Contesting Victorian Beliefs: The Unintended Effects of Victorian Novels

Victorian society reproduced polarized gender roles known as the ideology of the separate spheres in order to confine the authority of women. However, as the Victorian Era progressed social norms were gradually contested, and the consequences of the assertion of female authority led to reform. In reinterpreting the Victorian women’s movement, I will interpret the effects of the writers of the late nineteenth century who argued explicitly against proposed changes in the traditional position of middle-class women. I will most closely examine how the late Victorian novels, A Marriage Below Zero by Alan Dale and The Revolt of Man by Walter Besant end up subverting their own anti-feminist agendas and actually contributing to the political project of late-Victorian feminism by inadvertently demonstrating that the separate spheres of Victorian society were imbalanced and limiting