Though women are still burdened by many different paradoxical and unfair standards today, my knowledge of Victorian literature seems to indicate that intensely contradictory and unrealistic norms have always been imposed upon women. Within the works of Victorian literature that I have read, the female-identifying characters appear to either submit to these harsh expectations or defy them in any way that they can.

In one text I read this semester, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, the heroine, Catherine, represents an atypical representation of women insofar as that she aims to improve the social situation of a man, Heathcliff, and also figures as the dominant force within her household and within her marriage to Edgar Linton. Furthermore, Catherine is portrayed as an extremely passionate individual who is free-spirited; who longs to roam the moors “hardy and free.” However, Catherine’s behavior is marked as decidedly unconventional for a young Victorian woman and she is therefore often criticized by her servant and childhood friend, Nelly. Catherine is emotional but fierce and is best characterized by her gripping intensity, especially when she is discussing her love for Heathcliff and for the environment in which she grew up. Overall, Catherine’s passionate persona is perceived as defying traditional gender norms and expectations, particularly through her free-spirited nature and desire to exercise her own agency in order to accomplish her own goals.

On the other hand, Reuben Sachs presents us with another female character who also expresses herself outside of the expectations Victorian society forced upon women: Judith Quixano. Though Judith differs vastly from Catherine, Judith still is not described as being accepted by Victorian society. Indeed, Judith is not entirely accepted within her own family circle, being that she lives with her cousins, whose fortune is far greater than hers. Moreover, Judith, due to her lack of family fortune, is unable to fully pursue her love interest, Reuben Sachs, and is not regarded as a true potential match by Reuben himself. Furthermore, Judith is not regarded by Reuben as a typical woman. Rather, Reuben lauds Judith’s lack of sentimentality and often praises her composed, apparently unfeeling demeanor. In order to cement this praise, Reuben compares Judith to the other women within the story, like Esther and Rose, who “fall in love several times a season” and “bewail” themselves throughout their “affairs de coeurs.” On the other hand, Reuben claims that Judith is “utterly free from such sentimental aberrations.”

Though Reuben praises Judith by pitting her against women, a move that demonstrates the inherent sexism of the era, he also chastises Judith for being so cold and unfeeling, especially towards him. Thus, Judith is constantly under scrutiny for failing to meet Victorian expectations for women. In the eyes of Reuben, Judith is at once better than her female counterparts and therefore atypically female through her rejection of sentimentality. However, Reuben also sees Judith as unwomanly in her lack of sensitivity, particularly towards Reuben himself. In this way, Judith’s character and the way in which Reuben views her demonstrate the paradoxical and unfair norms and expectations that Victorian society forced upon women.

Furthermore, when Catherine and Judith are considered simultaneously, the impossible and contradictory nature of Victorian society’s expectations becomes even clearer, as, though Catherine and Judith bear incredibly different, perhaps even opposite characterizations, both are viewed by society as agents that act and exist outside of the prescribed gender norms of the time. While Catherine and Judith certainly act outside of Victorian gender norms, they, in tandem, nevertheless provide an accurate depiction of all that a woman can be. Indeed, women can be as fierce and passionate as Catherine; however, they can also be as demure and unsentimental as Judith. Both Catherine and Judith prove, even in the face of harsh gender roles, that there is no one way to be a woman.

I’ve touched on the concept of space in Victorian England before, but the fact that it keeps coming up is quite interesting. In this case, Wuthering Heights and Reuben Sachs are both books that are emblematic of fairly different spaces in Victorian England, especially in contrast to the era’s focus on the urban center of London. In saying the usual focus is on London, I mean that the focus is on a certain strand of London, which is a London read through pure class delineation. Wuthering Heights is not in London, but it is a book that goes further than the pure class analysis that seemed so popular in Victorian England. Where Wuthering Heights separates itself is in the racial ambiguity of Heathcliff, which is not a minor factor, but a visual note that consistently pops up within the characters. I won’t go so far as to say the book takes an intersectional lens on Victorian class structures, but it does make the reader aware that class is experienced or viewed differently when race and ethnicity are brought into the mix. Likewise, Reuben Sachs is a book that talks about the Jewish population in London at the time. I think the book does deal with class as a question, but it is clear that the book is also asking what it means to be Jewish in Victorian England, and more than that, what it means to be separate from the gentile hierarchy in Victorian England. Yet the analysis the book is undertaking is far more complex, for while all the characters are Jewish, all of the characters are distinct. This is better read to in light of the fact that Amy Levy is writing against George Eliot’s depiction of Jewish people in Daniel Deronda. In contextualizing with that, Levy is clearly writing a book that is attempting to create a Jewish literary space that is accurate, reflective, and not created from an outside perspective. All in all then, each of these two books attempts to creating a sort of space for their characters to operate earnestly and accurately.

When I was studying abroad in London this past Spring, I frequently visited the small bookstore Persephone Books, an independent bookseller known for reprinting texts written by neglected women writers of the late nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century. On one of my escapades, I stumbled across Amy Levy’s Reuben Sachs, and remember reading an inscription next to the text that Amy Levy could be best be described as a “Jewish Jane Austen,” (which was among one of the many factors which prompted me to purchase the novel). In my attempt to re-read Levy’s novel in an academic setting, I am again astounded by the way in which she describes the positions of women in Victorian society, and her social commentary on women’s status compares quite nicely to Dickens’ in his development of the women present in his novel. While Dickens is critical of the ways in which the upper and lower classes interact with one another, Levy (so far) seems to be critical of the ways in which women are limited by their circumstances, and I find this most prevalent in her description of Israel Leuniger’s sister: 

“She was disappointed in her life, but she made the best of it; loving her husband, though unable to sympathize with him; planning, working unremittingly for her six children; extracting the utmost benefit from the narrowest of means; a capable person who did her duty according to her own lights” (Levy 74). 

This description, among many others of Levy’s exposes the rudimentary experiences that many women of this period endure: lacklustre marriages and burdensome children. Funnily enough, when I first read this description, I immediately thought of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Ramsay, but now as I think about Levy in comparison to Dickens, I’m almost willing to consider that this may have been the shortcomings of Mrs. Joe. While she loved her husband, Mrs. Joe was most certainly not sympathetic of his position as a blacksmith and is evidently resentful of the maternal chore that she is tasked with when raising Pip as one of her own, or as Dickens might call it, raising Pip by hand. 

The situation of Judith Quixano from Reuben Sachs being raised in a wealthier family is similar to Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. As her family gets larger, they grow poorer, so they send their eldest daughter to her rich side of the family to the Leuniger household. Similarly, Heathcliff was taken in by Mr. Earnshaw’s rich family as an orphan. Hence, both of these characters are almost outsiders in their respective families because they have different parents and are poorer than their the children in the house they grow up in. Although, there is a lot more conflict in Heathcliff’s household with feelings of jealousy and hatred becoming apparent. For instance, Hindley shows an obvious disliking to him and tries to make his life miserable. On the other hand, Judith is close with her cousin Rose who she grows up with and there is no evident conflict between them. Evidently, it is important to keep in mind that Heathcliff was brought into a family he didn’t know, but Judith is cousins with Rose. Thus, it was probably easier to have friendlier relations with the people in the Leuniger house because they were family, and when the Earnshaw’s first met Heathcliff he was a stranger to them. Additionally, both Heathcliff and Judith have feelings for someone who they grew up with and it would be scandalous if something romantic actually happened between them. Notably, Judith’s mother was one of the first people, “whom the gossip about Reuben and her daughter had reached.” Hence, the word “gossip” implies that it is talked about by the family and it could be scandalous if something does happen between them. Therefore, Heathcliff’s and Judith’s situations are broadly similar, but the details of the situations vary.

After reading Oscar Wilde’s “The Ballad of the Reading Gaol” I couldn’t help but make connections between the narrator and to Cathy Linton. Both the narrator and Cathy are realists when it comes to love–the narrator saying that when you love something to let it go, and Cathy is also a realist when it comes to love, as she is with Hareton. There are many terms in this poem that remind me of “Wuthering Heights” just in general. For instance, there are several lines that talk about a wife in a coffin and this reminds me of Catherine Earnshaw. Yet, Wilde repeats the stanza, “I never saw a man who looked/With such a wistful eye/Upon that little tend of blue/Which prisoners call the sky,/“ and I think this stanza is referring to those such as Catherine and Heathcliff who do not ask any questions and simply believe what they are told.

In both of Wilde’s works, there are many dark themes surrounding loved ones. In much of the literature we have read, there has been many examples of inflicting violence acts against family members or those close. The descriptions of cutting and killing with a knife “Ballad of Reading Gaol” reminded me of the early imagery of Catherine’s ghost in Wuthering Heights from a visual point of view, but also the later examples of violence between many family members throughout the novel. For example, when Hareton and Linton come into conflict, and Linton ends up bleeding from the nose. Blood is often used to show that a character has been visually injured, and is reoccurring. Through most of the Victorian Literature we have read, there has been a level violence and physical conflict, and it is rarely ever directed at an outsider. Most of the violence occurs within preexisting relationships.