EN713 SPR: The New Woman: 1880-1920

Assignment 2

- To what extent does the New Woman reconceptualise the pursuit of

happiness?

The Fin de Siècle literature production contributed greatly to the feminist movement,
weather against the New Woman’s cause or in favour, it put into the spotlight the women
question1. New Women’s texts challenged Victorian conventions as well as its core institutions
such as marriage, without which the gender hierarchy in place would crumble, thus effectively
threatening the status quo and the homogeneity of the Victorian culture and society2. These
writings introduced the possibility for women to determine themselves, pursue personal
freedom and be economically independence. The new situation of female independence, at
times out of necessity and at times out of principle, brought an increase in individuals’ mobility
outside the marriage bond. Subsequently, women became more prone to seek alternative ways
of happiness3 in contrast with the Victorian conception, which associated women’s happiness
with the mere fulfilment of their natural duties as wives and mothers4. Those going against the
established traditions and conventions encountered several difficulties5 due to the pre-
conceived habits and scientific beliefs behind the figure and the role of the woman within
society. Accordingly, the New Woman’s approach to happiness is controversial. Despite
challenging the traditional elements deemed to ensure women’s felicity by exploring
alternative sources of personal satisfaction, she cannot fully escape the scripted societal route
to happiness. This can be seen Katherine Mansfield’s Bliss and Amy Levy’s Romance of a
Shop. To explore the controversial relation between women and the pursuit of happiness I will
firstly look at the origin of happiness and its association with marriage. Secondly, I will analyse
the short story Bliss with the aim of illustrating how the author not only criticises marriage, but
suggests that true happiness can only be found outside the domestic sphere. Lastly, I will

1
Sally Ledger, The New Woman: Fiction and Feminism at the Fin de Siècle (Manchester-New York: Manchester
University Press: 1997), p. 9.
2
Ledger, p. 11.
3
Ledger, p. 22.
4
Jenni Calder, Women and Marriage in Victorian Fiction (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976), p. 47.
5
Ledger, p. 28.

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examine Levy’s novel pointing out how the conception of happiness develops throughout the
text despite eventually terminating in marriage.

Happiness is a social construct. Culture and social institutions helped create and
naturalise the association between female happiness and the domestic sphere by reproducing
via popular culture myths such as the Angel of the House, the happy homemaker and the loving
mother, in order to uphold the patriarchal power structures in place6. Accordingly, happiness
can be a tool of social control7, since conventional ideals of happiness provide guidelines on
individuals’ personal development as well as behaviour8. Thus, happiness translates into living
accordingly to a culturally produced wish or a political or social construct9, which not only has
the aim of homogenising society but also becomes a means to justify oppression10, such as
arranged marriage. Those women who do not comply with the preapproved script of happiness,
are labelled deviant. Azhar argues that the marriage contract during the Victorian time was
responsible for limiting women’s legal rights and prevent the realisation of their dreams 11.
Grant Allen writes, “Marriage itself is still an assertion of man's supremacy over woman. It ties
her to him for life”12, hence marriage is regarded as the enemy of happiness and stands as a
synonym of slavery13. Therefore, it could be claimed that the Victorian idealisation of marriage
is the cause of women’s suffering and unhappiness, failing, and disappointing young women’s
hopes, which had been built upon lies14. These negative feelings toward marriage made their
way inside literary texts, which oftentimes endorsed anti-marriage stands. With this further
encouragement, women at the turn of the twentieth century did not always comply or fully
adhere to the traditional forms or pursuits of happiness.15 Kate Krueger advances that in the
last decades of the nineteenth century London became the place where individuals and in
particular women could escape the limitations of the home life and the bourgeois social

6
Sara Ahmed, The Promise of Happiness (Durham-London: Duke University Press, 2010), p. 2.
7
Sara Ahmed, ‘Killing Joy: Feminism and the History of Happiness’, Signs, vol. 35, no. 3 (Spring 2010), 571-594
(p. 572).
8
Ahmed, ‘Kill Joy’, p. 578.
9
Ahmed, ‘Promise of Happiness’, p. 2.
10
Ahmed, ‘Kill Joy’, p. 580.
11
Hadeel Jamal Azhar, ‘Marginalisation Vs. Emancipation: The (New) Woman Question in Dollie Radford’s
Diary and Poetry’ (unpublished Ph. D. Thesis, Edinburgh Napier University University of Kent, 2016), p. 18.
12
Grant Allen, The Woman Who Did (Blackmask Online, 2001), p. 12. < http://www.public-
library.uk/ebooks/107/55.pdf> [Accessed April 10th 2018].
13
Calder, p. 195.
14
Azhar, p. 97.
15
Ahmed, ‘Kill Joy’, p. 579.

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norms16. She further insists that the opportunity to have a career did not only cause change in
women’s use of time but also in their identity17. This newly found sense of purpose and
fulfilment finds its correspondent in literature, for instance in The Odd Women George
Gissing’s heroine Rhoda states, “work […] gives me a sense of power and usefulness which I
enjoy”18. Accordingly, happiness has to be linked to a higher purpose than domestic duties.
Numerous writers thus engage with the question of happiness in their literary productions, by
either proposing alternative ways for women to pursue happiness, or by compromising with
the traditional conception of personal fulfilment.

Katherine Mansfield in her literary work engages often with the theme of happiness, in
the short story Bliss she underlines the difficulty of reaching, expressing, and maintaining
happiness. In Bliss, the transient state of happiness is emphasised; similarly to the title,
happiness is encapsulated in fleeting moments of bliss19. In the text, Bertha Young is seen as
the representative of the stereotypical Victorian woman. She believes she is happy, however as
the plot develops, it is possible to see the emptiness of her claim to happiness20. The things
Bertha enjoys most in her life are: ‘her adorable baby’, money, delicious food, a loving friendly
husband, her satisfactory house and garden, modern and thrilling friends21. All of these sources
of happiness seem linked to material possessions and only possible thanks to her marital status.
She herself recognises the reasons for her happiness to be absurd22, and superficial; she
exclaims, “I am absurd. Absurd!”23. Nevertheless, it is possible that she is experiencing what
Ahmed calls fake happiness; hence, Bertha is convincing herself that her unhappiness does not
exist24. Thus, she focuses her attention on minor details of her life, such as the delicious food,
the upcoming holidays, and the skilled dressmaker she found25, which provide her with
distractions from the reality of her condition. Krueger argues that the New Woman seems to

16
Kate Krueger, ‘Eveline Sharp’s Working Women and The Dilemma of Urban Romance’, Women's Writing, vol.
19 is. 4 (2012), 563-583 (p. 563).
17
Krueger, p. 563.
18
George Gissing, The Odd Women, (London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1893), p. 145.
19
Kirsty Martin, ‘D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield and Happiness’, Katherine Mansfield Studies, vol. 2
(2010), 87–99 (p. 87).
20
Marilyn Zorn, ‘Visionary Flowers: Another Study of Katherine Mansfield's "Bliss"’, Studies in Short Fiction, vol.
17, Is. 2 (Spring 1980), 141-147 (p. 141).
21
Katherine Mansfield, Bliss and Other Stories (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982), p. 100.
22
J. F. Kobler, Kathrine Mansfield: A Study of the Short Fiction (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990), p. 97.
23
Mansfield, p. 100.
24
Ahmed, ‘Kill Joy’, p. 582.
25
Mansfield, p. 100.

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have a natural drive to try things, she longs for the ‘unexpected’26. Bertha seeks escaping from
boredom through her infatuation for Miss Fulton. As Calder suggests, married women usually
used flirtations and perhaps even adultery to bring excitement into their boring, uneventful
lives27. In fact, the moment of bliss appears to arise from her sexual desire for Pearl Fulton by
the hand “blazing – blazing- the fire of bliss that Bertha did not know what to do with”28. As
the feelings seemed reciprocated, “Pearl Fulton […] was feeling just what she was feeling” 29,
she was even more blissful. However, another reading of Bertha’s inclination toward miss
Futon is proposed by Kobler, who suggests that the vicinity of the two characters is the result
of Bertha attempt to find someone to share her feelings of happiness with, someone who could
understand her, another woman30. Neither with her baby nor her husband could she
communicate her happiness31, “All her feeling of bliss came back again, and again she did not
know how to express it”32. However, the moment of ultimate bliss is when both women are
standing at the window and looking at the pear tree in bloom. The tree is not only the symbol
of happiness33, since Spring is associated with it34, but also of her standing to happiness, so
close and yet out of reach35. The ending of the story, the discovery of the love affair between
Miss Fulton and her husband, in a way, provides a possibility of happiness for Bertha.
Precisely, Mansfield writes in her journal “At the end truth is the only thing worth having: it is
more thrilling than love, more joyful and more passionate”36. Bertha has finally been faced
with her true condition of living, and this can be the starting point for a change for the better,
because the tree, symbolising happiness, is still blooming “The pear tree was as lovely as ever
and as full of flower and as still”37. Moreover, the final state of unhappiness of Bertha is
actually what creates the open ending, concretely giving the possibility of a happier future38,
“Oh, what is going to happen now?”39 . Mansfield short story has a tint of irony and directs an
implicit critique to the hypocrisy of Victorian institutions; furthermore, the seemingly negative

26
Krueger, p. 572.
27
Calder, p. 56.
28
Mansfield, p. 103.
29
Mansfield, p. 104.
30
Kobler, p. 98.
31
Judith S. Neaman, ‘Allusion, Image, and Associative Pattern: The Answers in Mansfield's "Bliss"’, Twentieth
Century Literature, vol. 32, no. 2 (Summer, 1986), 242-254 (p. 247).
32
Mansfield, p. 98.
33
Kobler, p. 97.
34
Fussell in Kobler, p. 91.
35
Zorn, p. 146.
36
Mansfield in Kobler, p. 123.
37
Mansfield, p. 101.
38
Martin, p. 92.
39
Mansfield, p. 110.

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portrayal of Bertha has the purpose of encouraging change in the condition of the passive and
static Victorian woman40. In fact, Kaplan claims that Mansfield’s short story shows the author’s
anger toward sexual oppression, embodied by the reductive female characterisation as mothers
and wives41. Thus, she pushes women toward a redefinition of their happiness and identity in
relation to something outside the domestic sphere.

Amy Levy has a more controversial approach to marriage and happiness. In her novels
The Romance of a Shop, she describes the life of the four orphan Lorimer sisters, who out of
financial need move to London to open a photography shop. The novel portrays both the joys
and the struggles of being working women. The character of Gertrude, close to the figure of
the New Woman, is perhaps the most relevant when analysing her views on happiness. As
previously mentioned, London becomes a place of new possibilities and freedom for women42;
in fact, its description almost makes it dreamlike, “an undiscovered country of purple mists and
boundless possibilities […] hints of a vague delight in the sweet, keen air; whisperings,
promises”43. For the Lorimer sisters, moving to the heart of the city, other than a promise for a
better future, means experiencing life at its fullest. This sensation of feeling alive is embodied
in the location of their shop from which “the pulses of the great city could be felt distinctly as
they beat and throbbed"44. Working is for them a means to achieve and maintain their
independence45. Especially Gertrude has faced this new situation of independence with
optimism and lack of regrets, despite all sufferings she believes, “she had not paid too great a
price for the increased reality of her present existence”46. Having their social and economic
standing changed, they now have “to approach happiness from another side”47. They no longer
seem to attach happiness to material possession, partly because their business was often on the
verge of bankruptcy, but on “self-respect, and the integrity of the people”48 they care for.
Despite this noble conception of happiness and the newly found self-dependence, one by one

40
Sydney Janet Kaplan, Katherine Mansfield and the Origins of Modern Fiction (Ithaca- London: Cornell
University Press, 1991), p. 135.
41
Kaplan, p. 140.
42
Krueger, p. 563.
43
Amy Levy, The Romance of a Shop (Boston: Cupples and Hurd, 1889), pp. 43, 44.
44
Levy, p. 61.
45
Deborah Epstein Nord, ‘"Neither Pairs nor Odd": Female Community in Late Nineteenth-Century London’,
Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 15, no. 4 (1990), 733-754 (p. 750).
46
Levy, p. 157.
47
Levy, p. 105.
48
Levy, p. 169.

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all the sisters get married, except Phyllis due to her unfortunate death. Valeria du Prel argues
that, “A woman cannot afford to despise the dictates of Nature… There is no escape. The
centuries are behind one, with all their weight of heredity and habit; the order of society adds
its pressure”49. This logic can be applied to the ending of The Romance on a Shop as Gertrude
conception of happiness evolves toward the end. Happiness is connected to peace and no longer
to independence, excitement, novelty, social connections, and freedom of movement50. After
having tried adventures, such as photography and bucking Victorian conventions, she finds in
marriage happiness and liberation51. Despite the seemingly popular happy-ending of fictions,
Levy portrays a different kind of womanhood in the character of Gertrude, who reveals herself
to be a downbeat, strong person who eventually composes her own sense of reality, who
willingly chooses to marry for love52. Gertrude gives up her independence to what Jenni Calder
would define as the ‘right man’53. In fact, Gertrude, “looking up into his face[…] all that was
mean and petty and bitter in life fade away into nothingness; while all that was good and great
and beautiful gathered new meaning and became the sole realities”54. In this novel, Levy
underlines that it is not marriage as a social institution she finds repulsive, but rather she
criticises its constraining power preventing women from reaching their potential55. However,
the Lorimer sisters, having attained and shared their happiness and sorrows alike other free
women, settle willingly for a marriage based on love. Despite the conventional ending, this
novel introduced new possibilities for women, which go against the traditional Victorian
conventions of female identity, behaviour and pursuit of happiness.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the New Woman starts questioning the universality
and applicability of Victorian conventions, especially with regards to marriage and the pursuit
of happiness. Since happiness is a social construct moulded in function of the maintenance of
the patriarchal Victorian power structures, women pursuing alternatives ways of happiness
other than the recommended traditional marriage bond and the fulfilment of marital duties were

49
Valeria du Prel in Ledger, p. 28.
50
Levy, p. 288.
51
D. Wanczyk, ‘Framing Gertrude: Photographic Narration and the Subjectivity of the Artist-observer in Levy’s
The Romance of a Shop‘, Victorian Literature and Culture, vol. 43, is. 1 (2015), 131-148 (p. 143).
52
Wanczyk, p. 147.
53
Calder, p. 191.
54
Levy, p. 297.
55
Elissa Erin Myers, ‘The Politics of Place: Urban Feminism in the Late Works of Amy Levy’ (unpublished Honors
Thesis, Texas State University, 2013), p. 6.

6
regarded as a threat to the system. Despite women’s ambivalent feelings toward the institution
of marriage, its promise of happiness, and its renowned tradition, several women, such as
Mansfield and Levy and their female fictional characters, started exploring different ways of
seeking self-fulfilment outside the domestic sphere. These alternative ‘off the beaten track’
routes to happiness are not straightforward or extremely radical. For instance, as seen, the
Lorimer sisters despite finding happiness in their work eventually decide to marry.
Accordingly, both Levy and Mansfield do not completely reject marriage as an institution;
perhaps they address marriage with constructive criticism, proposing that happiness and self-
fulfilment can be found also in a counter-current lifestyle, which includes mobility in the public
sphere, economic independence and personal self-determination. Despite these narrative
experimentations with regards to alternative ways of seeking happiness, marriage is still
regarded by most individuals as the primary source of happiness; thus, making almost
impossible to break free from tradition, especially without encountering public dissent and
perhaps having to face social isolation and a potential condition of loneliness. Therefore, the
pursuit of happiness remains a controversial topic in New Women’s writings.

Words: 2750

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Bibliography

Ahmed, Sara, ‘Killing Joy: Feminism and the History of Happiness’, Signs, vol. 35, no. 3
(Spring 2010), 571-594

Ahmed, Sara, The Promise of Happiness (Durham-London: Duke University Press, 2010)

Allen, Grant, The Woman Who Did (Blackmask Online, 2001) <http://www.public-
library.uk/ebooks/107/55.pdf> [Accessed April 10th 2018]

Azhar, Hadeel Jamal, ‘Marginalisation Vs. Emancipation: The (New) Woman Question in
Dollie Radford’s Diary and Poetry’ (unpublished Ph. D. Thesis, Edinburgh Napier University
University of Kent, 2016)

Calder, Jenni, Women and Marriage in Victorian Fiction (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976)
Gissing, George, The Odd Women, (London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1893)
Kaplan, Sydney Janet, Katherine Mansfield and the Origins of Modern Fiction (Ithaca-
London: Cornell University Press, 1991)

Kobler, J. F., Kathrine Mansfield: A Study of the Short Fiction (Boston: Twayne Publishers,
1990)

Krueger, Kate, ‘Eveline Sharp’s Working Women and The Dilemma of Urban Romance’,
Women's Writing, vol. 19 is. 4 (2012), 563-583

Ledger, Sally, The New Woman: Fiction and Feminism at the Fin de Siècle (Manchester-New
York: Manchester University Press: 1997)

Levy, Amy, The Romance of a Shop (Boston: Cupples and Hurd, 1889)

Mansfield, Katherine, Bliss and Other Stories (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982)

Martin, Kirsty ‘D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield and Happiness’, Katherine Mansfield
Studies, vol. 2 (2010), 87–99

Myers, Elissa Erin, ‘The Politics of Place: Urban Feminism in the Late Works of Amy Levy’
(unpublished Honors Thesis, Texas State University, 2013)

Neaman, Judith S., ‘Allusion, Image, and Associative Pattern: The Answers in Mansfield's
"Bliss"’, Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 32, no. 2 (Summer, 1986), 242-254

Nord, Deborah Epstein ‘"Neither Pairs nor Odd": Female Community in Late Nineteenth-
Century London’, Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 15, no. 4 (1990), 733-754
Wanczyk, D., ‘Framing Gertrude: Photographic Narration and the Subjectivity of the Artist-
observer in Levy’s The Romance of a Shop‘, Victorian Literature and Culture, vol. 43, is. 1
(2015), 131-148

8
Zorn, Marilyn, ‘Visionary Flowers: Another Study of Katherine Mansfield's "Bliss"’, Studies
in Short Fiction, vol. 17, Is. 2 (Spring 1980), 141-147