Fallen Sisters: Supportive Interactions by and Towards Fallen Women in Victorian Literature

Abstract

The character of the “fallen woman” figures prominently in many works of nineteenth-century British literature. This article examines the interactions between the “fallen woman” and other female characters in three of these works, Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton, Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market,” and Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd, to reveal the ways in which women supported each other throughout the restrictive laws and repressive morality of the Victorian era. A brief analysis of the historical context of these works, including the “separate sphere” ideology, the Contagious Diseases Act of 1864, the “Magdalenist” reform movement, and the proliferation of Anglican penitentiaries for “fallen women” in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, provides a framework through which to understand and interpret the relationships between the “fallen woman” character and her female associates. The chronological presentation of the works, which span from 1848 to 1874, offers a timeline of the progress of women’s societal empowerment from the mid- to late-Victorian era and shows that outcomes for “fallen women” and British women in general did improve somewhat in the latter half of the nineteenth century.