Victorian doctors believed that a woman’s health and energy were centered on her reproductive system. This opposition was based on the scientific study of the time, which implied that “medical practice and study would harm women’s heath-particularly their reproductive health-and unsex them” (Swenson, 2005, p.87). Indeed, although more women attempted to become doctors, their foray into medicine was protested vigorously by the male authority. The characteristics of reason and ambition fit in with a career in science and medicine transforming the role of the doctor into a masculine vocation.

Men were meant to be active and driven, with skills in reason and logic, while women were expected to devote their energy to childrearing, an occupation suited to their highly only emotional states (Ingham, 2006, p. Though one would expect the male gendered profession of a doctor to take control of Caroline’s illness, it is only through the distinctly female outpouring of emotion that Caroline can heal, creating tension within the dichotomy of female and male power.ĭuring the Victorian era, behaviors and professions were strongly gendered. Pryor is her mother that Caroline rediscovers her will to live. However, while one would assume she could be helped by the masculine and powerful presence of a doctor, medicine is surprisingly impotent it is only after discovering that her good friend Mrs. In Shirley, the character of Caroline Helstone supports this feminine stereotype, sickening from grief to the point of near death due to her belief that her love Robert Burns is going to marry the titular character of Shirley. According to the standards of masculinity and femininity, men were meant to be rational and effectual, while women were controlled by their emotions and easily led astray by them. During the Victorian period, the lines between the feminine and masculine were sharply drawn, yet still unavoidably transgressed.

One of the most prevalent themes throughout the book is the role of women (and by extension the role of men) in society. Duyckinck, based on a drawing by George Richmond, University of Texas Collection.)Ĭharlotte Brontë’s 1849 Shirley is often considered a “Condition of England” novel, due to its exploration of various social, political, and religious issues of the time. Emotion in Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley March 4, 2017

Charlotte bronte 1849 novel