Research-Based Extension: Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s At Crighton Abbey

1. Research-Based Extension:Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s At Crighton Abbey

2. Overview of the Interpretive Problem • How and why does Sarah see the ghosts of a long dead hunt? • Though we are given a clear account of the event itself, the reader is left wondering whether Sarah actually saw ghosts. It seems strange that she would be the only person in a house full of people to notice such an event. • Braddon’s story leaves room for some interpretation of Sarah’s experience and gives evidence for several possibilities.

3. Generating Research Topics from Braddon’s At Crighton Abbey • We must doubt Sarah’s word if we are to doubt her experience. • She is the narrator: why might she be biased and in which ways? • Who is Sarah? What are her culture, social status, and personal history? • Why did Braddon tell this story from Sarah’s perspective? M.E. Braddon (1837-1915)

4. Who is Sarah? What are the influences on her?

5. Topics for further research

6. Victorian Women’s Issues • Malone, Carolyn. “Women in England 1760-1914: A Social History.” Journal of Victorian Culture. 2007, Vol. 12 Issue 1, p132-136. University of Cincinnati Lib., Cincinnati. 5 May 2009. <http://search.ebscohost.com> • reviews two books focusing on Victorian women in England. • “the ideas about gender with which 19th century women lived” • difference between the social proscription under which they lived and the lives they actually lead • “social, economic, political, legal, cultural and religious” pressures under which Victorian women operated • woman’s place as consumers in 19th century England • a woman’s role in household finances and as the designated shopper. • help to shed light on all the female characters Braddon writes in At Crighton Abbey

7. Textual Evidence Supporting Research Extension • “a very old family, as I daresay you remember. [She] will have little, perhaps nothing from her father; but she has a considerable fortune left by her aunt, and is thought quite an heiress in the county” (2) • “I remained seven years, laying aside year by year a considerable portion of my liberal salary. When my pupils had grown up, my kind mistress procured me a still more profitable position” (1) • “She seemed to think that she fulfilled her mission by sitting still and looking handsome” (8). • “my mother, for instance: all these duties which you think so tiresome are to her an unfailing delight.” (9)

8. In Addition… • Both Sarah and the Squire’s wife make several references to money in Crighton Abbey, but none of the males ever do. How do you think this concern with money characterizes Victorian women? • This review talks about the pressures on women in Victorian society, which of these pressures directly affect Sarah? We are shown that Julia Tremaine is a less then desirable bride for Edward, not because she lacks beauty or money, but because she is not the “angel” that his mother has been. If she is not the ideal, because she is not sweet and kind like Sarah, why is she the one getting married? And what does this say about women in Victorian England?

9. Middle Class Women • Langland, Elizabeth.Nobody's angels : middle-class women and domestic ideology in Victorian culture.Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1995 • middle class women in 19th century England, and the troubles facing this particular social group • historical situations and literary examples from that time period • construction forced upon the middleclass of a woman as the “angel in the house”, but this was an impossible role for the middle class woman to integrate with her obligations. • comparison between the angelic female love objects in Dickens’s work and the unromantic spinsters and widows of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford to illustrate women’s position in this time. • difference between women who were marriageable, beautiful, and good, and those who were unmarriageable and therefore somewhat forgotten by society.

10. Textual Evidence Supporting Research Extension • “I was three-and-thirty years of age. Youth was quite gone; beauty I had never possessed; and I was content to think of myself as a – confirmed old maid, a quiet spectator of life’s great drama, disturbed by no feverish desire for an active part in the play” (2).

11. In Addition… • She characterizes herself as done with “life’s drama” and yet she has a fantastic imagination and rushes to share her visions with others. What does this tell us about her unconscious desires? Information on the role she was forced to play in society could clarify why she represses this part of herself.

12. Victorian Governess http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/janeeyre/governess.html • quick over view of the treatment of Victorian governesses • precarious position in the home (neither family member nor servant) • pathetic treatment by their employers (pay ranged from room and board to £45 a year), • required to be well educated ladies but were treated like servants • few options open to them (marriage, domestic service, prostitution or the poor-house)

13. Textual Evidence Supporting Research Extension • “His death left me utterly unprovided for, and I was fain to go out into the bleak unknown world, and earn my living in a position of dependence” (1). • “Happily for myself, I had been carefully educated, and had industriously cultivated all the modern accomplishments… I was so fortunate as to obtain a situation” (1).

14. In Addition… • This background information allows a reader to better understand Sarah’s position in life and her happiness with the situation. • I would use this piece to further an explanation of the bias Sarah has towards attaching herself to the Crightons.

15. Victorian Governess in Literature Allingham, Phillip. “The Figure of the Governess, based on Ronald Pearsall’s Night’s Black Angels” The Victorian Web. 1 May 2009. <www.victorianweb.org/gender/pva50.html> • examines Ronald Pearsall’s Night’s Black Angels • governess’s meager education pigeon holed them into this career and suited them for nothing else • a governess is a person “who is our equal in birth, manners, and education, but our inferior in wealth… there is no other class which so cruelly requires its members to be, in birth, mind, and manners, above their station, in order to fit them for their station.” • governess was a victim in the hands of children, servants, and those who would normally be her social inferiors.

16. Textual Evidence Supporting Research Extension • “Mrs. Crighton is very kind; but I assure you, Marjorum, I don’t require the help of a maid once in a month. I am accustomed to do everything for myself.” (3). • “But of course it isn’t my business to say such things, and I wouldn’t venture upon it to anyone but you, Miss Sarah.” (4) • “And you are not ashamed of me, who have eaten the bread of strangers?” (5)

17. In Addition… • This article’s information on the governess in literature is particularly interesting because it gives insight into why M.E. Braddon would choose Sarah as her narrator • By looking at examples of other contemporary author’s governesses we can get a better understanding of who M.E. Braddon wanted Sarah to represent

18. Evaluation of Sources It is always important to understand the source of one’s information, after all one’s argument is only as solid as the evidence upon which it stands. • Always look for peer reviewed articles when using electronic document sources • Trust websites that end in .edu, .org, or .gov • Wikipedia can be useful for a basic overview or quick familiarization, but do not trust the details!

19. Technical Direction www.victorianweb.org/index.html A very useful site for all things Victorian, from here students can navigate through: • Politics • Gender • Society • Art • Science • Religion • And more…

20. More technical direction The University library website is also quite helpful, I am particularly fond of the A-Z List of Databases, from here students can access: • Academic Search Complete • Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism Online • JSTOR • And many others

21. The End Jane C. Fancher