Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

oles and behavior of the traditional Victorian woman. Not even Victoria, the epitome of the domestic
ideal, conformed completely to the role of the angel in the house.
Victoria’s ascension to the throne in 1837 drew public attention to the paradox that she
represented. Langland argues that Victoria as “head of the most powerful country in the world bespeaks her
own signal role in the construction of a new feminine ideal” (63). Through this new feminine ideal Victoria
demonstrates that Victorian women can perform paradoxical roles: they can be both middle-class domestic
angels and powerful, independent matriarchs. I begin my essay by defining Victorian society’s construction
of the ideal woman. In the next section I present the paradox of Victoria’s public and private life. The final
focus of the essay consists of Collins’ support of the feminine paradox that Marian demonstrates and his
critique of the traditional Victorian woman, which he represents in the character of Laura Fairlie.
While Victoria demonstrates that women can succeed and prosper in powerful roles, Patmore and
Ruskin celebrate the submissive, weak, and devoted middle-class woman. Patmore’s 1854 poem, “The
Angel in the House” demonstrates the quintessential characteristics of the ideal Victorian woman: passivity,
chastity, domesticity, and innocence. Patmore claims that women live for their husbands, for “[m]an must
be pleased; but him to please / Is woman’s pleasure” (33). Victoria and Marian both exhibit several
characteristics of the angel in the house; however, their strength and independence demonstrate that
women can be more than mere domestic angels. On the other hand, the angel in the house's main duty is to
make her husband’s life as comfortable and pleasurable as possible. She lives for her husband instead of for
herself, and she enjoys sacrificing her own interests to better serve her husband. If her husband feels
displeased or impatient with her “[s]he leans and weeps against his breast, / And seems to think the sin was
hers” (33). The perfect angel in the house willingly accepts her husband’s complaints and immediately
assumes that she is at fault when he is angry. Believing that her husband is always right, she willingly submits
to him.
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