Analysis Of Elopement In High Life

1074 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Gender roles during the Elizabethan Era

Female seducers are depicted in a variety of manners. Women were particularly vilified if they were married to another man or had children prior to escaping with her lover. “Elopement in High Life,” is an article that demonstrates how harshly a woman could be criticized for eloping with her lover. Lady Charlotte Wellesley is described as a “miserable woman,” who “is 28 years of age, and the mother of four children, whom, with her husband, who is only 36 years old, she has thus inhumanely abandoned for ever” (“Elopement in High Life”). Lady Wellesley 's is given a dishonorable reputation because she transgressed the ideals of womanhood and motherhood, although this was not the first stain placed onto her family in the court of public opinion. …show more content…

The case of Bedford versus McKowl is a case of a widowed woman suing the man who seduced her daughter over “lost services.” The Bedford versus McKowl case demonstrates the hypocrisy of the Regency era 's expectations on women and men. “The defendant was a married man; he had been for ten years separated from his wife, and instead of imposing himself for a single man upon the plaintiff 's family, he stated fairly his situation, and the young lady went off with him with a full knowledge of it” (“Court of Common Pleas”). The defendant 's lawyer “contended that his conduct was not so atrocious as what appeared in most cases of this kind.” A man in Regency England has the ability to be separated whereas a woman could not claim such a status or have the means of filing for …show more content…

When Lydia runs away with Wickham, she puts her family 's reputation and social status in jeopardy, especially by going to London rather than Gretna Green. If there is one social faux pas worse than eloping, it would be running off with a man without the intention to marry. What 's worse is that Lydia does not seem to realize that she 's being taken advantage of. “Wickham 's affection for Lydia, was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it; not equal to Lydia 's for him” (Pride and Prejudice 323). Lydia 's youth and parental negligence stifled her understanding of the dangers of a man like Wickham, and because of her defiance, Wickham becomes the only option that Lydia has left for a semi-respectable

Show More
Related

  • A Review of John Pagan’s "Anne Orthwood’s Bastard"

    1304 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Anne Orthwood’s Bastard: Sex and Law in Early Virginia, John Pagan sets out to examine the complexities of the legal system on the Eastern Shore in the seventeenth- century. He brings to light the growing differences between the English and Virginia legal systems. Pagan, an early American legal historian at the University of Richmond School of Law, spins a tragic story on the legalities surrounding an instance of out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Indentured servant Anne Orthwood’s brief encounter with a man of higher social standing produced a series of four court cases. Pagan examines each case and persons involved, vividly connecting each case to larger themes of social class, gender, labor, and economic power.

    Read More

  • Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's Good Wives: Book Analysis

    2336 Words  | 5 Pages

    Ulrich shows a progression of change in the way that women’s sexuality was viewed in New England. First, she starts with a society that depended on “external rather internal controls” and where many New Englanders responded more to shame than guilt (Ulrich 96). The courts were used to punish sexual misconducts such as adultery with fines, whippings, or sometimes even death. There were certain behaviors that “respectable” women were expected to follow and “sexual misbehavior” resulted in a serious decline of a woman’s reputation from even just one neighbor calling her names such as whore or bawd (Ulrich 97-98). Because the love between a man and his wife was compared to the bond between Christ and the Church, female modesty was an important ideal. “Within marriage, sexual attraction promoted consort; outside marriage, it led to heinous sins” (Ulrich 108). This modesty was expected to be upheld even as death approached and is seen with the example of Mary Mansfield in 1681. Ulrich describes Mary to have five neck cloths tucked into her bosom and eleven caps covering her hair. “A good wife was to be physically attractive…but she was not to expose her beauty to every eye”. Hence, even as she died, Mary was required to conceal her sexuality and beauty. However, at the end of the seventeenth century and throughout the

    Read More

  • The Murder of Helen Jewett by Patricia Cline Cohen

    1471 Words  | 3 Pages

    In The Murder of Helen Jewett, Patricia Cohen uses one of the most trivial murders during the 1800’s to illustrate the sexiest society accommodations to the privileged, hypocritical tunneled views toward sexual behavior, and the exploitation of legal codes, use of tabloid journalism, and politics. Taking the fact that woman was made from taking a rib from man was more than biblical knowledge, but incorporated into the male belief that a woman’s place is determined by the man. Helen had the proper rearing a maid servant, but how did she fall so far from grace. Judge Weston properly takes credit for rearing her with the proper strictness and education. Was Helen seduced at an early age and introduced to sexual perversions that were more persuasive that the bible belt life that the Weston’s tried to live? Was Helen simply a woman who knew how to use what she had to get what she wanted? Through personal correspondence, legal documentation, census reports, paintings, and newspapers we are able to make our own determinations. Cohen provides more than enough background and history to allow any one to make their own opinion how the murder of a woman could be turned into a side show at a circus.

    Read More

  • Anna Williams and Charlotte Lennox

    617 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the eighteenth century, the process of choosing a husband and marrying was not always beneficial to the woman. A myriad of factors prevented women from marrying a man that she herself loved. Additionally, the men that women in the eighteenth century did end up with certainly had the potential to be abusive. The attitudes of Charlotte Lennox and Anna Williams toward women’s desire for male companionship, as well as the politics of sexuality, are very different. Although both Charlotte Lennox and Anna Williams express a desire for men in their poetry, Charlotte Lennox views the implications of this desire differently than Anna Williams.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Susanne Beacker's Monster Culture

    1176 Words  | 3 Pages

    Like the Good Other Woman, the Evil Other Woman often spends much of her life hidden away in the castle, secret room, or whatever, a fact suggesting that even a virtuous woman’s lot is the same she would have merited had she been the worst of criminals. The heroine’s discovery of such Other Women is in the one case an encounter with women’s oppression-their confinement as wives, mothers, and daughters-and in the other with a related repression: the confinement of a Hidden Woman inside those genteel writers and readers who, in the idealization of the heroine’s virtues, displace their own rebellious

    Read More

  • The Deception of Trifles: Gender Roles in the Play by Glaspell

    1559 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the 19th Century, women had different roles and treated differently compared to today’s women in American society. In the past, men expected women to carry out the duties of a homemaker, which consisted of cleaning and cooking. In earlier years, men did not allow women to have opinions or carry on a job outside of the household. As today’s societies, women leave the house to carry on jobs that allow them to speak their minds and carry on roles that men carried out in earlier years. In the 19th Century, men stereotyped women to be insignificant, not think with their minds about issues outside of the kitchen or home. In the play Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell, the writer portrays how women in earlier years have no rights and men treat women like dirt. Trifles is based on real life events of a murder that Susan Glaspell covered during her work as a newspaper reporter in Des Moines and the play is based off of Susan Glaspell’s earlier writing, “A Jury of Her Peers”. The play is about a wife of a farmer that appears to be cold and filled with silence. After many years of the husband treating the wife terrible, the farmer’s wife snaps and murders her husband. In addition, the play portrays how men and women may stick together in same sex roles in certain situations. The men in the play are busy looking for evidence of proof to show Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. As for the women in the play, they stick together by hiding evidence to prove Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. Although men felt they were smarter than women in the earlier days, the play describes how women are expected of too much in their roles, which could cause a woman to emotionally snap, but leads to women banding together to prove that women can be...

    Read More

  • George Blake And Theophilus Lartutism In Englism And Mariat

    777 Words  | 2 Pages

    1. George Blake and Theophilus Parsons represented James Martin’s case. George Blake drew on the definition that “a feme-covert was never holden to take an oath of allegiance” (p.146). Anna Martin acted upon her duties as a wife. “A feme covert has no political relation to the State any more than an alien” (p.146). Theophilus Parsons added that, “Infants, insane, femes-covert, all whom the law considers as having no will, cannot act freely” (p.149). He raised the question whether the statute include persons without wills of their own. James Sullivan asserted on Blake’s accusation “words of the act do not include them because the words are in the masculine gender. The same reasoning would go to prove that the Constitution of the Commonwealth does not extend to women” (p.147). He articulated too that women could make their political choice in the presence of revolution. “Cannot a feme-covert levy war and conspire to levy war? She certainly can commit treason” (p.148). Daniel Davis claimed that women were “inhabitants and members” of the State. “Anna Martin was an inhabitant, appears by the record to have been so. She is therefore within the statute” (p.147). Four judges favored for reversing the confiscation and only three addressed the issue of feme-covert. Justice Theodore Sedgwick respected women’s understanding on submitting their opinions to their husbands even to the extent of losing their properties. Justice Simeon Strong emphasized that married women were bounded to their duty of obedience as wives exempting them from punishments committed by their husbands. Justice Francis Dana expressed that “because femes-covert, having no will, could not incur the forfeiture. And that the statute never was intended to include them—and o...

    Read More

  • English Coursework

    1877 Words  | 4 Pages

    The subjugation of women is a key theme across my three chosen texts, Othello, The Great Gatsby and Wuthering Heights, that is presented both subtly and obviously through forms of physical, sexual and mental denegation. As a subtler example of subjugation, each woman is ultimately controlled and manipulated by a male figure, whether it be through Othello’s suppression of Desdemona upon believing she is unfaithful, Heathcliff’s domination over Isabella or Tom Buchanan’s economic control of Daisy via his financial stability within a class defined society. This confirms Evelyn Cunningham’s perception that, “Women are the only oppressed group in our society that lives in intimate association with their oppressors”, notably in the way that women’s roles are dictated and restricted by the domineering, patriarchal men in their lives, however there are still aspects of female rebellion in each of the texts.

    Read More

  • The Impact Of Women In A Scandal In Bohemia

    1103 Words  | 3 Pages

    As part of the Sherlock Holmes series, the short story, “A Scandal in Bohemia,” written by Arthur Conan Doyle, introduces the Victorian concept , “The New Woman.” The term “New Woman” describes noncomformist females as smart, educated, independent, and self-reliant. These women decided that they did not want to get entrapped into the stereotypical “Angel of the House.” The New Woman concept did not only apply to middle class women, but factory and office workers. These women put off marriage to make themselves an individual. The New Woman concept made a major impact in social changes that redefined gender roles, consolidating women’s rights, and overcoming masculine supremacy. This new woman also appeared in literature that involved crime

    Read More

  • Self Knowledge And Happiness In Pride And Prejudice, by Jane Austen

    1569 Words  | 4 Pages

    Lydia, Mr WIckham and Lady Catherine de Bourg have no self awareness and are unhappy in the novel. The marriage of Lydia and Mr Wickham is one of the unhappy marriages. Mr Wickham and Lydia are both very similar and are both unaware of their faults; they are both careless with money and see no problem with asking their relatives for money. Lydia as the youngest daughter is well accustomed to having other people look after her and she is dependent on other people. Lydia’s lack of self awareness doesn’t affect her greatly; she is happy and claims that she loves Wickham. She is very fond of him but he is not fond of her and quickly loses interest, “Wickham’s affection for Lydia, was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it; not equal to Lydia’s for him.” Lady Catherine de Bourg has no self knowledge. She is full of herself and sees herself very highly; it is obvious she is lacks self knowledge. She makes discourteous comments about other people without thought to their opinions and she also enunciates comments about how she views herself. Lady Catherine de Bourg is unhappy because she is disappointed ...

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Mr Wickham And Darcy

    1961 Words  | 4 Pages

    Wickham makes it so he will only marry Lydia for money, as he had intended to do with any nuptial. In order to persuade Wickham to wed, Darcy pays Wickham’s debts “amounting…to considerably more than a thousand pounds, another thousand in addition” to settle with Lydia and Darcy also purchases Wickham’s commission (Austen 217). Darcy pays for Lydia and Wickham’s entire wedding, after paying Wickham’s debts and paying off Wickham to marry. Darcy’s character is enforced by the fact that he makes it so the two wed. He is involved with all of the finances and duties surrounding their wedding until they are officially wed; he goes as far as standing at their wedding, to ensure Wickham follows

    Read More

  • Gender Inequality In The Great Gatsby Essay

    2135 Words  | 5 Pages

    Within this extended essay, the subject chosen to study and formulate a question from was English Literature, in particular the portrayal of women during the 19th and 20th centuries, where the following novels 'The Great Gatsby' written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' were set in and originated the basis from. The question is as follows 'How does Jane Austen and F Scott Fitzgerald portray gender inequalities in both lower and upper class relationships particularly through love and marriage within the novels 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'The Great Gatsby' from the different era's it was written in?' This particular topic was chosen reflecting the morality and social class during the two different era's and determining whether there was change in the characteristics of women as well as men and how their behaviour was depicted through the two completely different stories, as they both reflect the same ethical principles in terms of love and marriage. The two novels were chosen in particular to view their differences as well as their similarities in terms of gender inequality through love and marriage, as the different era's it was set in gives a broader view in context about how society behaved and what each author was trying to portray through their different circumstances, bringing forward a similar message in both novels.

    Read More

  • Anatomy of Criticism by Northrop Frye

    2508 Words  | 6 Pages

    In Anatomy of Criticism, author Northrop Frye writes of the low mimetic tragic hero and the society in which this hero is a victim. He introduces the concept of pathos saying it “is the study of the isolated mind, the story of how someone recognizably like ourselves is broken by a conflict between the inner and outer world, between imaginative reality and the sort of reality that is established by a social consensus” (Frye 39). The hero of Hannah W. Foster’s novel, The Coquette undoubtedly suffers the fate of these afore mentioned opposing ideals. In her inability to confine her imagination to the acceptable definitions of early American female social behavior, Eliza Wharton falls victim to the ambiguity of her society’s sentiments of women’s roles. Because she attempts to claim the freedom her society superficially advocates, she is condemned as a coquette and suffers the consequences of exercising an independent mind. Yet, Eliza does not stand alone in her position as a pathetic figure. Her lover, Major Sanford -- who is often considered the villain of the novel -- also is constrained by societal expectations and definitions of American men and their ambition. Though Sanford conveys an honest desire to make Eliza his wife, society encourages marriage as a connection in order to advance socially and to secure a fortune. Sanford, in contrast to Eliza, suffers as a result of adhering to social expectations of a male’s role. While Eliza suffers because she lives her life outside of her social categorization and Sanford falls because he attempts to maneuver and manipulate the system in which he lives, both are victims of an imperfect, developing, American society.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Marriage A La Mode

    932 Words  | 2 Pages

    Marriage a la Mode, by John Dryden, is an ode to the concept of marriage and love within the period of Restoration England. Dryden, presumably, presents two pairs of couples, Rhodophil and Doralice, as well as Melantha and Palamede, in a way that expresses an imperative tone towards marital relations. Throughout the playwright, he uses these couples and their mistresses to allocate the issue of broken, miserable, thorny marriages. Although marriage was common, there was a strong presence of moral emancipation, which Dryden presents through these relationships. These themes of dissatisfaction and obligation towards the concept of marriage are noted throughout the playwright, as Dryden uncovers how each character feels.

    Read More

  • The Marriage Process

    794 Words  | 2 Pages

    The fourth and final step of the marriage process is to become one flesh. According to free dictionary.com, become means “to grow or come to be,” or “to be appropriate or suitable; to develop or grow into; to be appropriate; befit.” Becoming is a process that takes time and work. Tim Keller states that in order to call a union marriage, “sex is understood as both a sign of that personal, legal union and a means to accomplish it. The Bible says don’t unite with someone physically unless you are also willing to unite with the person emotionally, personally, socially, economically, and legally. Don’t become physically naked and vulnerable to the another person without becoming vulnerable in every other way, because you have given up your freedom and bound yourself in marriage.” (Keller pg. 215) God’s design is supposed to occur on the wedding night as they complete their marriage vows by having sex. It is clear that “they will become one flesh” is a indirect term for sex but it is also more than sex. The become one is to be on the same page, mind and accord. It is correct to compare it to one brain, making one decision and taking one action. Together one path, and they share one authority, one heart, one body, one mind, one thought, one church, and one God. The spouses become one flesh in every sense of the word. All these areas of oneness are important because division in any of them will cause them to stumble.

    Read More

More about Analysis Of Elopement In High Life

Open Document