Kendra J. Thompson

History 695

Dr. Cheryl White

November 27, 2013

The Drowned Woman: The Symbolic Duality of Water

in Victorian Literature and Art

Fell in the weeping Brooke, her cloathes spred wide, And Mermaid-like, a while they

bore her up, Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes, As one incapable of her

owne distresse, Or like a creature Natiue, and indued unto that Element but long it

could not be, Till that her garments, heavy with her drinke, Pul'd the poore wretch from

her melodious lay,

To muddy death1

Unchaste in the Victorian Era

The Victorian era was defined by its emphasis on social

decorum and sexual repression. Women’s sexuality was not a

natural thing; but rather, a social problem. In the 1840’s there

was an increase in media whose subject matter portrayed that of

the prostitute and the unchaste women.2 The fallen woman, as she

1 William Shakespeare. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Vol. XLVI, part 2, Act IV, Scene VII. The Harvard Classics. New York: PF Collier and Son, 1909-14; Bartleby.com, 2001. WWW.bartelby.com/46/2/. [accessed 2 November 2013]2 Sally Mitchell. The Fallen Angel: Chastity, Class, and Women’s Reading 1835-1880. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1981. page 22.

2

was often described, not only became the subject of medical

treatises and informational pamphlets, but was also a feature in

popular literature and art. Indeed the tragic figure of the

fallen woman became an archetype used as a warning to all women

against unsavory behaviors. Sally Mitchell, in her book, The

Fallen Angel: Chastity, Class, and Women’s Reading 1835-1880, describes the

first emerging characteristics of the archetypal fallen woman.

She states that the afflicted girl almost always comes from a

churchgoing family and is aware that she is committing a sin, but

is seduced by flattery, usually from a male who belongs to a

higher social class. The male continues on with little or no

consequence of his actions and the girl inevitably dies. Her

death is described as “ happy in a religious sense” as the girl

is now repentant of her shameful actions and is aware that she,

and she alone, is to blame for her downfall.3 The story of the

unchaste women evolves to include a female character who gives

their love (not sexual) too freely to a man who is indecisive

about his own feelings. Another popular motif is the woman who

seems chaste but has a “dirty” secret, eventually the deception

3 Sally Mitchell, page 8.

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is revealed and the woman is left alone to die in shame. In

addition to the characteristics of the female and the evolution

of the narrative, the environment also becomes an important

element. As a result of this, iconography and symbolism

pertaining to water began to emerge in Victorian art and

literature. Water in liquid and solid forms were especially

common, as well as, any imagery that is related to water, such

as, bridges. But why is this and what does water, usually known

as a life giving element, have to do with the fallen woman?

Richard Broad in his dissertation, Water and the Fallen Woman in

Victorian Art and literature, equates positioning women of ill repute in

close proximity to water with the Victorian water crisis. Broad

writes, “The Victorian water crisis was a complex problem that

revolved around both the quantity and the quality of water

available to those living in cities.”4 Broad believes this is a

result of the industrial age and points to frequent outbreaks of

cholera and water shortage as the reason for the tainted view of

the element. 5 Beyond its use as an indicator of ill repute,

4 Richard Broad. “Water and the Fallen Woman in Victorian Literature and Art” (2011) Dissertations from Proquest. Paper 0115203. University of London. page 14.5 Richard Broad, page 14.

4

water also became symbolic of purification. This paper will

explore the duality of water as a symbol in Victorian literature

and the differences between male and female writers by analyzing

works such as, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, Charlotte Bronte’s,

Jane Eyre and Lord Alfred Tennyson’s, The Lady of Shalott . In addition

to literature, paintings like, John Everett Millais’ Ophelia,

George Frederic Watts’ Found Drowned and Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s

Found, will also be considered in order to show the popularity of

the motif and the archetypal characteristics of the figures.

Poverty, Prostitution and the Victorian Water Crisis

The London water crisis was an extended crisis that

plagued Victorian England during the nineteenth and early

twentieth century. There were major outbreaks of cholera, and a

constant water shortage. It brought about many attempts at

reform; such as, the 1852 Metropolitan Water Supply Act and the

1876 River Pollution Act. The problems persisted until the

previously privatized water companies were turned over to the

public in 1902 with the Metropolitan Water Act.6 No longer life

6 Shelly Wood Cordluck. “Victorian Caricature and Classicism: Picturing the London Water Crisis”. International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol. 9 No. 4, spring 2004. page 535-583.

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giving, water became a source of great anxiety, and therefore,

produced feelings of terror and desperation among the people of

the city. There is a definite parallel between the contamination

and disease of the water crisis and the perceived contamination

of society and the spread of disease by prostitutes. Another

serious concern during the Victorian period in London and other

metropolitan cities was poverty. Hunger, homelessness, horrible

working conditions, child labor and prostitution were just

symptoms of the much larger issues of poverty and overcrowding.7

Prostitution was a rampant concern and considered the

greatest “social evil” of the day. The estimate of the number of

prostitutes living in London varies according to what source you

consult, but it is possible that there were as many as eighty-

thousand at one time. In 1841 Greater London had a population of

two million. According to renowned historian Judy Walkowitz, a

nineteenth century city would commonly have one prostitute per

thirty-six inhabitants. A common condition that seemed to force

a woman into prostitution was a separation from her community or

support system and had no means of financially taking care of

7 Judith Walkowitz. Prostitution and Victorian Society, Women, Class and the State. Cambridge,UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980. page 11.

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herself. It was becoming more common that young woman would be

expected to be economically independent. They took jobs that

forced them to relocate, generally to more urban areas, either

because of family conflict or economic necessity.

Industrialization was a common factor for relocation especially

from rural areas where agriculture was the prominent means of

support. Prostitutes were not the only occupation of women that

caused them to be shunned by good society. Actresses and artists

models were considered no better than or the equivalent to the

prostitute.8 But women did not need to hold a particular

occupation to gain an unfavorable reputation there were many

other types of behaviors also considered damning.

Women Destroyed By Love in all its Forms and Fates

Because social decorum was of the utmost importance to the

Victorians, it was easy for women to fall into the trappings of

the day. The Pre-Raphaelite artists described this as, women

“destroyed by love in all its forms and fates.” 9 This included

betrayal by an unrequited love, seduced by false ideals or

8 Judith Walkowitz, page 13-15.9 Nineteenth century group of artists founded by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais

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victimized by tragic love. Even though these ideas seem

blameless on the part of the woman, society saw the feeble-

mindedness of the woman as the problem. Often women were

depicted as having both mental destruction and bodily destruction

as punishment for their thoughts of sexuality.10 Within the

visual arts, male artists primarily portrayed women as tragic,

frail and above all lovely. In literature, depending on the sex

of the writer, this was not always the case. Whether visual art

or literature, male or female, in the examples here the one

constant is the imagery of water.

Consider Bleak House written by one the most popular

authors of the nineteenth century, Charles Dickens. In Bleak

House, Dickens uses the frail, beautiful woman with a corrosive

secret, motif. The character, Lady Dedlock had a child out of

wedlock, she believed the child dead and her lover lost at sea.

She eventually marries a wealthy man older than she and bears a

dull and listless existence. She is a great beauty and Dickens

goes to great lengths to convey this to the reader. He writes,

10 Hae-In Kim. Pre-Raphaelites, Aesthetes and Decadents. Brown University 2004. page 1.Victorian Web http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/prb/hikim12.html [accessed 11 November 2013]

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in the voice of his narrator, Esther Summerson, “She was as

graceful as she was beautiful, perfectly self-possessed, and

had the air, I thought, of being able to attract and interest

any one if she had thought it worth her while.” It is

significant to note that when Esther is first introduced to

Lady Dedlock they are both seeking shelter from a sudden

thunderstorm.11 It is discovered later on in the novel that

Esther is Lady Dedlocks long lost child that she once believed

was dead. The first meeting of the mother and daughter

foreshadows what will tragically become of Lady Dedlock once

she believes her secret has been found out. Dickens allows

Lady Dedlock to describe her own death in a suicide note:

I have wandered a long distance, and for many hours, and I

know that I

must soon die. These streets! I have no purpose but to die.

When I left,

I had a worse, but I am saved from adding that guilt to the

rest.

Cold, wet, and fatigue are sufficient causes for my being

found dead,

11 Charles Dickens. Bleak House. Wordsworth Classics: Hertfordshire, Wordsworth Edition, 2000. page 52

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but I shall die of others, though I suffer from these. It

was right that

all that had sustained me should give way at once and that I

should die

of terror and my conscience.12

Dickens uses rain, snow and ice as a timeline for Lady Dedlock

and Esther, and in this case the imagery of water connotes

punishment and death for a woman who has brought shame to herself

and her family. The use of water is therefore symbolic of

contamination. Dickens often used a fallen women motif, and in

some cases he was unsympathetic and unflattering to the

characters. This is ironic, because he himself, at the risk of

ruining his own good reputation, kept a mistress, an actress,

named Nelly Ternan.13 Their relationship lasted for many years,

but because Dickens was much older than Nelly she was still a

young woman when he died. Nelly never admitted that she had a

romantic relationship with Dickens; she would only say that he

was a close family friend and benefactor. She was able to

marry, have a family and enjoy an upper middle class existence

where there was some rumor and speculation about her relationship12 Charles Dickens, page 492.13 Claire Tomalin. The Invisible Woman. London: Penguin, 2012. Page 147.

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with Dickens, but no real proof.14 Nelly Ternan did not suffer

the same fate as the characters in Charles Dickens novels.

In contrast, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, who in addition to

using the element of water, uses other elements also, such as,

fire, and earth, uses water not as a contaminator, but as a

purifier. Bronte uses water, specifically rain, to purify Jane

after she discovers on her wedding day that her intended, Mr.

Rochester, is already married and keeps his mad wife locked away

in the very home that he would have shared with her. 15 Though

Jane was innocent in the sense that she was unaware of

Rochester’s wife, by Victorian standards and Sally Mitchell’s

description of the fallen woman archetype, Jane was still guilty

of giving her love too feely to a man she barely knew.16 Once

she discovered the deception she leaves her home and struggles to

find new employment. She must survive starvation, exhaustion and

cold rainy nights with no shelter, but unlike Lady Dedlock, who

in a fit of madness resigns herself to death, Jane seeks shelter

and survives the elements. Bronte’s character is brave and

14 Claire Tomalin, page 152.15 Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre. New York, NY, Marboro Book Corp, 1992. page 338.16 Sally Mitchell, page 12.

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admits no fault in the circumstances that have befallen her.

She writes:

And I sank down where I stood, and hid my face against the

ground.

I lay still a while: the night-wind swept over the hill and

over

me, and died moaning in the distance; the rain fell fast,

wetting me

afresh to the skin. Could I but have stiffened to the still

frost--

the friendly numbness of death--it might have pelted on; I

should

not have felt it; but my yet living flesh shuddered at its

chilling

influence. I rose ere long.

The light was yet there, shining dim but constant through

the rain.

I tried to walk again: I dragged my exhausted limbs slowly

towards

it. It led me aslant over the hill, through a wide bog,

which would

have been impassable in winter, and was splashy and shaking

even

now, in the height of summer. Here I fell twice; but as

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often I

rose and rallied my faculties. This light was my forlorn

hope: I

must gain it.17

Jane finds shelter with two kindly sisters and their brother, a

parson who is stern, but compassionate. The family is a

continuation of the purification water theme as their surname is

Rivers. Jane is washed clean by the rain and saved by the family,

Rivers. She is courted by St. John Rivers, the parson, but she

does not marry him, because in spite of everything, she is still

in love with Mr. Rochester. The book is semi-autobiographical

and because of this, it is easy to see why Charlotte Bronte makes

Jane a survivor, not drowned, just a little damp. Unlike Jane

Eyre, in the final example of literature, Lord Alfred Tennyson

gives the reader a classic example of the “drowned woman”

archetype.

In his poem, The Lady of Shalott, Tennyson describes the

isolation felt by a woman who is separated from society because

of a curse. It is obvious that this could describe a “kept” woman

17 Charlotte Bronte, page 339.

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who receives the financial support of a man in exchange for

sexual favors.18 Though metaphorical and in keeping with the

popular medieval motif typical of the times, Tennyson also wishes

to comment on the unrealistic expectations placed upon women in

Victorian society. By doing this he is introducing a new element

to the motif, the imprisoned woman.

In Lady, the woman, a weaver, is doomed to sit and weave

alone in a tower and if she should look down to Camelot, a curse

will befall her. She obeys until one day she is tempted to look

down at the handsome Knight, Sir Lancelot. Upon seeing him, she

decides no matter the consequences, she has to leave her tower.

She travels in a boat down the stream to find Camelot and in

doing so brings about her own death. She is dressed only in a

thin white robe to protect her from the steady rain that falls

upon her. Consider these excerpts from Lady :

She left the web, she left the loom,

She made three paces thro’ the room,

She saw the water-lily bloom,

She saw the helmet and the plume,

18 Sally Mitchell, page 14.

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       She look’d down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror crack’d from side to side;

“The curse is come upon me,” cried

       The Lady of Shalott.

In the stormy east-wind straining,

The pale yellow woods were waning,

The broad stream in his banks complaining,

Heavily the low sky raining

Lying, robed in snowy white

That loosely flew to left and right—

The leaves upon her falling light—

Thro’ the noises of the night

       She floated down to Camelot:

And as the boat-head wound along

The willowy hills and fields among,

They heard her singing her last song,

       The Lady of Shalott.19

The symbolism in The Lady of Shalott is complex and often

debated among Victorian scholars. Tennyson was a product of

his times and commented on topics that were prevalent in

Victorian society, but by placing his Lady in the rain and 19 Alfred Tennyson. "The Lady of Shalott." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. ByCarol T. Christ, Catherine Robson, and Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. pages 1157-158.

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in close proximity to a body of water, there can be no

argument that Tennyson was aware of the stigma surrounding

the fallen, or in this case, metaphorically speaking, the

“kept” woman. In this example, both contamination and

purification apply. The stream provides escape and leads to

freedom even if it means death, and the rain symbolizes

disobedience and emotional carelessness. Water imagery is

not only a component of Victorian literature, there are

examples in the visual arts also.

Bridges, Flowers and Streams

In Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais’

painting, Ophelia (1851) the suicide of the female character

is implied (fig. 1). The figure drifts, with open arms,

singing, down a heavily vegetated stream. Millais is

referencing the Shakespearean character Ophelia from Hamlet

and assuming that the viewer understands that it is the

depiction of the death of Ophelia, which is not portrayed in

the stage play, but rather described by Queen Gertrude.20

20 Hae-In Kim, Page 7.

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The scene is heavy in symbolism and Millais appeals to the

Victorian viewers’ interest in floriography.21 He paints in

plain air at a real location and incorporates the natural

landscape, but uses a model in his studio to paint the

figure of Ophelia.22 It is well known that Ophelia goes mad

and is drowned while floating down a stream, what is also

know is the reason why she would do something so destructive

and irrational. She feels hopeless and used by Hamlet and

acting on emotion ends her life. She has the archetypal

elements expressed earlier in this paper and therefore is an

excellent example of the fallen or drowned woman. Whether

this was a true comment on the treatment of women of ill

repute is not known, it is possible that Millais’ painting

is derivative of other works with similar narratives,

either way the painting expresses the idea in concept and

also by the use of a real model.

Artist’s models were often from the lower middle class

and in some cases were prostitutes. The model used to

21 The language of flowers, used to send cryptic messages through meaning and combination of floral bouquets.22 Hae-In Kim, Page 7.

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depict Ophelia was nineteen- year-old, milliner shop worker,

Elizabeth Siddal. Elizabeth would become known for her

recognizable beauty and her volatile relationship with

founding Pre-Raphaelite member, Dante Rossetti. She lay in

a bathtub fully clothed in order for Millais to paint her,

the water was cold and she became ill and never fully

recovered. Siddal is a real life example of what the

Victorians considered a fallen woman. She was in a

relationship with Rossetti for some years before he would

agree to marry her and even then he expected that she would

be dead soon.23 She was not excepted by his family and was

only able to navigate in artistic circles, as she was

considered ruined in all other good society. She died young

supposedly of a laudanum overdose, but most people believed

it was an intentional suicide.24 The impact of Ophelia is

two-fold once the viewer is aware of the sad story of the

girl in the bathtub. Rossetti was to Elizabeth Siddal what

Hamlet was to Ophelia, both men used the women for selfish

gain and the love that the women had for them was never

23 Jan Marsh. The Legend of Elizabeth Siddal, London: Quartet 1992. page, 11424 Jan Marsh, page, 117.

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fully reciprocated. The water in Millais’ Ophelia represents

innocence lost and the stream itself a path to

righteousness; therefore, it is both contaminating and

purifying. Ophelia is allegorical and in the typical style

of the Pre-Raphaelite school, but there were other works

that depicted the subject of the fallen women in a more

realistic way.

In John Frederic Watts painting, Found Drowned (1850)the

viewer experiences what may be the shocking consequences of

an inappropriate relationship (fig. 2). The painting is done

in the realism style, which was a departure from the style

that Watts usually painted in. The narrative is similar to

Ophelia in that there is a beautiful woman in water, but

Watts’ figure is clearly dead and instead of being

surrounded by hyper-realistic vegetation as in Millais’

work, Watt’s uses an ugly industrial cityscape and fog in

the background. Only her torso and upper legs are exposed

while her feet remain in the water. She is positioned as if

she has just washed up onto the shore and in her hand is a

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locket which presumably indicates a lover. According to

Richard Broad, “Unlike mid-Victorian literature explored,

water is a medium that purifies sexuality…the beautiful

drowned woman in mid-Victorian art epitomizes the male

fantasy of restoration to respectable femininity.”25 Broad

posits that the male sees himself as a savior of the fallen

women and indeed there is religious iconography in the

painting. Watt’s figure has her arms spread wide and her

body is in the shape of a cross. This is reminiscent of

Millais’ Ophelia. Though the figure is not in the shape of a

cross, she does have her arms positioned slightly out, palms

up, this gesture is usually reserved for saints. It is

possible that Millais also sees himself as a savior of

sorts. By now it is apparent that the male perspective or

male gaze produces a different meaning than that of the

female. This is also true in the last painting to be

analyzed, which is Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Found.

Found (1854-1881) is an unusual piece for Rossetti

(fig. 3). He typically stayed within the traditional Pre-

25 Richard Broad, page 32

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Raphaelite tenants of classical and medieval revivalism.

Found was never finished and perhaps the reason why was

because the subject matter and realist style was such a

departure from his normal work.26 This is also the only

work discussed in this paper that actually depicts a

prostitute. It is also unique because the female figure is

not in close proximity to water. There is the perception of

water, because there is a bridge in the background and also

Rossetti has inserted a male figure (savior ) in the

narrative. Here is a description of the painting in

Rossetti’s own words in a letter he wrote to his friend and

fellow Pre-Raphaelite brother, William Holman Hunt:

The picture represents a London street at dawn, with

the lamps still lighted along a bridge which forms the

distant background. A drover has left his cart standing

in the middle of the road (in which, i. e. the cart,

stands baa-ing a calf tied on its way to market), and

has run a little way after a girl who has passed him,

wandering in the streets. He has just come up with her

and she, recognising him, has sunk under her shame upon

26 Julian Treuherz; Elizabeth Prettejohn ; Edwin Becker. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. London New York, N.Y: Thames & Hudson, (2003). page 221 .

21

her knees, against the wall of a raised churchyard in

the foreground, while he stands holding her hands as he

seized them, half in bewilderment and half guarding her

from doing herself a hurt. These are the chief things

in the picture which is to be called "Found," and for

which my sister Maria has found me a most lovely motto

from Jeremiah ... The calf, a white one, will be a

beautiful and suggestive part of the thing, though I am

far from having painted him as well as I hoped to do.27

The male in the work recognized the female as being from his

rural farming community, the viewer can presume that the female

came to the city and is ashamed because she has become a

prostitute. The male grasps her arm to raise her from the

ground, but also as an indicator that he feels that he must save

her and take her from the city. Rossetti gives the typical

iconography for the subject, but because the bridge is in the

background and the girl is not yet to the point of suicide,

perhaps he is indicating hope that the girl can be saved. He was

not able to save his own “drowned woman”, his wife, Elizabeth

Siddal. She died 10 years after Rossetti started painting Found,

this could also be a reason that it was never finished.

Water Contaminates, Water Purifies

Victorian England was a time of strict social etiquette,

moral superiority and closeted depravity. It was a time of 27 Julian Treuherz, page 221.

22

scientific advancement, industrial revolution and growing

urbanization. The world was made up of two spheres, the public

reserved for men and the private reserved for women, anyone that

challenged that convention was punished or sometimes even

banished from all good society. Women had no right to their own

sexuality and when they were void of it or were successful at

suppressing it they were called virginal. Women who took

advantage of their sexuality whether for pleasure or financial

gain were called whore. One was to marry and the other was to

use, but all were exploited. This was a social problem that was

recognized and explored by the artists of the day. Through the

use of water imagery and symbolism they were able to comment on

it and either perpetuate the problem or dispel it. Just as there

was dual meaning in the use of water in art, there was also

different outcomes for the narratives that contained water

imagery. The concept could be contamination, purification or

both and it could also take on different meanings because of the

sex of the artist or their own personal story. Charlotte Bronte

used it to show purification and rejuvenation, Dickens saw it as

a contaminator and a purifier as did Tennyson and Rossetti,

Millais and Watts saw it as a means of redemption and

purification and saw themselves as saviors of women. To quote

Dickens, the voice of Victorian England, just once more, “It was

the best of times, it was the worst of times.”28

28 Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, Li2Go edition, (1859), [accessed November 27, 2013] http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/22/a-tale-of-two-cities/.

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Figures

Figure 1. Ophelia, 1852, John Everett Millais, oil on canvas, Tate Britain, London, England

Figure 2. Found Drowned, 1850, George F. Watts, oil on canvas, Watts Gallery, Surrey, England

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Figure 3. Found, 1852-1881, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, oil on canvas, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, Delaware

25

Figure 1.

26

Figure 2.

27

Figure 3.

28

Bibliography

Broad, Richard. “Water and the Fallen Woman in Victorian Literature and Art” (2011) Dissertations from Proquest. Paper 0115203. University of London. page 14.

Cordluck , Shelly Wood. “Victorian Caricature and Classicism: Picturing the London Water Crisis”. International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol. 9 No. 4, spring (2004). page 535-583.

Dickens , Charles. Bleak House. Wordsworth Classics: Hertfordshire, Wordsworth Edition, (2000). page 52

Dickens ,Charles. A Tale of Two Cities, Li2Go edition, (1859), [accessed November 27, 2013] http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/22/a-tale-of-two-cities/.

Kim, Hae-In. Pre-Raphaelites, Aesthetes and Decadents. Brown University (2004).page 1. Victorian Web http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/prb/hikim12.html [accessed 11 November 2013]

Marsh, Jan. The Legend of Elizabeth Siddal, London: Quartet 1992. page, 114

Mitchell, Sally. The Fallen Angel: Chastity, Class, and Women’s Reading 1835-1880. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, (1981). page 22.

Shakespeare ,William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Vol. XLVI, part 2, ActIV, Scene VII. The Harvard Classics. New York: PF Collier and Son, 1909-14; Bartleby.com, (2001). WWW.bartelby.com/46/2/. [accessed 2 November 2013]

29

Tennyson , Alfred. "The Lady of Shalott." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. By Christ , Carol T., Catherine Robson, and Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006.pages 1157-158.

Treuherz , Julian; Prettejohn, Elizabeth ; Becker, Edwin. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. London New York, N.Y: Thames & Hudson, (2003). page 221.

Walkowitz, Judith. Prostitution and Victorian Society, Women, Class and the State. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, (1980). page 11