Propriety and passion: images of the new woman on the London stage in the 1890s
Date
2018-07-03
Authors
Thompson, Doreen Helen
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Abstract
The emergence of the New Woman in the 1890s was the result of a broad spectrum of feminist demands: equal advantages with men in education, entrance into "male" professions, and a share in the government of the country. Women's desire for personal freedom led to the removal of conventional restrictions with regard to dress, manners, and modes of living and to a rebellion against inequalities in marriage and double standards of morality. Within the theatre community, bold new patterns of thought developed out of a growing discontent with outworn forms. The New Drama and the New Woman became inseparable in the public mind, and socially aware dramatists attempted to create a contemporary heroine who would reflect the way modern woman was perceived.
The first chapter, "Relics of the Past," documents legal and social changes in woman's status prior to 1900 and reveals how the 19th century woman was held back, not only by men claiming educational and political advantages by virtue of male superiority, but by other women who fought against any change to well-defined sex roles, and by her own reluctance to free herself from conventional patterns. The second chapter, "Removal of Ancient Landmarks," is concerned with women in the creative arts who seized the opportunities for female emancipation that life in the artistic community promised, particularly to those in the theatre. The third chapter, "Treading on Dangerous Ground," links the impact of Ibsen on British drama with the new breed of actresses who were willing to represent the New Woman on stage and to replace the feminine ideal with their defiant portrayals of selfhood.
The next three chapters explore dramatic images of the New Woman as she was depicted in plays written for the London stage in the 1890s. In Chapter IV, "Shall We Forgive Her?," the former "fallen" woman of fiction and melodrama, now updated to the "Woman with a past," demonstrates the extent to which prior sexual misdemeanours make her a social outcast, even if the playwright does not condemn her to an untimely death, insanity, or suicide. Chapter V, "New Lamps for Old," deals with the "advanced" woman who is either aggressive in courtship or chooses a career over marriage, overturns parental authority, engages in activities formerly reserved for males, and often talks and dresses like a man. By pushing against conventional boundaries which define woman's intellectual and moral territory, she seeks to overthrow the patriarchal system and to upset the double standard. In Chapter VI, "A Modern Eve," another aspect of the New Woman manifests in the married heroine who attempts to establish greater freedom for herself within the old patterns of respectability yet must face the psychological pressures which tend to keep women in their traditional place.
Throughout the decade, proponents of the New Drama allowed the heroine to express her own mind as a necessary step towards selfhood. Conservative playwrights clung to legal marriage and most assumed that a woman's role was decreed by Nature and was basically unchangeable. More progressive playwrights advocated free union and accepted the premise that freedom is attained only when both sexes are released from bondage to old ideals.
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Keywords
Women in the theater, England, London, Theater, Great Britain, History and criticism