Girls Rule

 

In the Victorian era, a time when men ruled the world and women were supposed to fade into the background or fulfill a supporting role to men, Wilke Collins produced a novel filled with women who break the stereotype for Victorian womanly behaviors and actions.  I love these characters for how modern they come across.  As a woman, I would like to think, that if I  had I been around at the time, I would have been one of these forward thinking women who had an opinion.  I love that the female characters are really the driving force behind the story; they are really the ones that propel it forward. 

Rosana Spearman is such an interesting character.  She is represented as “other” in so many ways.  Even though she is a servant she is different from all of the other servants.  She doesn’t behave the way a woman should or the way a servant should.  She is a unique and dynamic character who finds a voice from even beyond the grave.  Her tenacity to cover for Franklin whom she believes to have stolen the moonstone is atypical behavior for a female or a servant.  She goes to extraordinary lengths to cover for him.  Her intentions were not as pure as they originally seem however.  She thinks this knowledge that she has over him will be an equalizer.  It is so unfortunate that she kills herself because she thinks he has slighted her, but she is melodramatic and rash.  What a great female character though, she is defiantly not a traditional role fulfilling Victorian woman.

Lady Verinder is also a character who doesn’t fit into the “proper Victorian woman” box.  She does represent the “older” or traditional roles in some sense.  She is a lady and acts like one.  She is a proper widow and a devoted mother, but she also handles the affairs of their estate as the head of the household. She is left to handle the finances and always has an opinion and isn’t shy about expressing it.  She is a wonderful female character who subverts the typical gender roles of the time.

Rachel Verinder is at the heart of the whole story; she is integral to the plot and movement of the novel and like Rosana, doesn’t properly fulfill her role in class or in gender.  Her behavior, as a well to do woman in Victorian society, would be expected to be lady like and proper and Rachel is anything but that.  She is loud and obnoxious.  The slamming of doors, the loud outbursts and fit throwing are not the actions of a proper English lady.  She is so critical to the story though and although she is a complete brat, she is written in a way that readers still like her.  Her outspoken behavior and non-traditional straightforwardness seem to be praised in this book.

 The female characters that fulfill the more traditional roles in the story seem to be ridiculed for their behaviors because while they are meeting the Victorian standard of what a woman should be at the time, they come off looking bad.  The greatest example of this is Miss Clack.  She is on the page as the “ideal” Victorian woman.  She pays heed to her sense of Christianity and proclaims to be the ideal lady type but her overblown sense of propriety, obvious sexual frustration and her disgust for Rachel’s forwardness comes off as hypocritical.  Collin’s seems to be criticizing women who aren’t forward thinkers; women who seem traditional but are really repressed and frustrated.   This criticism then would seem to celebrate the women who can think and speak for themselves. 

Collins seemed to be ahead of his time in terms of the women’s movement.  At this time in life and in literature, women were not supposed to be so “manly.”  As a modern woman it is hard to imagine a time when things weren’t as equal and trying to fulfill the role of a soft spoken woman who knew her “place.”  It sounds down right ridiculous. The women in this novel play pivotal roles in the plot and creating suspense. Had these women been the “typical” Victorian woman, the story would  not have been the same and I don’t think as powerful.  This novel, filled with wonderful developed atypical female characters is awesome!  Way to go Collins, representing for women in a time when that wasn’t cool.  I love it!