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AN EYE FOR AN EYE by Anthony Trollope
Sep. 12th, 2013 10:04 pmThis novel was written in 1870, around eight years before publication; it deals with similar subject matter to a subplot in VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON (published about the same time this was written). It's about women who become fallen and the men who treat them badly. Weak Fred Neville is heir to the Earl of Scrope and falls in love with beautiful though poor Kate O'Hara, an Irish girl of a past unknown to most. He thinks it impossible to make Kate a Countess, but he does not wish to give her up.
Eventually humans behave like humans and Kate gives away a trait for which she is valued in this time. This causes Fred to treat her badly.
Alas, alas; there came a day in which the pricelessness of the girl he loved sank to nothing, vanished away, and was as a thing utterly lost, even in his eyes. The poor unfortunate one,—to whom beauty had been given, and grace, and softness,—and beyond all these and finer than these, innocence as unsullied as the whiteness of the plumage on the breast of a dove; but to whom, alas, had not been given a protector strong enough to protect her softness, or guardian wise enough to guard her innocence!
...To lose him would be to die! To deny him would be to deny her God! She gave him all;—and her pricelessness in his eyes was gone for ever.
He was sitting with her one day towards the end of May on the edge of the cliff... He was not aware, perhaps, that he was becoming rougher with her than had been his wont.
But other passages make the double standards clear: Yes. In the abjectness of her misery the poor girl had told her mother the story of her disgrace; or, rather, in her weakness had suffered her secret to fall from her lips. That terrible retribution was to come upon her which, when sin has been mutual, falls with so crushing a weight upon her who of the two sinners has ever been by far the less sinful. Trollope is not as extreme a reformer as other contemporary writers, nor as ringing in denunciation as TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,—a line, but, alas, little more than a line,—by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. He's not sure whether to condemn the feminine 'hardness' in women that leads them to condemn fallen sisters, or to decide that this condemnation can be overall a good thing pour encourager les autres.
The aspect that Fred Neville thinks that it would be morally worse to make Kathleen O'Hara the Countess of Scroope than to break his word to marry her is definite values dissonance between then and now. It's really interesting to read about this bizarre society from within.
One wants Kathleen O'Hara to play Elizabeth Bennet (note: from a considerably earlier time) and state,
"He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are equal."
For Kathleen O'Hara's father is a disreputable jailbird, but he was well born and married to Kathleen's mother at the time of her birth; and his behaviour is probably not much worse than that of Fred Neville's own cousin. Not to mention that Kathleen herself is stated to be better educated than Fred. Why does she not have a right to be treated fairly?
It all ends melodramatically. The good thing about the melodramatic ending is that Trollope manages to make it not the first thing the reader expects. The bad thing about the melodramatic ending is that it weakens the points the novel seems to be discussing - the reason why sexual double standards are wrong is not because they invariably end with maddened women locked away in asylums. (This is not a spoiler; it's how the novel starts.) VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON is superior because of the more plausible plot.
Trollope himself makes some extremely good points about the sensational novel in his autobiography:
I am [classified as] realistic. My friend Wilkie Collins is generally supposed to be sensational. The readers who prefer the one are supposed to take delight in the elucidation of character. Those who hold by the other are charmed by the continuation and gradual development of a plot. All this is, I think, a mistake,—which mistake arises from the inability of the imperfect artist to be at the same time realistic and sensational. A good novel should be both, and both in the highest degree...Truth let there be,—truth of description, truth of character, human truth as to men and women. If there be such truth, I do not know that a novel can be too sensational.
Where this novel fails is because it attempts to address a general truth and takes an instantaneous leap off the cliffs of a very specific melodrama.
Additionally the abruptness of the ending abandons the plot thread between Jack Neville and Sophie Mellerby. When a character refuses to marry someone they love while that someone is poor (in this case, poor means 'middle-class and has reasonable job') and accepts once they inherit a title and wealth, it makes that character seem shallow unless nuance is applied. And the character in question seemed to be intelligent and have potential to be interesting.
Eventually humans behave like humans and Kate gives away a trait for which she is valued in this time. This causes Fred to treat her badly.
Alas, alas; there came a day in which the pricelessness of the girl he loved sank to nothing, vanished away, and was as a thing utterly lost, even in his eyes. The poor unfortunate one,—to whom beauty had been given, and grace, and softness,—and beyond all these and finer than these, innocence as unsullied as the whiteness of the plumage on the breast of a dove; but to whom, alas, had not been given a protector strong enough to protect her softness, or guardian wise enough to guard her innocence!
...To lose him would be to die! To deny him would be to deny her God! She gave him all;—and her pricelessness in his eyes was gone for ever.
He was sitting with her one day towards the end of May on the edge of the cliff... He was not aware, perhaps, that he was becoming rougher with her than had been his wont.
But other passages make the double standards clear: Yes. In the abjectness of her misery the poor girl had told her mother the story of her disgrace; or, rather, in her weakness had suffered her secret to fall from her lips. That terrible retribution was to come upon her which, when sin has been mutual, falls with so crushing a weight upon her who of the two sinners has ever been by far the less sinful. Trollope is not as extreme a reformer as other contemporary writers, nor as ringing in denunciation as TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. It is as though a certain line were drawn to include all women,—a line, but, alas, little more than a line,—by overstepping which, or rather by being known to have overstepped it, a woman ceases to be a woman in the estimation of her own sex. That the existence of this feeling has strong effect in saving women from passing the line, none of us can doubt. He's not sure whether to condemn the feminine 'hardness' in women that leads them to condemn fallen sisters, or to decide that this condemnation can be overall a good thing pour encourager les autres.
The aspect that Fred Neville thinks that it would be morally worse to make Kathleen O'Hara the Countess of Scroope than to break his word to marry her is definite values dissonance between then and now. It's really interesting to read about this bizarre society from within.
One wants Kathleen O'Hara to play Elizabeth Bennet (note: from a considerably earlier time) and state,
"He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are equal."
For Kathleen O'Hara's father is a disreputable jailbird, but he was well born and married to Kathleen's mother at the time of her birth; and his behaviour is probably not much worse than that of Fred Neville's own cousin. Not to mention that Kathleen herself is stated to be better educated than Fred. Why does she not have a right to be treated fairly?
It all ends melodramatically. The good thing about the melodramatic ending is that Trollope manages to make it not the first thing the reader expects. The bad thing about the melodramatic ending is that it weakens the points the novel seems to be discussing - the reason why sexual double standards are wrong is not because they invariably end with maddened women locked away in asylums. (This is not a spoiler; it's how the novel starts.) VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON is superior because of the more plausible plot.
Trollope himself makes some extremely good points about the sensational novel in his autobiography:
I am [classified as] realistic. My friend Wilkie Collins is generally supposed to be sensational. The readers who prefer the one are supposed to take delight in the elucidation of character. Those who hold by the other are charmed by the continuation and gradual development of a plot. All this is, I think, a mistake,—which mistake arises from the inability of the imperfect artist to be at the same time realistic and sensational. A good novel should be both, and both in the highest degree...Truth let there be,—truth of description, truth of character, human truth as to men and women. If there be such truth, I do not know that a novel can be too sensational.
Where this novel fails is because it attempts to address a general truth and takes an instantaneous leap off the cliffs of a very specific melodrama.
Additionally the abruptness of the ending abandons the plot thread between Jack Neville and Sophie Mellerby. When a character refuses to marry someone they love while that someone is poor (in this case, poor means 'middle-class and has reasonable job') and accepts once they inherit a title and wealth, it makes that character seem shallow unless nuance is applied. And the character in question seemed to be intelligent and have potential to be interesting.
