starting from Linda Brannon’s “the Doctrine of Two Spheres” (Brannon 2004) and Barbara Welter’s “the Cult of True Womanhood” (Welter 2000), the contribution aims at analyzing how the “Doctrine of Two Spheres” is clearly visible in Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White (1859), where the main protagonists’ personalities and behaviors reveal both the preservation and subversion of the separate spheres ideology. The novel is shaped around the dichotomy between two half-sisters, that embody two contrasting forms of femininity. Laura epitomizes the Angel in the House, Marian, by contrast is a liminal figure, characterized by gender ambiguity. She is masculine in her physical appearance and in her behaviors. She constantly moves between gender roles and between the public and domestic space. Similarly, the two male protagonists of the novel, Walter and Count Fosco, are at the antipodes of each other. Walter, after a ‘bildung journey’ towards masculinity, acquires the typical masculine attributes of a Victorian man. Count Fosco, like Marian, is characterized by gender ambiguity. He moves between gender roles, disclosing feminine features and cherishing ladylike habits. In the end, Fosco and Marian’s gender ambiguity is punished with death: death by assassination for the villain, symbolic and social death for Marian the spinster, thus re-establishing Victorian gender roles.},
 year = {2020}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Gender Ambiguity, Domesticity and The Public Space: The Case of Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White
AU  - Debora Antonietta Sarnelli
Y1  - 2020/10/12
PY  - 2020
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17
DO  - 10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17
T2  - English Language, Literature & Culture
JF  - English Language, Literature & Culture
JO  - English Language, Literature & Culture
SP  - 116
EP  - 123
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2575-2413
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20200503.17
AB  - Starting from Linda Brannon’s “the Doctrine of Two Spheres” (Brannon 2004) and Barbara Welter’s “the Cult of True Womanhood” (Welter 2000), the contribution aims at analyzing how the “Doctrine of Two Spheres” is clearly visible in Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White (1859), where the main protagonists’ personalities and behaviors reveal both the preservation and subversion of the separate spheres ideology. The novel is shaped around the dichotomy between two half-sisters, that embody two contrasting forms of femininity. Laura epitomizes the Angel in the House, Marian, by contrast is a liminal figure, characterized by gender ambiguity. She is masculine in her physical appearance and in her behaviors. She constantly moves between gender roles and between the public and domestic space. Similarly, the two male protagonists of the novel, Walter and Count Fosco, are at the antipodes of each other. Walter, after a ‘bildung journey’ towards masculinity, acquires the typical masculine attributes of a Victorian man. Count Fosco, like Marian, is characterized by gender ambiguity. He moves between gender roles, disclosing feminine features and cherishing ladylike habits. In the end, Fosco and Marian’s gender ambiguity is punished with death: death by assassination for the villain, symbolic and social death for Marian the spinster, thus re-establishing Victorian gender roles.
VL  - 5
IS  - 3
ER  -

Copy | Download