Again Jill Singer started us off:
From: "Jill D. Singer" My comments on this week's installment.
The contrast between Johnny's letter to Amelia at the end of Ch 14 and
Crosbie's more polished, but actually crueller letter to Lily at the end of
Ch 18 is wonderful. I hope we can expect a thorough analysis from Ellen,
with her expertise on Trollope's correspondence techniques.
(BTW, I hadn't appreciated until this installment the cleverness of Amelia's
surname: Roper. How apt for her role.)
Trollope's writing skill showed up to me in Ch 16, the clever transition
meeting in Barchester between Crosbie (leaving the country and returning to
"high society") and Mr. Harding (true "high society"), which provided both
an excellent comparison in the two men's integrity as well as providing
background for Lady Dumbello's appearance.
Finally, I continue to be on the q.v. for material for my
someday-to-be-written article that Trollope (consciously or unconsciously)
used Orley Farm to respond to Dickens's attack on the law and lawyers in
Bleak House and as a model of what lawyers actually are and may be. (I push
these two books to all my law students and new lawyers in the firm; two of
the best associates (also my two best students ever, now partners in the
firm) heeded my advice, and I firmly believe it helped set them on the
proper professional pathway. But I digress.) I believe I found a scrap of
circumstantial evidence in Ch. 17. Consider the description of Lady
Dumbello and society's attitude toward her icy perfect beauty. Does it not
echo Lady Dedlock (although the latter was a person and the former is only
icy beauty)? Given the timing of Orley Farm (shortly before SHA), could
this not be some indication that Trollope had Bleak House on his mind?
Jill Singer From Kathy (posting under address with pseudonym "Katwoman"):
I greatly enjoyed this chapter too, the reference to a naval battle, etc. When
Mrs. Lupex says:
I assume she's implying that people from Manchester have rougher manners than
those from London. When I first read "Manchester manners", I thought of
"Queensberry rules" of boxing, but I don't suppose Trollope could have had them
in mind since they weren't published until 1867.
Kathy
From: "Judy Warner" Richard Altick, in his book, Presence of the Present, has several pages
(534-36) about this topic. Apparently in London's Burlington Arcade, rooms
over millinery and trinket shops were used for assignations--and it was
widely known. Between 3 and five in the afternoon, the young ladies would
be alert for signs from strolling gentlemen to meet in the rooms upstairs.
Gentlemen avoided the place at that time if they didn't want their friends
gossiping.
The millinery and other "illpaying" dressmaking trades (dressmakers were
called milliners at this time) had a reputation that novelists traded on.
Altick says they were exposed to the wiles of men entering the shops, and
may have been thought to be yearning to bedeck themselves in the finery they
were surrounded with. Altick goes on to talk about examples in Dickens and
Charles Reade novels.
This book is wonderful reading--everything seems to be in it--somewhere.
Judy Warner
To Trollope-l
April 10, 2000
Re: The Small House: The Bethrothed Couple
Michael Powe has mentioned Gay's book on sex in Victorian
times as one in which the relatively permissive and flexible
attitude towards sexual activity between an engaged
or bethrothed couple is discussed. More explicit and
detailed are Michael Masson's Victorian Sexuality
and Laurence Stone's Broken Vows and Uncertain
Unions. The reason the engagement period was often
hidden, the experience was seen as putting a girl
in a delicate position, that jilting a girl was justification
for litigation was it was assumed sexual activity went
on. For the Victorian it was not that important that
the young couple did not go all the way; what was
significant was the real intimacy which was fostered
by allowing the couple a lot of time together with
no one else around. I suggest one can read Lily's
words flexibly but that they inscribe an experience which in her
mind makes her Crosbie's morally, emotionally --
and yes, by implication, sexually. It doesn't need
to be made explicit in the text; it is simply understood
that when a couple is left alone for hours in a house
or to go for drives alone or to visit other houses
alone (as Willoughby and Marianne are) or go walking
out together (a charged phrase in the 19th century),
hugging, embracing, kissing, what we call heavy
petting would occur. Practically speaking Trollope
does not set up a situation in which nakedness or
going all the way is possible, but he leaves it to our
imagination to picture what we want up to that in
passages like the following:
'Oh, my love! she said, 'My love! my love!'
As Crosbie walked back to the Great House
that night, he made a firm resolution that no
consideration of worldly welfare should ever induce
him to break his engagement with Lily Dale ...
(Ch 9, p. 85). Trollope has gone as far as a Victorian middle
class novelist can go in indicating time passed between
the intense embrace, her yielding to him, and his walking
away vowing himself to do her justice, be honorable.
It is we in the 20th century who are so obsessed by sex we want to
know how far the couple went in the time that occurred
between the words "my love!' uttered by Lily and the time
Crosbie walks back to the house resolving firmly he will
marry her, that no consideration of worldly welfare will
stop him. I suggest the emphasis on what exactly transpired
loses what Trollope is getting at, which is a moral shaping
of life. As I wrote earlier, what bothers me here is the
moral can be the narrow-minded warning, 'Better not
let the man have anything, especially better not let
him see how much you love him, or he'll take you for
granted'. What an ugly frame of mind. If others are
so sordid and mean, does Trollope want to tell us
we must be so.
I don't deny that this could be what Trollope intends --
as it seems clear to me that there is enormous
class and sexist bias in his portraits of Amelia and
Mrs Lupex and one 'moral' of the Boarding House
incident is to teach genteel middle class women not
to leave their precious sons with low-class women
landladies. The moral stupidity inherent in seeing one
class of people as better than another involved
in this inference explains why Trollope has so often
been dismissed as unintelligent, non-thinking,
giving readers a bland representation of the savagery
of the world whose blandness disguises the cruelty
and injustice of people to one another.
Where I see something better -- paradoxically is in
Trollope's condemnation of the upper class characters,
his implicit castigation of Crosbie for his mercenary
hollowness, and his creation of real sympathy for
Lily, Bell, the mother, Johnny and Earl de Guest
on the basis of their adherence to humane values,
to loyalty, constancy, kindness, respect for
others, whether poorer or unconnected or not.
The moral touchstone of the book remains Mr
Harding, not Mrs Grundy or the kind of narrow
religion we find in the fundamentalists and
evangelists of Rachel Ray, Miss Mackenzie
and other novels.
At any rate, Lily has gone far enough to be so
deeply committed to this man, that his betrayal
of her will wound her permanently. She also
is not attracted sexually to John Eames, and
will not take advantage of his love to conform
to a world whose values Crosbie was following.
Now this is the moral of S&Stoo: Marianne
has probably gone less far than Lily (she
and Willoughby are not quite engaged), but
she too is betrayed, anguished, shattered,
loses self-respect and trust. The paradigm
is the same. I would not say that Austen
necessarily is the more conventional novelist
because she forces marriage on the heroine
at the end since the ending of S&S is
not radiantly happy, but qualified, understated.
Cheers to all, From: Sigmund Eisner I think we can put to rest the question of Lily Dale's virginity, which
she apparently lost to Mr. Crosbie in her enthusiasm for her first
love. In Ch. xv, when Lily is giving Crosbie a chance to back out of
his committment to her, she says: "Though I have given myself to you as
your wife, I can bear to be divorced from you,--now." What more do we
want?
Trollope keeps telling us that Crosbie meant to be a good guy, but then
Trollope also gives us much about Crosbie that is not in the nature of a
good guy. When Crosbie is faced with having committed some little nasty
action, he usually responds by explaining that he acted in accord with
his nature. Trollope's High Church was not that far from the Roman
Catholic Church in that both Churches emphasized freedom of the will.
That means that when one commits an action one does so because one wills
himself/herself to do the action. That is people are responsible for
their own behavior. Various low churches blamed misbehavior on
circumstances and had been doing so since the days of the Manachaeans,
Pelegians, and Cathars. Crosbie, when he blames his nature, is taking
the easy way out. In the final chapter of our current assignment we see
his behavior at Courcy Castle, where he denies any promise to Lily Dale
and considers a lucrative liaison with Lady Alexandrina, one of
Trollope's many superannuated and frantic former debutantes. No, Mr.
Crosbie is not a nice guy. If Lily Dale thinks he is at this point, she
is demonstrating only her youthful ignorance.
Sig
Groups-From: "Catherine Crean" Sig, I've been waiting you post on these chapters! This is my third reading
of A Small House at Allington and I've bee carefully noting every
reference to sexual activity (sounds so clinical!) between Lily and Crosbie.
I'm not convinced that there was any. Are you saying that Lily and Crosbie
"consummated" their relationship? Where does the text support this? Lily is
portrayed (in contrast to Lady Augusta) as a warm, emotional woman who shows
her ardor with her words and with gestures. I'm also rereading Sense and
Sensibility. Although Marianne is left alone with Willoughby, I don't see a
sexual relationship there either.
Catherine Crean
To Trollope-l
April 12, 2000
Re: The Small House: Ambiguities & Certainties
I don't remember what I wrote about George and Alice Vavasour
in Can You Forgive Her?; I think I took the same road as
I am taking here: they were engaged; Alice loved him intensely;
she felt betrayed, profoundly, when she learned of his relationship
with the woman we meet late in the novel (Jane). Alice and
George enjoyed a degree of sexual intimacy far beyond what
would have been acceptable for a merely courting couple;
the intense responsiveness of Alice to John Grey suggests
the same kind of intimacy happened. So when Alice
ricochets once again to George, it's no wonder she feels
an intense revulsion against herself and an uninability to
allow George even to hold her hand.
Yet she recovers, and marries John. I know it is often said
that Trollope characters all or mostly have one partner
and then upon loss of that partner never get over it. That's
not so. Some of the most well-known characters are
that deeply seen and have a depth of emotion that takes
them where it will: Lily, Johnny Eames, Emily Hotspur
(of Humblethwaite). One of the more interesting aspects
of this is Trollope often characterises men as intensely
constant, e.g, Will Belton. However, he has many
characters who with difficulty get over it: Emily Lopez;
Lady Glen (who loved and was engaged to Burgo Fitzgerald,
took his ring and wore it). And he has many who find
someone else or turn back and forth: Clara Amedroz;
Silverbridge. He has all sorts of variants on this triangle
and in his we get a different investigation of the psyche
under different pressure. Gene mentions Mabel Grex.
She is one of Trollope's great characters because she
thinks she got over Frank Tregear and didn't, only to
find that he got over her.
Stone argues that people in the later 18th century and
into the late 19th were more flexible about such matters
than historians (sometimes prudish and puritanical
themselves) have given them credit for. There is always
the problem of usually not having any written evidence
except what is elicited in the adversarial procedure of
a courtroom or court documents. Stone says how
seriously a given group of people took the taboo
depended on the class, money level, ambitions,
education, and religious types they belonged to;
it also depended on individuals some of whom (as
we know) are always more sensitive and some more
thick-skinned than others. An interesting book
has just been published which demonstrates
that once the divorce and property laws in
England were changed, a flood of publications
about private adulteries began to appear in
the newspaper. In Culture and Adultery:
The novel, the newspaper, and the law, 1857-
1914), Barbara Leckie argues that the reason
we don't get in print all the sex before and
outside marriage that went on before 1857 was
it was against everyone's -- or most everyone's
-- interests to publish it, to write it down, to
speak of it, except in guarded whispers. Only
wealthy aristocrats were secure enough not
to care. The reasons against publishing remained
strong: respectability got you a position in
a network. But for the first time publishing
it could get a woman a divorce; it could get
a man a divorce much easier. And they
began to publish, floods of stuff, slandering
one another's characters doubtless, but also
telling truths which could break up marriages
for the first time. Leckie apparently argues that
the reality before and after 1857 were not all
that different (and something like what Stone
demonstrates), rather the law changed.
At the same time we must not underestimate
the response of people to a taboo. Full
sexual intercourse outside marriage was a
taboo. Freud's famous paper on the 'taboo
of virginity' links a young girl's intense desire
to stay with the first man she has gone to
bed with to this taboo. He also talks of how
enraged a man who suspects his wife to
have lovers before him can become (this is
Trollope's story in Kept in the Dark).
Trollope is like the poets in not having to
read Freud to move into the mind on the
levels of these sorts of irrational irretrievable
traumas.
What is clear from this week's chapters is that
Crosbie is acting the part of a deeply ungenerous
(Trollope's word) man; he is a sneak, a half-
liar, a coward too. He is throwing a pearl away
for the right to mingle with the de Courcys. He
is going to find that this costs him far more than
his Lily. Her name, her values, her loyalty
are contrasted to his world, and she is aligned
with Mr Harding against Griselda Lady Dumbello.
She stands for truth, for someone who does not
stand guard over herself, does not regard relationships
as negotiations, who did not look to marry to
position herself on some external chessboard
where all admire one another for their outward
things or prizes or plums or little ribbons.
Mr Harding too kept his soul by giving away
his niche. Trollope uses characters and houses and
landscapes in a semi-symbolic way. What's
deeper about The Small House (and An
Old Man's Love) is Trollope shows the
character who gives over the world suffering
badly for it, Mr Whittlestaff embittered, and
Lily strained in isolation. Lily really reminds
me of Henry James's Milly Theale (The
Wings of the Dove) except Trollope presents
the story realistically not so insidiously.
I agree with Catherine that Crosbie is a fascinating
character and we move inside his mind in
ways that allow us to recognise common emotions
we feel too.
Cheers to all, Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 19:21:43 -0400 While it may be stupid, as Ellen Moody writes, to regard one class of people
as better than another, I think it's a very different thing to expect better
behavior, however insincere, from educated people (among whom aristocrats do
not necessarily figure). I have already suggested a reason for the striking
difference in Trollope's different treatment of ladies like Lady Mason and
Mrs. Dale on the one hand and women like Lady Scatcherd, on the other (the
distinction, until a generation ago, between 'ladies' and 'women' was a
lively one). Ladies were educated and women were not. Educated in what? In
precisely the modes of behavior and convention that would forestall the
advances of an Amelia Roper. I don't think that Trollope's point is that if
Amelia's nature is morally inferior to Lily Dale's, this is a matter of
class. I doubt very much that he would place Amelia lower than the
calculating DeCourcy ladies. Owing merely to their training, however, the
Ladies Margaretta and Alexandrina would probably not go after Johnny Eames
(assuming he were rich) in the way that Amelia does.
Trollope is very frank, moreover, about the attractions of comfortable
living. Given the choice of the two morally empty environments, he would
choose Courcy Castle over Mrs. Roper's lodgings, where the only thing of
interest is Johnny's residence and consequent exposure to danger. Johnny is
a gentleman - an embryo gentleman, anyway - and must be held to the
standards of gentlemanly behavior. Amelia and the Lupexes, like Winifred
Hurtle in The Way We Live Now, may be remarkable characters, but they are
hazards rather than players in Trollope's moral universe. So, for that
matter, are the de Courcys.
RJ Keefe
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2000 11:55:25 Just to say in response to RJ, his point is well taken and
especially if we are talking about 'le monde' or, as the phrase
suggested in the 18th century, the people who count, the powerful.
Note though that Trollope wants us to see how small-minded
is Adolphus Crosbie when he cringes to find himself in the
Eames house and determines to separate Lily from such 'nothing
people'. Mr Harding remains our touchstone here.
If we move simply to getting through our days, it is probably
much easier to sit in room with Lady Alexandrina de Courcy
than Amelia Roper. Yes indeed. Very dull of course. But
then again was not 'ennui' a great problem for the bourgeois
with an imagination and heart.
Where I part company with Trollope, but suggest his own sympathetic
imagination leaves room for him to say, 'oh but I think so too',
is the de-valuation of someone who is (for whatever reason)
déclassé, even risking social unacceptability (as did George
Eliot). I would say upon finishing The Way We Live Now
that the most decent character in the book is Breghert and
on the evidence of his letters, Trollope knows that and
wants us to think that way. As to Mrs Hurtle, Trollope had
a strong personal fear of women who had defied the sexual
taboo: my husband calls this a failure of the imagination.
Cheers to all Date: Sun, 9 Apr 2000 12:01:51 -0000
Re: Lily "has given herself"
When I read this passage I thought a good deal about
it and in the end I interpreted it in a different
manner. To me the fact that Lily says she has given
herself to Crosbie as his wife does not necessarily
mean that she has lost her virginity to him (although
of course this is a distinct possibility). I have read
many instances in literature where the woman refers to
herself as the wife when she is merely engaged. So I
took Lily as meaning that she had given her heart and
soul to Crosbie as his wife, that she would consider
no other suitors, or even engage in any flirtations.
This part did not make me think about it as much as
the word "now." My feeling is that if she had actually
given herself to Crosbie physically she would be much,
much less willing to have a "divorce." To me the now
indicated that she now had a God and a Saviour and if
she could not have Crosbie and their projected life
together that her faith would be enough.
Dagny
From: "Catherine Crean" I just read Dagny's post and I agree with it. I'm still puzzled by the fact
that almost every time Crosbie thinks about Lily he talks about walking in
the fields. Is this symbolism? If so, maybe it doesn't mean sex. Maybe it
means a) the emotional freedom he felt with Lily - the fields are open and
airy b) the rewarding nature of Lily's love (fields-harvests) c) longing and
nostalgia -the romantic setting at Allington c) Crosbie liked fields. Oh,
and d) an unconscious pun - "consider the lilies of the field."
Catherine Crean
Mike Powe responded on the meaning of "marital relations":
From reading Gay, I would say that "marital relations" among the
engaged were fairly common among the Victorian middle classes.
This may have been one of the reasons that the "contractual
nature" of an engagement was so strongly maintained and why
breaking an engagement was such a serious matter.
mp
From: "Judy Warner" I'd agree with this interpretation of "given myself." It's all a matter
of point of view, of course, but even a kiss was a committment at the time.
It's pretty hard to imagine them "going all the way" in a field on such
short acquaintance---to put it in modern nineteen year old terms. Actually
being covered with hay in the clothes they wore doesn't sound particularly
pleasant or provocative to me either. Especially as I don't think they ran
right home and took a shower.
Judy Warner
From: "Patricia M. Maroney" I agree that there would be a moral in there, and it also seems that
someone (Lily, Belle, her mother, Crosbie) besides just me would be
worried that she might be pregnant had things gone that far. Pat ( a
child of the fifties)
Subject: [trollope-l] The Small House: The Bethrothed Couple
At the risk of being vulgar, when I was working as a student in a bakery in
the north of England, a lot of the girls there seemed to get engaged at a
young age (17/18) with the idea of getting married in 3 or 4 years time. The
engagement ring, proudly displayed, was always known as a "cock ring" - I
leave it to you to make the obvious implication.
Cheers From: Sigmund Eisner It is true, as a number of good readers have pointed out, that we have
no real proof that Lily did or did not give herself sexually to
Crosbie. I suspect that with Trollope that's not the issue. The issue
is that Lily has gone as far as a girl of her upbringing and class can
go. Whatever that mean to us, I am not sure. But I am sure that it
meant to Lily that she was now soiled forever and unfit to go to the
marriage bed of another man. Most women today would outgrow this kind
of self-abasement, but Lily was not most women today. When she is
wounded by Crosbie, she feels wounded, and she stays that way. To some
readers today her attitude is tiresome. But I suspect it made absolute
sense to Lily and possibly to Trollope's original readers.
Sig
To: trollope-l@egroups.com I am at my office and don't have my book with me, but isn't the word
"divorce" used in the description of the scene where Lily offers to release
Crosbie? If an actual marital divorce was a huge social taboo at the time
-- and I believe it was -- then the use of the word "divorce" in the
context of this scene seems to illuminate and clarify Lily's attitude about
being able to give herself to another man. Also we can see what a huge
sacrifice she was prepared to make.
Catherine
From: Dagny Sig wrote:
Yes, I agree with you Sig. The attitudes at the time
the novel were written were considerably different
than our attitudes of today. As someone mentioned even
passionate kissing (maybe even chaste kissing for all
I know) was considered quite risque and virtually
constituted a promise of sorts.
Catherine wrote:
Lily did indeed use the word divorce which seemed
quite a strange use of the word to me, but now I see
why she chose that word. I had picked up on the huge
sacrifice she was prepared to make, but hadn't really
understood why she thought she would never marry
another man.
Thanks, Catherine.
Dagny
From June Siegel
The Small House: The Bethrothed Couple
This rings absolutely true to my experience as a reader, Ellen, of this
and other of the novels where the love scenes often move me to tears because
they are so intensely impassioned. For me, these scenes are complete in
themselves: I trust Trollope to tell us exactly what we need to know. And I
don't want to drag these scenes into the harsh light of the 20th century for
just the reason you give, which is so perfectly put: "...the emphasis on what
exactly transpired loses what Trollope is getting at, which is a moral shaping
of life." Thank you for that.
From: "Catherine Crean" I agree with June and the others who say that the love scenes in The Small
House at Allington and other Victorian novels are moving in their
intensity. Why must we always assume that sex is necessary? And as Ellen
points out, modern readers are limited in their vocabulary when discussing
sexual relations. Lily Dale and Marianne Dashwood are well-rounded, full
blooded characters. I think we are looking the in the wrong direction when
we try to find things in the text that aren't there. Whether the authors
wanted us to think that the characters "had sex" or not is beside the point.
The issue of a woman giving her heart, or being sexually "awakened" is a
subtle and more interesting thing to discuss anyway. I adore the scene in
the field where Lily says "My love! My love!" Trollope paints Lily's
physical manifestations of love with deft strokes, especially when he writes
about Crosbie's recollections after he marries an iceberg of a wife. Lily
seems more alive, more vivid in Crosbie's recollections of her than anywhere
else. This is an example of superb artistry on Trollope's part.
Catherine Crean
From Gene Stratton ("Ginger Watts" I can't see that there was a hard and fast rule in Victorian times about
women as "damaged goods." Let's look at the other side of Trollope as an
example. In Can You Forgive Her, we have Alice Vavasor in a well-known
engaged relationship with her cousin. Indeed, Ellen, if I remember
correctly, believes that Alice and George definitely had sexual relations,
yet Alice was pursued by the quite proper John Grey and was accepted by the
upper crust Pallisers. Glencora herself seemed to be pretty "damaged" by
her relationship with Burgo Fitzgerald, yet the ultra proper Plantagenet
accepted her as his wife. Madame Max is perhaps a little different because
she was a once married woman, but still her relationship with the old Duke
of Omnium as considered by most of London society as that of a mistress, yet
she was subsequently courted by Lord Fawn and later accepted and married
Phineas Finn.
In The Duke's Children, Mabel Grex, once very involved with Frank Tregear,
was still considered quite a suitable wife for Silverbridge.
In The Way We Live Now, Hetta Carbury was closely involved romantically with
Paul Montague. She later married him. But in between, Roger Carbury had no
qualms about wanting to marry her.
In The Three Clerks, Linda Woodward is in love with Alaric Tudor, who
discards her to marry her sister Gertrude, yet Harry Norman, once in love
with Gertrude, pursues and marries Linda.
Gene Stratton From: "HILTON OR JUNE W. SIEGEL" Catherine Crean writes, 'I agree with June and the others who say that
the love scenes in The Small House at Allington and other Victorian novels
are moving in their intensity. Why must we always assume that sex is
necessary? And as Ellen points out, modern readers are limited in their
vocabulary when discussing sexual relations. Lily Dale and Marianne Dashwood
are well-rounded, full blooded characters. I think we are looking the in the
wrong direction when we try to find things in the text that aren't there.
Whether the authors wanted us to think that the characters "had sex" or not is
beside the point. The issue of a woman giving her heart, or being sexually
"awakened" is a subtle and more interesting thing to discuss anyway. I adore
the scene in the field where Lily says "My love! My love!" Trollope paints
Lily's physical manifestations of love with deft strokes, especially when he
writes about Crosbie's recollections after he marries an iceberg of a wife.
Lily seems more alive, more vivid in Crosbie's recollections of her than
anywhere else. This is an example of superb artistry on Trollope's part.'
Yes, thanks Catherine, that's just what I had in mind. I love the idea of
the pledging of troth -- it's the same root as the word 'truth', isn't it?
(I suppose it's what Matthew Arnold had in mind when in 'Dover Beach' he says,
'Ah, love! Let us be true/ To one another! for the world, which seems/ To lie
before us like a land of dreams,/ So various, so beautiful, so new,/
Hath really neither joy, nor love, not light, nor help for pain....')
Trollope's heroines often give their hearts and in doing so transcend, or make
a move in the direction of transcending, all of the insults that ordinary life
has in store for any of us. One way around this is to willingly give all and
more than is expected, and I believe that this wholeheartedness is what
invests these love scenes with so much intensity. They are sketched with what
seems like such a scarcity of detail, but in this very spareness, we get to
experience the fine edge of emotion that is exchanged between two people who
suddenly find it in themselves to declare love and to mean it.
There's a certain selflessness that gives a shine to romance that it might
otherwise lack. I know that I'm straying far off the topic, but I'm reminded
of a passage in Lampedusa's The Leopard that explains what I'm trying to say
about the sexual restraint I feel is present in these scenes, rather than
veiled allusions to sexual abandon:
Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2000 17:45:14 +0100 The questions of Lily and Crosbie's intimacy have
been debated at a timely moment for us in the UK,
as we have recently been shown a steamy two part TV
dramatisation of Madame Bovary.
I got down my text in order to take a closer look at
the depiction of sex in the 19th century novel, remembering
that Flaubert was writing about 20 years earlier than Trollope.
Although Flaubert does not describe the sex scenes we were
shown on our TVs, he does make it clear that the characters
are lovers and that are in bed (or in a carriage or a wood)
for the purposes of making love. He describes their emotions
but not their physical feelings.
Looking back at the scenes in the Small House, nothing is
direct or explicit, although we do learn a lot about their
feelings, Lily's especially.
The language that Trollope uses seems to me carefully chosen
so that those around the family circle reading or listening
to these sections being read, will choose a knowing or innocent
interpretation as fits their own knowledge of life and
other literature.
Angela
Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2000 11:13:31 -0700 (PDT) Angela, thanks for letting us know you checked the
book after seeing the very steamy recent production of
Madame Bovary. We had a very lively discussion of that
on the FrenchLiterature list after it aired in the
U.S. on PBS a few months ago. Not a one of us who had
read the book could recall scenes like those, although
we certainly remembered that she did have a couple of
affairs.
Meanwhile, we are waiting for someone to read the book
in the French--we don't really think our translations
were toned down, we don't expect the scenes to be so
explicit in the original French either. Although of
course there was the scandal and trial. :-)
Dagny
Re: Crosbie Meets Mr Harding
Thilde Fox wrote:
Is anyone still reading SHA? Or have I got my lists mixed up? Or my dates?
In case anyone is still there, I wanted to say that I think Chapter 16, when
Mr.Crosbie meets Mr. Harding, doesn't really fit in. A pot-boiler? A way
to make sure that the readers who loved Mr.H. and loved all Barchester would
keep on reading? I realise that Mr. Crosbie is being shown the unworldly
(Mr. H.) and the worldly (the de Courcy's) and so is being given the
opportunity to choose between his good side and his bad side, but even so I
feel it is "kitchy".
Thilde.
To Which I responded:
Dear Thilde,
I thought the scene was there to contrast the "good
man" with the man-about-to-be-corrupted. I also found the orginal
illustration touching. I agree that Trollope feels that by bringing
Mr Harding before us, he automatically brings into his novel our
affectionate memories of other scenes and books.
Ellen
From: "Catherine Crean" An e-mail acquaintance of mine (on another forum) replied to a post I made
about The Small House at Allington. She said that Lily Dale (from my
description of the plot and the character) sounded like Amelia Sedley in
Vanity Fair. I wanted to post back right away saying that no two
characters could be so dissimilar when I thought, "Right, but how exactly
are these characters dissimilar?" And I didn't know how to respond. It's at
times like this that I realize the genius of Trollope. He creates a
distinct, well rounded, sympathetic heroine (Lily Dale) and when I try to
describe Lily myself (without the benefit of Trollope's words) Lily falls
flat. I don't think that Trollope wrote any namby-pamby female characters.
Certainly he never created anything like Dicken's Esther Summerson. (And I'm
thankful for it.) But if anybody has any comments about Amelia and Lily I'd
be interested to hear them.
Catherine Crean
From Catherine Jordan
I am just now reading the section where Amelia and Mrs. Lupex go to battle
-- I love the battle ship analogy. I don't understand something about this
one passage, though:
On what does Trollope base the conjecture that Amelia would win (because she
carries "greater guns" and has "heavier metal")? Is it only because she is
the daughter of the house that she would have the advantage over Mrs. Lupex?
Or have I missed something else in the reading?
Thanks!
Catherine Jordan
From Dagny
I got the impression, and this is only my opinion,
that should the fight leave off with words and become
an actual scrimmage that Amelia was either the larger
or in much better shape physically.
And speaking of fighting, I was amazed on reading
later in the section that Johnny Eames wanted to fight
Crosbie, even should they both be killed. Sounds a lot
like the French novels I have been reading lately.
Dagny
To Trollope-l
Re: Small House: Sisters
Thilde Fox wrote:
BTW I am very close to my sister, and my two daughters are very close to
each other!
Dear Thilde and friends,
This is just to add that the theme of sisters is one which comes
up in literature again and again, from Antigone and Ismene down
to the paired heroines of A. S. Byatt's books (which some critics
say reflects her rivalry with her sister, Margaret Drabble).
I think the most interesting sister pairs are those
which are six years apart: Harriet and Sophia Lee from the
18th century, Charlotte and Anne Bronte. It is a favorite
pattern in Austen: the sister pairs are not only loving but
bitter rivals too.
There's a good book on this: Amy K. Levin, The Suppressed
Sister: A Relationship in Novels by Nineteenth- and Twentieth-
Century British Women
Ellen
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] SHA, Chapters 13-18: Letters, Style, & Dickens
Overland Park KS
"And you're going to teach me, are you, Miss Roper? I'm sure I'm ever so
much obliged to you. It's Manchester manners, I suppose, that you prefer?"
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] The Small House, Chs 13-18: Milliners
'Because -- ', said he; and then he
stooped over her and pressed her closely while
she put up her lips to his, standing on tiptoe
that she might reach his face.
Ellen Moody
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Some thoughts on SHA, Chs. xiii-xviii
From: "Catherine Crean"
Reply trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Sig's post
Ellen Moody
From: "R J Keefe"
To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] The Dales and the Ropers and the De Courcys - Morals vs Manners
From: Ellen Moody
To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] The Dales and the Ropers and the De Courcys - Morals vs Manners
Ellen Moody
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Dagny & Lily
To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: Re: [trollope-l] Lily's virginity
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Sig's post
Roger
To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] The Small House: Lily's attitude
Subject: [trollope-l] The Small House: Lily's attitude
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] The Small House: Lily's attitude
"Lily has gone as far as a girl of her upbringing and
class can go. Whatever that mean to us, I am not
sure. But I am sure that it meant to Lily that she
was now soiled forever and unfit to go to the
marriage bed of another man. . . . But I suspect it
made absolute sense to Lily and possibly to
Trollope's original readers."
"If an actual marital divorce was a huge social taboo
at the time -- and I believe it was -- then the use
of the word "divorce" in the context of this scene
seems to illuminate and clarify Lily's attitude about
being able to give herself to another man. Also we
can see what a huge sacrifice she was prepared to
make."
To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] "My love!"
To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Victorian Women As "Damaged Goods"
gwlit@worldnet.att.net
To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] "My love!"
Those were the best days in the life of Tancredi and
Angelica, lives later to be so variegated, so erring,
against the inevitable background of sorrow. But that
they did not know then; and they were pursuing a future
which they deemed more concrete than it turned out to
be, made of nothing but smoke and wind. When they were
old and uselessly wise their thoughts would go back to
those days with insistent regret; they had been days
when desire was always present because it was always
overcome, when many beds had been offered and refused,
when the sensual urge, because restrained, had for one
second been sublimated in renunciation, that is into
real love. ( 188 Tr. Archibald Colquhoun)
From: "Angela Richardson"
Subject: Re: [trollope-l] Sex and the 19th century novel
From: Dagny
To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] Sex and the 19th century novel -- Madame Bovary
Subject: [trollope-l] Lily Dale and Amelia Sedley
"Mrs. Lupex had doubtless on her side more matured power, a habit of
fighting which had given her infinite skill, a courage which deadened her to
the feeling of all wounds while the heat of the battle should last, and a
recklessness which made her almost indifferent whether she sank or swam.
But then Amelia carried the greater guns, and was able to pour in heavier
metal than her enemy could use; and she, too, swam in her own waters.
Should they absolutely come to grappling and boarding, Amelia would no doubt
have the best of it; but Mrs. Lupex would probably be too craft to permit
such a proceeding as that."
"I have been thinking about sisters in books. I do like the strong feeling
of love between the two sisters in SHA, and in other books I have read, not
only Austen. I suppose the sisters in the middle-class or upper-class
families we read about would be brought up closely together, would share a
bed, wouldn't be able to go out to find other friends. Presumably some of
them would fight or would be fiercely jealous of each other. Did Trollope
romanticise this relationship? And do modern novelists write about sisters too?"
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