Alix Scheetz

1602628
Engl 352 A1
Peter Sinnema
Disintegration of Dependence in Victorian Women: A comparison of Dante Rossetti’s “Jenny”

and Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret

In 1869, John Stewart Mill published The Subjection of Women, in which he states that it

is true “that ‘unnatural’ generally means only ‘uncustomary’, and that whatever is usual appears

natural” (8). Here, Mill's statement represents the general attitude toward the archetypes of “the

Angel in the House” and the “Fallen Woman” in the Victorian era. It is easy to get lost in this

either-or mentality, where if a woman fails to be a paragon, she is evil without any differentiation

of what deed she committed to have her labeled in that way. Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s “Jenny”,

and Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret both include different versions of this

“fallen woman”, where each meets with a different fate. In this essay, I will argue that the

difference in Rosetti's and Braddon’s treatment towards the “fallen women” represents a

changing perception towards crimes of female sexuality in the Victorian era, one more complex

than the assumed moral absolutism of good versus evil. Whereas Jenny, who is “[f]ond of a kiss

and fond of a Guinea” (Rossetti line 2), is described as “[s]o pure [and] so fall’n”(line 207), Lady

Audley, who is full of “hysterical excitement” ( Braddon 301), is compared to “the demoniac

incarnation of some evil principle” (Braddon 354). This comparison suggests that, while fallen

women were still looked down upon by society, crimes of the flesh were more socially

acceptable than devious crimes committed by clever women.

Regarding the classification of Jenny and Lady Audley as “fallen women”, we must first

address the origin of the “Angel in the House”. Looking at the source for this archetypal paragon,

it becomes easier to see how the “fallen woman” is a perceived foil to the "Angel". In 1854,

Coventry Patmore first published his book of poetry entitled “Angel in the House”. This
collection elaborates Patmore's many opinions on women, love, and marriage. In his mind, a

proper woman’s “disposition is devout,/Her countenance angelical ;/ The best things that the best

believe/Are in her face so kindly writ/ The faithless, seeing her, conceive/Not only heaven, but

hope of it” (23). Essentially, Patmore created an “Angel in the House” who is subservient, loyal,

and so beautiful that when people see her, they believe in God. Patmore also describes another

type of woman who, unlike the Angel, is a “wasteful woman… who may /On her sweet self set

her own price” (19). He states that this woman, a woman who sells herself, has “cheapen’d

paradise” and “had made brutes men, and men divine” (19). Here, there is a stark distinction

between the flourishing manner in which Patmore writes about his ideal woman and the brief,

solemn contempt he shows for the wasteful woman. Subsequently, Patmore's writing proposes

that while there are numerous approaches to praising and describing a “proper woman”, there is

but one way to address a sinner: with disdain. According to the Bible (New International

Version, Exodus. 20.1-25), there are many ways that a woman can sin, each with a varying

degree of moral depravity. But the concise, rigid language that Patmore uses to address the

sinner implies moral absolutism – in that if she is not the Angel, she can only be wicked.

Therefore, it is easy to see why people perceive the “Angel” and the “fallen woman” as moral

antonyms: where the former deserves to be lauded and beguiled, and the latter is conveniently

irredeemable. But, as this essay will argue, the differing treatment and outcomes of Jenny and

Lady Audley prove that the Victorians had begun to build a tolerance to deviancy if only to

benefit the male sex.

Having first examined the relationship of “fallen women” to the paragon of the “Angel in

the House”, this paragraph will serve as a brief historical context for the term “fallen woman”

and an examination of how Jenny and Lady Audley each represent a different type of this

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depraved woman. Whereas the “Angel in the House” has origins in literature, the “fallen

woman” is considered a much more colloquial term. It came about during the middle of the

nineteenth century and initially referred to the women of the “Foundling Petitions” (Nead 3), but

came to represent any woman who had fallen from grace-- the most notorious fall being in

Genesis (New International Version, 3.6). A fallen woman is a woman who, departing from

social norms such as marriage and motherhood, “became exposed to a series of consequences,

including prostitution, disease and an early death” (Nead et al. 3). Therefore, Rossetti’s “Jenny”

provides a normative example of a “fallen woman” as well as how people were inclined to think

about such women.

The first and most evident example of Jenny’s depravity lies within the title of Rossetti's

poem. The term “Jenny”, made famous by William Shakespeare in act four, scene one of The

Merry Wives of Windsor (The Folgers Shakespeare 143), alluded to the name of Jenny as a

colloquial term for prostitute. Indeed, Rossetti even quotes this passage before introducing the

object of his speculation, which he also conveniently calls Jenny. Therefore, the subject, and

namesake, of Rossetti's poem is not referring to the woman herself but is a general term for her

profession. Rossetti's choice to name his subject "Jenny" also suggests the societal attitude

towards these “fallen women” in art and society. The fact that the poem's subject is “asleep…

hard and fast” (Rossetti line 172) means that all words spoken about her are speculations from

the narrator. This “Jenny” is also removed even further from discourse about her when Rosetti

postulates about other people who, with “envy’s voice at virtue’s pitch/ Mocks [her]” (line 71).

He states that even “learned London children know” and “[h]ave seen [her] lifted silken skirt”

(Rossetti line 143). Here, Rosetti is postulating the possibility of other people engaged in thought

about this “Jenny” and eliminates her perspective entirely; by limiting his scope of understanding

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to only what the narrator, and other people, imagine about Jenny, Rossetti creates a narrative

whereby the only person prohibited from contributing to the discourse is the subject of it. This

erasure suggests the attitude towards the “fallen woman” in Victorian society was one of

removed speculation where the subject of the depravity had the least to say about her condition,

despite whatever led her to prostitution.

In comparison to the “thoughtless queen” (Rossetti line 7), Jenny, Lady Audley’s

depravity represents a much more devious, dangerous type of “fallen woman”. She is a “fair-

haired paragon” (Braddon 88) who will not sway to the "common temptations that assail and

shipwreck some women" (Braddon 362) and instead “has the cunning of madness, with the

prudence of intelligence” (Braddon 385). True to the normative definition of a "fallen woman",

Lady Audley “did not love [her] child”, was “determined to run away from [her] wretched home

which [her] slavery supported”, and became the wife of Sir Michael Audley (Braddon 361-362).

Essentially, she fell from monogamy, motherhood, and other social expectations. But instead of

doing so because she was “betrayed by trust or forced by violence” (Nead et al. 9), she does it to

obtain “fortune and position” (Braddon 383). Lady Audley even further differentiates herself

from the normative “fallen women” by stating that “[t]he mad folly that the world calls love had

never had any part in [her] madness” (Braddon 362). As for the Lady’s motive, it would indeed

be simple to label her as “mad, and therefore irresponsible for her actions” (Braddon 382). This

diagnosis of madness would excuse Lady Audley’s fall from grace as an act of insanity instead

of an act of wicked intent. Even Lady Audley claims madness as the cause of her wrongdoings

(Braddon 354). But as Dr. Mosgrave states in volume three, chapter five, Lady Audley “is not

mad; but she has the hereditary taint in her blood” (Braddon 385). Therefore, Lady Audley is a

character uncommon to Victorian literature. If the archetypal “fallen woman” is swayed as Eve

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was in the garden of Eden, then Lady Audley represents a dangerous deviation of her. A

mutation where, instead of falling for her passions, men, or other “feminine” wiles, she sways for

masculine notions of power, wealth, and status. This new, more sinister type of “fallen woman”

thereby threatens the Victorian construct of femininity, and as we will see in the next section,

softens the treatment of “fallen women” whose deviancy can be explained by the likes of Charles

Darwin (316) and John Ruskin (21).

Turning now to the treatment of these “fallen women”: Lady Audley is seen as a

“creature” (Braddon 366) with a “selfish sensuous nature” (Braddon 378), whereas “Poor

shameful Jenny” on the other hand is “full of grace” (Rossetti line 18). We will first analyze how

Lady Audley is treated after her fall from grace to provide perspective on Jenny's treatment by

Rossetti. Going beyond the simple fact of Lady Audley’s demise in the “maison de santé”

(Braddon 392), much of the evidence of her treatment exists within the language used to describe

her before and after her confession. Lady Audley is referred to with much of the same language

as the "Angel" before her fall from grace. The Lady’s “innocence and candor”, which “shone out

of her large and liquid blue eyes” (Braddon 90) is similar to Patmore’s Angel who is “amiable

and innocent” in “[h]er pleasure in her power to charm” (24). Braddon also likens Lady Audley

to an “infant” (90) who is “lovely and innocent”(49). This description of Lady Audley as a

“childish, helpless, babyfied little creature” (Braddon 168) sharply contrasts her description as a

“wretched, mistaken, energetic creature” (Braddon 374) after her confession. The switch in the

description of the Lady occurs in volume two, chapter eleven when the suspicion of her crime

leads Robert Audley to refer to her as a “wretched creature” (Braddon 287). Once Robert reveals

his suspicion towards the Lady, the descriptions of her beauty transform. Compared to the way

the Lady is described as “too beautiful for earth” (Braddon 94) before Robert confronts her,

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Braddon describes her as having a “sickly pallor” (296) afterward. And while there are moments

of prolepsis where Braddon suggests that Lady Audley is a “beautiful fiend”(107) before the

revelation of her crime, the language used to describe her after her confession is just as

“colorless” as “her eyes terrible in their unnatural light” (373). To summarize, the attitude toward

Lady Audley transforms from excessive adulation to one of complete and utter disregard. Public

opinion of Lady Audley deteriorates so drastically that, even when Dr. Mosgrave declares that

“[t]he lady is not mad” (Braddon 385), he still recommends shutting her away so tightly that “[i]f

you were to dig a grave for her in the nearest churchyard and bury her alive in it, you could not

more safely shut her from the world and all worldly associations” (Braddon 386).

“Jenny”, published after Lady Audley’s Secret in 1870, appears to take a gentler approach

to “fallen women” because of “Jenny’s desecrated mind” (Rossetti line 164). And in contrast to

the disregard Lady Audley is shown at the end of Braddon’s novel, Rossetti’s “Jenny” is not

subjected to nearly the same amount of disdain and scrutiny but instead is treated as “shameful”

(line 18) and with pity. This treatment of pity towards Jenny is exemplified by the narrator

referring to her as “lazy”, “shameful”, and “pitiful” (Rossetti lines 1, 18, and 272). The poem’s

speaker also suggests a feeling of pity towards Jenny when he looks at her and “[t]he woman

almost fades from view” (Rossetti line 277). Here, the narrator no longer sees the woman who

was his “Jenny” for the evening and instead sees her as “[a] cipher of man’s changeless sum”

(Rossetti line 278) who is a symbol of men’s sexual desires. Now, to compare the treatment of

Jenny as anything comparable to “the Angel” would be incorrect. Whereas the “Angel” is a

paragon, and Jenny is a prostitute and has a “pitiful heart” (Rossetti 272). Although, there is one

similarity between Jenny and the "Angel" that reflects the attitude of Jenny's treatment: her

beauty. Rossetti’s narrator even states that “the gilded aureole/ In which our highest painters

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place/ Some living woman’s simple face” are Jenny’s “stilled features thus descried” (lines 230-

33). This comparison to an angel means that the narrator perceives that Jenny is as beautiful as

the faces in Christian icons where artists paint holy women with a golden halo. But even this

description of beauty leads the narrator to proclaim feelings of guilt, asking “[w]hat has man

done” (Rossetti line 242) in comparing Jenny to holy women and stating that his “pitiless doom

must now comply/ with lifelong hell” (lines 244-45). This description of Jenny’s beauty, even if

followed by an admission of guilt, is the first distinctive difference to how women of passion

compare to the other “cunning” type of fallen woman. Whereas Braddon disregards Lady

Audley’s beauty after she is declared a “fallen woman”, Jenny is still maintained as beautiful

until the end of the prose and is even referred to as “Danaë” (Rossetti line 380), the mother of

Perseus (Atsma). Because the narrator of “Jenny” is aware of her position as a “fallen woman”,

and still chooses to proclaim her beauty, it suggests that the Victorian “Angel” is not the only

type of woman that society deems deserving of admiration and praise. Another indication of

Victorian society’s growing tolerance for “fallen women” like Jenny is still further shown by

evidence that Rossetti’s poem is not a speculation of this “Jenny” from a position of moral

superiority. Instead, Rossetti has placed the narrator's perspective in the same “exuberant hotbed”

(line 13) as her. This integration of the Narrator with Jenny places the narrator not as a distant

speculator but as a sympathetic companion to Jenny who sees her as a “[p]oor beauty” but who is

“so well worth a kiss” (line 55). One last example of the changing attitude towards “fallen

women” in the Victorian era is how Rossetti describes how other men treat Jenny. Whereas the

narrator sits with Jenny’s “fair face” (Rossetti line 319) “lying on [his] knee” (line 320), other

men have “used [her] at [their] will” and then thrust “her aside” (line 87). In stating that the

narrator is better than common men, Rossetti differentiates the treatment of "fallen women" in art

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(poetry), from the treatment of them by the common public. This suggests that Rossetti’s

intention in his treatment of the "fallen woman" is to say that art sees beauty in the fallen.

As we have seen in the representation of Jenny and Lady Audley as “fallen women”, it is

evident that there is a significant kindness in the way Jenny, compared to the Lady, is treated.

Now of course, the public opinion of “fallen women” continues to be controversial, even today.

Some may call them ‘thots’, others may call them ‘boss-bitches’, but in the end, provocative

women continue to represent and picture of a woman that society appears to be uncomfortable

with. But turning now to why we see a growing softness towards the profession of sex worker in

the Victorian era, I believe it is because her faults are explainable by the “feminine nature”. A

strong, intelligent woman like Lady Audley does not match the male ideology of female nature

as simple, irritable to the passions, and prone to laziness. A character like Lady Audley threatens

to tear down the construct of what a woman is capable of, which in effect would tear down the

existing social structures. In order for men to remain in the place of power of which they felt was

owed to them by evolution, they became kinder to the women who proved man’s place in society

– even if it was a sinful woman who was a slave to her pleasures. Essentially, Victorian men

relaxed their treatment of sexual women the same way that a parent relaxes their rules as their

children get older, if only to maintain the control of power. For example, if a parent maintains a

strict, established curfew throughout a child’s life to keep them safe, but if upon adolescence, the

child discovers the possibility of emancipation, the parent is more likely to extend the teens

curfew instead of seeing them emancipate themselves and gain their own autonomy.

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 Works Cited:

Atsma, Aaron J. “Danae.” DANAE - Argive Princess of Greek Mythology, 2000,

Braddon, M. E. Lady Audley's Secret. Edited by Natalie M. Houston, Broadview Press, 2003.

Darwin, Charles. The Descent of Man, an Selection in Relation to Sex. Princeton University
Press, 1981, Teoria Evolutiva, https://teoriaevolutiva.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/darwin-
c-the-descent-of-man-and-selection-in-relation-to-sex.pdf.

Holy Bible, New International Version. Biblica, 1978

Mill, John Stuart, and Harriet Taylor Mill. “The Subjection of Women - Early Modern Texts.”
Early Modern Texts, Jonathan Bennett, 2017,
https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/mill1869.pdf.

Nead, Lynda, et al. “The Fallen Woman Exhibition Guide - Foundling Museum.” Foundling
Museum, 2015, https://foundlingmuseum.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/The-Fallen-
Woman-exhibition-guide.pdf.

Patmore, Coventry. “The Angel in the House .” Internet Archive, London : G. Bell, 1 Jan. 1970,
https://archive.org/details/theangelinhouse00patmuoft/page/22/mode/1up.

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, and Jerome J. McGann. “Jenny.” Collected Poetry and Prose, Yale
University Press, New Haven, 2003, pp. 60–68.

Ruskin, John. “Of Queens' Gardens .” Internet Archive, London : G. Allen, 2007,
https://archive.org/details/ofqueensgardens00ruskrich.

Shakespeare, William. The Merry Wives of Windsor from The Folger Shakespeare. Ed. Barbara
Mowat, and Paul Werstine. Folger Shakespeare Library, December 10,
2021. https://shakespeare.folger.edu/downloads/pdf/the-merry-wives-of-
windsor_PDF_FolgerShakespeare.pdf