The Girl in His Shadow

Although lower-class women joined the workforce in greater numbers during the Industrial Revolution, the rise of the middle class meant that many women had more free time than ever before. As a result, standards for this class of women were quickly established in order to outline and control their role in society. Conduct books—which were usually written by men—aimed to teach women how to conduct themselves properly according to the new expectations and social conventions of the era. These texts outlined how a woman should fill her leisure time and dictated the details of proper behavior in both public and private spheres. Such publications also described how a woman should manage her household and cautioned her to avoid any speech, behavior, or company that might cause embarrassment to herself or her husband. In 1854, Coventry Patmore published a poem called “The Angel in the House,” in which he describes the devotion of his self-effacing and angelically pure wife and praises her as the ideal woman. This description became the model for all middle- and upper-class women during Queen Victoria’s reign.

Although Audrey Blake’s novel is set in the decade prior to the publication of Patmore’s poem, references to this feminine ideal appear throughout. In one early scene, Nora tells Mrs. Phipps that Daniel, like most conventional men, “believes women belong in a separate sphere” (68). The narrator goes on to explain that the idea of “separate spheres was a common subject of sermons, lectures, and newspaper articles. Women, as the morally superior gender, were made for ‘sweet ordering,’ for instilling Christian principles in children and comforting weary men” (68). Essentially, women were confined to the domestic arena and compelled to occupy themselves with tending their homes, inspiring their children, and comforting their husbands with their innate goodness. Virginia Woolf summarizes the “angel” as “intensely sympathetic […,] immensely charming […, and] utterly unselfish.” Woolf also evinces a derisive attitude toward this Victorian ideal, claiming that the angel “sacrificed herself daily” and “never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others” (Woolf, Virginia. “Professions for Women.” Literature Cambridge). This concern with a woman’s “purity” is reflected in the novel with Vickery’s condemnation of Nora’s presence during Prescott’s surgery. Vickery points out that Nora was in “such close proximity to [Prescott’s] reproductive organs” as to be scandalous (288), prompting Nora to defend her choice to prioritize Prescott’s life over her modesty. To Victorian society, however, Nora’s choice is indecent and shocking. Most people at the meeting and many others condemn her for stepping out of her proper sphere and exhibiting so little concern for modesty. Likewise, Mae calls Nora “brazen,” and an herb seller says that Croft’s home is a “house of disrepute” (318). As the story unfolds, Nora’s character is called into question when she refuses to follow convention, even when her refusal results from a desire to help someone else. Ultimately, Nora’s noncompliance with social expectations—her failure to be “the angel in the house” and give up her work in the clinic—leads to her alienation from English society. Despite Nora’s talent and skill, the strength of Patmore’s “angel” and the importance that Victorian English society places on female modesty compel her to leave the country and seek greater freedom in Italy.