The artistic emblazonment of female guilt makes for a compelling opportunity to provide a paper with a Freudian viewpoint on the Victorians moral and the “Fallen Woman”, an approach this paper sets out to follow through. During the analysis, wide-spread literature and artworks produced during the Victorian era will be consulted and, lastly, the notion of guilt is going to be elaborated and put into context on Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Found (1853). Concerns about the modernizing world causing social turmoil was germane to Victorian belief.
In 1840, psychiatrist Forbes Winslow plainly declared that “insanity, in all its phases, marches side by side with civilisation” and while the unprecedented industrial revolution enabled prosperity and political power to a vastly expanding bourgeoise, the Victorian era must be also referred to as a precarious period of clashing social and sexual contrasts. While the middle-class helped to shape Victorian moral by cultivating ideas of a peaceful suburban home, self-discipline and chastely womanhood, Victorians constantly feared an imminent collapse of their society. Especially the overpopulated and dirty cities were viewed as potential breeding grounds for chaos due to increasing poverty and rising numbers of “Fallen Women”, most of them being prostitutes. Victorian artists produced a myriad of paintings that centred around the tragic fate of “Fallen Women” that were primarily depicted as guilt-ridden outcasts.
The representation of guilt as consequence of immoral behaviour seemed to be the artistic intersection of aforementioned colliding contrasts. Here, a bourgeoise audience was able to safely assure themselves of their own inviolable morals by ‘witnessing’ sinful female behaviour and the accompanying repercussions on canvas. From a psychoanalytical perspective, the notion of guilt that the Victorians were eager to a to the prostitute deserves attention. In Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud argued that sense of guilt “is the most important problem in the evolution of culture ” and “that the price of progress in civilization is paid in forfeiting happiness through the heightening of the sense of guilt”.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 Culture and Discontents
3 Victorian Ideals and Victorian Fears
3.1 The “Angel in the House” – The Female Ideal
3.2 The “Fallen Woman” - A Threat to Victorian Culture
3.3 The Repression of Female Sexuality
4 Psychoanalysis and the Victorians
5 A Freudian Analysis of the Fallen Woman in Rossetti’s Found
6 Conclusion
7 Works Cited
7.1 Primary Sources
7.2 Paintings Referenced
7.3 Secondary Sources
Research Objectives and Core Themes
This paper aims to analyze Victorian moral standards and the societal perception of the "Fallen Woman" through a psychoanalytical lens, specifically utilizing Sigmund Freud’s theories from Civilization and Its Discontents. The core research question addresses why Victorian culture perceived sexually active women as a threat to societal stability and how this anxiety was reflected in the visual art of the period, particularly in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s painting Found.
- The construction of the "Angel in the House" as a Victorian female ideal.
- The role of the "Fallen Woman" as a perceived threat to Victorian social order.
- Psychoanalytical interpretation of female sexuality and repression.
- The relationship between guilt, aggression, and cultural civilization.
- A symbolic analysis of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Found (1853).
Excerpt from the Book
A Freudian Analysis of the Fallen Woman in Rossetti’s Found
The setting of the painting is London at dawn. On a street leading towards a bridge, a drover on his way downtown has a random encounter with his old sweetheart that is now a prostitute. In the foreground, the viewers witness the countryman’s attempt to help the woman to rise off the pavement by pulling her wrists towards him while she fights his efforts and leans backwards against a brick wall, her facial expression is ridden with guilt. In the background, the spectators are exposed to the drovers wooden cart inside of which a white calf tries to escape the clutches of a net.
The prostitute depicted in Rossetti’s painting exemplifies every aspect and consequence of immoral female behaviour that has been elaborated in this paper thus far. The equation of her flagrant image with poor moral choices would have been instantly recognizable to a Victorian audience. Everything leading up to her demise follows the logic of a woman disobeying her role as the companion of manhood. Rossetti’s accompanying sonnet from 1881 with the same name provides information about a former engagement between the drover and the woman, a love that is now “deflowered” (279). The woman now living on the streets implies that she left the domestic sphere and fell victim to the contamination of the urban sphere. Her appearance, by Victorian standards, must be described as vulgar. Her velvet feather bonnet slipped off her head exposing her untied and messy red hair. Her décolleté is poorly covered by a shawl that, just like her mantle, loosely grinds on the floor. The prostitutes pale skin and her slightly green face are indicators for disease and imminent death (cf. Nead 34).
Summary of Chapters
1 Introduction: This chapter outlines the historical context of the Victorian era, highlighting the social tensions caused by modernization and the emergence of the "Fallen Woman" as a central artistic and moral concern.
2 Culture and Discontents: This chapter introduces Freudian concepts regarding the human psyche, the super-ego, and how culture enforces behavioral restrictions, setting the theoretical framework for the analysis of Victorian morality.
3 Victorian Ideals and Victorian Fears: This chapter examines the dichotomy between the "Angel in the House" and the "Fallen Woman," exploring how these stereotypes served to reinforce patriarchal gender roles and maintain social order.
4 Psychoanalysis and the Victorians: This chapter connects the broader historical fear of human aggression with Victorian medical and psychological attempts to control instincts and sexuality.
5 A Freudian Analysis of the Fallen Woman in Rossetti’s Found: This chapter provides a detailed psychoanalytical interpretation of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s painting, linking the prostitute's guilt to the broader Victorian fear of female sexuality.
6 Conclusion: The concluding chapter summarizes the main findings, asserting that Victorian society constructed female sexuality as a form of aggression that threatened the nation's integrity.
Keywords
Victorian era, Fallen Woman, Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Found, Psychoanalysis, Guilt, Angel in the House, Female Sexuality, Moral Standards, Social Order, Repression, Gender Roles, Art History
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the central focus of this academic paper?
The paper examines the Victorian moral landscape and the societal fear of female independence and sexuality, using Sigmund Freud’s theories to analyze why these phenomena were perceived as threats.
What are the primary thematic fields covered in the work?
Key themes include Victorian gender constructs, the "Fallen Woman" stereotype, psychoanalytical concepts of guilt and aggression, and the cultural role of 19th-century art.
What is the main research question?
The research investigates how Victorian society utilized the figure of the "Fallen Woman" to maintain patriarchal control and how this anxiety regarding female sexuality manifested in cultural and artistic representations.
Which scientific methodology is applied?
The author employs a psychoanalytical methodology, specifically drawing on the theoretical framework established in Sigmund Freud’s late work Civilization and Its Discontents.
What aspects are treated in the main body of the paper?
The main body covers the theoretical definition of Victorian culture and its "super-ego," the polarization of gender roles, and a detailed case study of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s painting Found.
Which keywords characterize the work best?
The most defining keywords are Victorian era, Fallen Woman, Psychoanalysis, Guilt, Angel in the House, and Gender Roles.
How does the author interpret the calf in Rossetti’s painting?
The calf struggling in the net serves as a symbol of the disruptive power of the "Fallen Woman," suggesting that her presence in the public sphere hinders male productivity and contributes to the potential loss of moral and economic order.
Why does the author associate the prostitute’s guilt with the death instinct?
The author argues that in the Victorian consensus, the prostitute's self-destruction and "fall" represent an attempt to return to an earlier, innocent state, which the author interprets via Freud as a manifestation of the death instinct—a desire to cease existing in a corrupt world.
- Arbeit zitieren
- Jonas Kokott (Autor:in), 2021, Victorian Moral and Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Found (1853). A Freudian Analysis of the Victorian Culture and Its Discontents, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.hausarbeiten.de/document/1150048
