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Collins, The Woman in White
Engels, The Condition of the Working Class...
Gaskell, Mary Barton
Gaskell, North and South
Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles
James, The Spoils of Poynton
Pater, excerpts
Rossetti, Goblin Market
Ruskin, The King of the Golden River
Shaw, Pygmalion
Smiles, Self-Help
Tennyson, Selected Poems
Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Collins, The Woman in White

• Based on what you know from the brief introduction on p.33 (identified in some editions as the "Preamble"), answer the following questions:
• Why and for whom is this story told?
• How, according to this account, is the novel organized?
• What sort of effect does this legal "introduction" have on you as a reader?

Based on what you know only from this first page, what is the role of the law in The Woman in White? What sort of power does the law wield -- both inside and outside of Collins's novel?
• What are the particularly gendered implications of the law in this novel?  Also keep in mind Caroline Norton's Letter to the Queen.
• How would you describe the legal guardianship of women in this novel?  How do Mr. Gilmore and Mr. Fairlie exercise their authority?
• Why are people so "nervous" in this novel? Do they have any reason to be so? Are their suspicions merited?

• What in this novel counts as real 'evidence'? How is it interpreted or used?  How is the "Secret" discovered, for instance?
• Form an informal list of different marks, texts, and disguises presented in this text.

• How does Collins represent the process of domestication in this novel?  How would you describe the novel's domestic regime?  Note especially the role of pets and interior spaces.
• What is it about the novel's domestic relations that provokes such unease?

• What forms of character and feeling are associated with the metropolis and its outlying suburbs (Welmingham) in this novel?  Why represent these locales so strangely?

• According to this novel, what are genteel and gentlemanly forms of behavior?

• The Woman in White is a novel absolutely preoccupied with unstable identities:
• What is it about modern identity that makes it so unstable in this novel? (Simmel offers one such hypothesis.)
• Can you think of other historic, symbolic, and economic factors that might contribute to such a contemporary crisis of character?
• Does the Woman in White also offer us therapy for this crisis of identity?  What forms of consolation does this novel offer us as readers?  Is it able to affirm that certain types of people are indeed distinctive, special, and recognizable?

 
• How did you react to the ending of Collins's novel?  Note the following, particularly in the last page:
• The imagery, figurative language (metaphor, etc.), diction (word choice), and tone of the ending.
• Who speaks in the ending (and what is said): Why claim that Marian ends the story?
• The setting of the ending
• Gender roles (note the behavior of men and women)
• The fate of the family and the community at large
• The institution of inheritance and the landed gentry
• The sense of narrative resolution: Why end with this scene? What does it convey about the ‘priorities’ of Collins’s novel?
• Is the ending consistent with the claims of the novel’s (legalistic) introduction? Why or why not?

• According to Engels, what are the different human relations that make up the city?  (Look particularly at his portrait of the "town" and the "social war" on p.68-9.)

• How does Engels conceptualize the social order and organization fo Manchester?
• What specific images and metaphors does he use for the physical structure of the city, the relations between people, between classes, and between people and their environments?
• What forces are at work in Victorian Manchester?  Is there a particular logic to this city?

 
• As you read Engels's work of social investigation, what symbolic properties do you ally with poverty, with concealment, and with dirt?  Particularly note Engels's unflinching empahsis on human bodily waste:  Why do you think he portrays this 'unpleasant' subject so insistently?

• In discussion a number of you (very incisively!) noted Engels's use of the following figures.  How -- and to what effect -- does Engels use these figures?

• Concealment and exposure, light and darkness
• Labyrinths, complex and chaotic dwellings
• Separation and compartmentalization
• Dirt and waste
• Vertical divisions: class strata, cellars vs. homes in the hills, relative degrees of cleanliness and ventilation
• Emptiness: homes that are not homes; homes that lack humanity (literally and figuratively)
• Stagnation, deay
• Animality, brutality
• The new and the old
• The river, water, drainage

 
• According to Engels, how can we helpourselves?  What actions are humanizing and dignifying actions -- utopian actions?  Why?

Gaskell, Mary Barton
 

• Compare and contrast Gaskell's 'project statement' in her "Preface" to that of Engels.
• What are some different interpretations that you can make of her tone in the "Preface"?
• How does she read the figure of the crowd differently from Engels?

• What different roles do the descriptive drive (the 'ought') and the normative drive (the 'is') play in Mary Barton?  Can you think of moments when what 'is' and what 'should be' overlap in this narrative?

• How would we describe Gaskell’s affective (emotional) project?  What kinds of working-class feeling does she concentrate upon?  What techniques does she use to portray these feelings?
• Consider, for instance:
• The narrator's frequent first-person ("I") remarks and appeals to her reader
• Moments of shifting narrative emphasis (as in the above narratorial appeals)
• The use of free indirect discourse (moments in which the narrator seems to penetrate the private thoughts of various characters)
• Moments of "contrast" (Gaskell's term)
• Moments of "shock" (Gaskell's term, again)
• Note Mary Barton'sdifferent narrative lines.  Foremost, of course, are its romantic plot line and its political plot line (Mary's love interests and the unfolding murder/detective story).
• How would you describe the relation between these various narrative lines -- especially that between the murder plot and the love plot?
• What is the relation between the personal and the political in this work?
• Here is a list (far from exhaustive!) of some of the different narratives and genres that appear in Mary Barton.
• Romantic (marriage plot)
• Political (murder mystery, detective plot)
• Melodrama (think of opera, soap operas, or other popular forms with very stereotypical  characters -- clearly detectable villains, heroes, innocent maidens in distress, etc.)
• Gothic (think of Frankenstein or Wuthering Heights -- dark, creepy accounts of the spiritual and supernatural, often with monstrous characters and menacing overtones of violence.)
• Comedy/farce (forms that often use exaggeration for comic ends -- parody, burlesque, etc.)
• Tragedy (Gaskell actually compares Mr. Carson Sr.'s passions to those in Greek tragedy)
• Pastoral (fantasies of rustic escape, sometimes populated by shepherds)
• Domestic (somewhat like the romantic plot line; focussed on domestic life, sentimentality, manners, and relationships)
• Mythic (ageless tales and larger-than-life figures -- need I say more?)
• Journalistic/sociological (think of Engels -- with an emphasis on collectives, environments, communities, statistics)
• Try to think of some of the different effects that these narrative strands and genres have on the novel as whole:
• Where and how do they appear?
• Why do you think Gaskell uses them?
•  What is their effect the stylistics of the novel?
• Do we come to any conclusions about what type of genre most properly (according to Gaskell!) represents the poor?

 
• In his review of Mary Barton, W. R. Greg criticizes the novel for fostering "[t]he desperate delusion that the evils of society are to be remedied from without, not from within, that the people are to be passive parties, -- and not the principal, almost the sole, agents, -- in their own rehabilitation" (177).
• Now that you have finished Mary Barton, do you agree or disagree with Greg? How do Greg’s remarks compare with the attitude(s) Gaskell encourages in her readers?
•  How do you read the ending of Mary Barton?
• What sort of portrait does it offer of social life, family life, labor relations, and human suffering?
• What kind of commentary does it offer on the future of the community?
• Do you read it as a hopeful ending? A mythic ending? A disappointing ending?  Why?

• How does North and South define the following terms?
• Gentleman
• Man
• Lady
• Woman
• How do public and private ethics overlap in North and South?  Concentrate especially on the riot scene and the railway scene with Margaret, Frederick, and Leonards.
• What is the rationale behind the various narratives produced by these two "public" scenes?  (We witness responses from a number of who characters, many of whom read these scenes differently.)
• Why is everyone so concerned about Margaret's virtue and public exposure?
• How - again - are class issues colored by gender and familial relations?
• Note especially the husband-wife metaphor that Higgins offers for labor relations.
• Are there other ways in which spousal relations serve allegorically in this work(as compared to parental relations, for instance)?
• How is the romantic plot line (such as it stands) modified by the labor/class plot line?  How is the class plot line modified by the romantic one?

• Come up with a working definition of "class" in North and South.
• What different traits and features determine a person's class status?
• What information do various characters use to determine their own class status and that of others?
• Is there disagreement about what factors should determine class?  What factors are viewed as most contentious? Why?
• How might people manipulate signifiers of class, of refinement, and of success?

 
• How did you react to the ending of North and South?  Why might Gaskell have chosen to make it occur so suddenly?
• Why -- in your view -- is there no formal proposal of marriage?
• What is the significance of the flowers from Helstone?
• Why do you think Gaskell mentions the hypothetical reactions of other peopleto the marriage?
• Note the context of Margaret's and Thornton's romantic union.
• Is it important how their union comes about?  What is significant about the events that surround it?
• What are the relative power relations of Margaret and Thornton?
• What are the symbolic implications of their union?
• What do you make of the last words of this book ("that man," "that woman)?
• In your view, is this a utopian ending? a pragmatic one?
• Why don't we hear more about what will happen to Margaret and Thornton in the future? We remain ignorant about where they might live, the children they might have, or whether they even will be happy together?  Why aren't we informed of these matters (as we are in Mary Barton, for instance)?

Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles
 

• How does Hardy represent Tess's defloration (on p.73-4)? Pay close attention not only to metaphor and imagery but also to the visual perspectives that we - as readers - assume.
• Note, particularly, the passage's treatment of: vision (its oclusion, its omniscience), history, biblical allusion, pagan ritual, and fable.
• Focus also on the passage about 'blankness' and 'the coarser appropriat[ing] the finer':  Why, in your view, does Hardy choose to use these particular metaphors?  What are their connotations?
• Is the event, in the words of one critic, treated as "the usual outcome of circumstances in which an unprincipled man finds himself alone in an isolated place with an innocent sleeping girl"?
• Does Hardy portray this event as something entirely fated--  or are Tess and Alec accountable for their actions?  Is this a rape, a seduction, or can we ever know?
• Is Tess "A Pure Woman" (Hardy subtitles his novel thus)?  Why or why not?  How do you think Hardy is  defining "purity" in this work?

• What is Tess's -- and our -- relation to her body?  To her soul? Do their respective conditions correspond or conflict -- with each other?

• How does Hardy position Tess in relation to the natural world?  In relation to the modern world?
• What does Hardy mean by "the ache of modernism"?
• Would you describe this work as a 'modern' novel? What transformations are represented in the countryside?  How does this novel resonate with the historical moment in which it was written?
• What does Tess represent to Angel? To us?
• After he is disappointed in her, why doesn't she try harder to be reconciled with him?
• Why must Tess suffer so?  What, exactly, is it that causes her to suffer in such an intense way?

• Note the concluding section of the novel, in which Tess is hanged after spending the night asleep on Stonehenge.  What do you make of her fortuitous placement upon this pagan monument-- followed by her treatment by the modern legal system of Wintoncester?
• What relationship between paganism and Christianity does Hardy delineate here? (Note the constant presence of the sun)
• Is "Justice" served?  Why is it mentioned in scare quotes?
• How is Hardy rewriting the end of Book 12 of Paradise Lost?

What are the different connotations of the "ugly" and "beautiful" objects we encounter in The Spoils of Poynton?  What qualities -- as they are represented by  Mrs. Gereth and Fleda Vetch -- make a home appealing or unappealing?

Think of some of the specific objects mentioned at Poynton and Waterbath: What traits do they share?  What values are conveyed through the veneration or disgust that they provoke? Whose values are they and how are they articulated?

What would you identify as the different cultural forces that work through and touch upon the objects of this novel?

What are the connotations, specifically, of the Maltese cross?

What does it mean for Fleda, near the conclusion of the book, to be described as herself a piece of furniture? Is this an insult? a complement? or the revelation of a great delusion?

Why doesn't Fleda act in a way that allows her to have the man she wants and the home she wants too?

• Why, in your view, does Fleda act in the way that she does?
• What was your reaction to her actions?  Do they embody a higher ethics? a perversity of character? both?
• Do you ultimately read this novel as a critique of Fleda's renunciation -- or as a celebration of it? Why?

How should we read the final destruction of Poynton?

• Does it convey a tragic -- or comic -- air to the machinations of the various characters?
• Does it intensify Fleda's sense of renunciation and imagination -- or reveal the hopelessness of it?
• Why do you think  James has the station-master make that peculiar mark in the end (after "Poynton's gone?"): "What can you call it, miss, if it ain't really saved?" (213).

Pater, excerpts

• What does Pater mean by the following phrase from his "Conclusion" to The Renaissance? "To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life."
• What are some of the connotations of "burn[ing]," "gem-like," and "ecstasy"?
• Is Pater essentially describing an impossible condition?  Why or why not?
• If Pater's aim is to discuss "experience itself," why does he repeatedly insist on discussing art objects?  See especially the last few lines of his "Conclusion."

• In your view, is Pater's reception of Dorian Gray, in "A Novel by Mr. Oscar Wilde," consistent with the philosophy espoused in The Renaissance? Why or why not?  Is evil a trait that reduces 'complexity'?

Rossetti, Goblin Market

• Note the 'moral' at the conclusion of Rossetti's poem:
 
For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.
• In your view, do these remarks serve as a fitting conclusion to Rossetti's poem? Why or why not?
• What is the intended audience for this moral?  In what sort of environment is it (and presumably the entire tale) relayed?
• Is this poem about sisterhood? About something else? Are there  other concerns or values in Goblin Market that the moral does not address?
• How would you describe the tone used by the speaker to describe memories of "[t]hose pleasant days long gone," the "wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men," and fruits like honey to the throat"?  Is it consistent with the moral stance of the poem as a whole?

• On the 'marketplace':
• How is the markeplace represented in Goblin Market? What are the goblin men and their fruits like?  Why do you think Rossetti chose to represent them in this way?  Might the fruit represent other allegorical qualities?
• What forms of commerce and exchange occur in this market-'glen'?  Make sure to compare the two instances of exchange (the lock of hair and the penny).  How do they differ?
• Is Rossetti essentially telling us that any foray into the marketplace is compromising for women?  Is there a proper and an improper way to engage in relations of exchange?  Or-- could we read this poem as narrating and effort to survive -- and even triumph over -- the perils of the marketplace?
• How does Rossetti portray the relation between the marketplace and the domestic sphere?  What is the sisters' home like?
• To conclude:
• How does Goblin Marketenvision the relation between economic exchange and the expression of desire?  Is this a poem about renunciation? about consumer power? about aesthetic pleasure -- about beautiful objects?
• How would you describe this poem's treatment of purity and corruption?  What is its attitude towards sin? towards pleasure and sexuality?

• What values are upheld by Ruskin's story?  How do they compare to the values that are promoted by Smiles?
• How is this story a tale about manhood and maturity?  What does it take to 'become a man' in the fairy world of the Golden River?
• How does this story treat wealth and questions of value ('goldenness')?
• We encounter many representations of landscape in this tale.  What is its significance?
• How and why does the story so frequently refer to purity and corruption?
• Why are there no women in this story?

Shaw, Pygmalion

Smiles, Self-Help

• What would you identify as some of the traits and characteristics upheld by Smiles in Self-Help?
• How are they consistent with -- and inconsistent with -- the particular biographical examples Smiles offers?  Arkwright and Watt are two figures that particularly come to mind.
• What, according to Smiles, is the relationship between money and "success"?
• Note Smiles's use of the terms "manly" and "gentlemanly."  How would you define these terms?

Tennyson, Selected Poems
 

• How do the emotional conditions depicted in "Ulysses" and "The Lotos Eaters" measure up to the ideals presented in Self-Help?  What, exactly, is wrong with the figures sketched by Tennyson?

• "The Lady of Shalott"
• First of all, note the balladic structure of the poem: its rhyme and frequent refrain.  What sort of tone is established by these elements?
• How would you describe the relationship between "many tower'd Camelot" and "the island of Shalott"? between the "Lady" and the people of Shalott?
• What are some of the symbolic implications of the Lady's weaving and her solitude?
• What is the relation between art and labor in this poem? between art and the 'real' world?
• Can we read "The Lady of Shalott" as a domestic allegory of sorts? How about "Mariana"?

• How would you describe the relation between art and life in this novel?
• What does it mean for art itself to acquire an uncanny form of life?
• What does it mean for life to acquire the status of art?

• What are the multiple connotations of Dorian's portrait?  How, ultimately, would you describe its role in the novel?  If we were to argue that the portrait itself does not change, but rather only Dorian's interpretation of it, how might our views of it change?

• Wilde vis á vis Pater:
• Do you view Dorian Gray as an appreciation of Pater or as a critique of him?
• How, according to Dorian Gray,should we live our lives?
• What should the role of art be in our lives? Can art foster a sense of ethics? Why or why not?

• Do you view this novel as a morality tale -- or as something else?  What rules of conduct -- if any --does it offer us?