Woman In The Victorian Era

In Victorian Era there was a massive discrepancy between the places that a woman and a man occupied in society. Men had the power over everything. They monopolized the business sphere, while women were presumed to stay in the domestic sphere, to take care of the children and to wait the husband home with a hot meal. Women were owned all their lives: first by their fathers and then by their husbands. The man was thought to be superior to a woman.

Women were also deprived of education until 1870 when an Educational Act was issued that demanded elementary education for both sexes. Even so, after being thought the 3Rs, Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic, girls continued with French, literature, and artistic subjects like drawing, dancing, piano,

She is exactly as an angel should be. She is young, innocent and beautiful. Her aim in life is to get married and have children, but the price she must pay for her wish scared her ‘Ernestina wanted a husband, wanted Charles to be that husband, wanted children; but the payment she vaguely divined she would have to make for them seemed excessive.’ (Fowles, 29). From this point of view she fulfilled the Victorian requirement, yet she is jealous, because she thinks that she cannot forgive Charles for his past with a French countess and she is not that submissive ‘Ernestina had certainly a much stronger will of her own than anyone about her had ever allowed for—and more than the age allowed for.’ (Fowles, 29). Here she moves away from the passive and obedient nature of the ‘Angels’. But, even if she might have represented the ideal wife, Fowels makes Charles not to love her, and not to remain with her, as Ernestina is not the woman he dreams

She is free from inhibitions and very enquiring about everything around her. Even her sexual life is thoroughly described as she wanted more sex even than Wedderburn. Bella ran away from a marriage that made her unhappy, from a marriage arranged by her father. She has the power to reinvent herself, and to be her own master. Bella, or Victoria, as she named herself represents the rebirth of a new woman.

The entire concept of ‘killing the angel in the house’ belongs to Virginia Woolf. ‘I turned upon her and caught her by the throat. I did my best to kill her. Had I not killed her she would have killed me. […]She died hard. Her fictitious nature was of great assistance to her. It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.’ (Woolf). The angel was abased in order to allow women to live without prejudices and to make the most of their life according to their own