A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis of Gender Role Expectations in George Gissing’s the Odd Women

Introduction

George Gissing (1857-1903) triumphs over his literary peers of the nineteenth century through the unswerving stark realism employed in his novels. His themes largely dwell on the poor conditions of the public in the lower stratum of the social hierarchy of 19^th-century England. Gissing wrote extensively and, in a career that spanned two decades, he was able to write twenty full-length novels as well as innumerable other works of fiction and nonfiction. His noteworthy works include The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1903), The Nether World (1889), New Grub Street (1893) and the novel on which this paper is based, The Odd Women (1893).

Given that the research paper at hand attempts to explore the gender dynamics of the period through the novel, a Foucauldian examination of discourse constructions on gender roles equips us with the means of understanding how the Victorian ideology on gender functioned and how it sought validation. Foucault’s method of discourse explication, as examined in greater detail in the theoretical framework, identifies discourse as a set of elements within a wider power hierarchy that determines truths and enforces them through its regulatory authority (Bernauer, 2005). For him, discourses operate in their historical epitomes, and reviewing them in the specificity of the epistemic occurrence aids in exposing structures of power.

Gissing’s The Odd Women adumbrates gender roles at the turn of the century. Moreover, women had only one role according to Victorian gender ideology, i.e., to be married off to eligible partners. A Foucauldian analysis of the discourse of the period posits why that line of thinking held sway. This, in turn, can aid us in challenging any discourse that takes a particular stance by exploring its constitutive elements and examining how discourses around gender roles have been constructed through employing Michel Foucault’s method of discourse analysis. Being a monumental text that engages the fin de siècle discourses on gender roles, Gissing’s The Odd Women can provide us with a critical portrait of discourse practices on gender within the episteme of the late nineteenth century.

This study utilizes Michel Foucault’s conception of discourse to evaluate how discursive practices on gender affect gender identity, shape character subjectivity, and influence dominant discourses within a historical period. This equips us with the means to evaluate discourses and the dynamics of their operations. Gissing arrests readers’ attention through a bold psychological exploration of gender tensions and how they have consequences for the formation of a feminine subjectivity, or constructions of a female subjectivity, through an illuminating juxtaposition of deeply entrenched patriarchal values vis-à-vis a feminist movement championed by the New Woman movement. The themes of the novel expose the building blocks of Victorian gender ideology. Gissing presents an extensive treatise that effectively overturns established ways of looking at the gender dynamics of the period. The coterie of female characters in The Odd Women used by Gissing aids in driving home the elements that sustained gender discourses in the period. Thus, the novel proves indispensable in the scrutiny of the gender dynamics of the period, which can educate the masses on how discourses operate and how to build stronger defenses against them. By considering the issues faced by single women and what they meant for their subjectivity, Gissing’s work explores gender roles and invites enquiries as to how gender can be liberated from a value-laden system that disproportionately favors one over the other. Hence, the study has significance for future researchers on how canonical texts engage discourses with real-world ramifications and how those discourses are constructed.

Wendy Lesser (1984) opines that the novel “is one of the best portrayals of the women's movement, old or new” in mounting a challenge to the operating mechanics of discourses within their episteme (p. 211). It is widely interpreted as one of the pioneering texts that describe a changing arena for gender issues.

Gissing’s the Odd Women and Gender: A Historical Context

Gissing’s novel The Odd Women explores gender dynamics through a perceptive study of the underlying psychology of gendered discourses. This is made abundantly clear by its evocative title, i.e., the odd women, which refers to an 1860s survey that revealed that England had half a million women of marriageable age who could not pair equally with men and thus stood in surplus, making them the odd ones in the mix. This lays bare the Victorian ideology on gender roles, which saw them only as opposites to men meant to meet their logical conclusion in marriage; if that was not on offer, they did not matter at all and had to be, as one critic had suggested, sent off to the colonies under English rule to balance out the field for men.

The Odd Women stands out for its challenge to gender norms within the Victorian period. It seeks and kindles a debate on what it means to be a woman and how the nature of women is constituted, as the latter was often mounted as a defense for the unfair treatment of women in society and the roles they were supposed to play. These skewed dynamics of gender relations were a searing factor in the dichotomy evident in gender relations. Patricia Ingham (2000) notes in the preface to The Odd Women that George Gissing challenges readers to review received notions on gender role expectations and ignites debates on the inherent ability and nature of women (XIII).

It is therefore pertinent to examine the novel in its historical context as to how the reigning fin de siècle discourses in the Victorian period contributed towards the cementing of patriarchal values and gender norms within that period. It is tellingly no coincidence that the patriarch of the Madden family, Dr Madden, invokes the idea that it is unnatural for women to earn money and that all financial matters must be left to men, as it is their sole domain to earn while women take care of the household. Dr Madden’s gender ideology stems from the discourses on gender in the period. It is on a par with the Ruskinian ideal of what it means to be a ‘good’ woman. Ironically, Mr. Madden dies and leaves his daughters penniless in grinding poverty, as someone unable to ‘shepherd’ his ‘fold’ (Gissing, p. 6).

John Ruskin in 1864 spearheaded gender discourse in the Victorian era with his essay ‘On Queens’ Gardens’ that drew a sharp distinction between the so-called ‘natural’ spheres of women and men, whereby men faced and struggled with the harsh realities of the outside world and women were to be custodians of the domestic sphere and supervise the domesticities of daily life. According to the Ruskinian ideal, men were to be ‘active, progressive’ and defensive, while women were to provide them with the comfort of a peaceful household as they returned from their outside chores. To him, women were better suited for the ‘sweet ordering, arrangement’ of domestic spheres (Ruskin, 1904, p. 44).

It is this idea stemming from Ruskin’s essay that is fiercely attacked by Mary Barfoot in Gissing’s The Odd Women , challenging those gender roles expected of women. She advises the women in her professional academy that if they want to break free from such narrow classifications in life, they must learn to be ‘militant and defiant’ and push their ‘claims to the extremity’ (Gissing, p. 153). In this manner, Gissing uses Mary’s character to stir a debate on role and gender expectations in society. Sloan observes that Gissing’s female characters in the novel bring into focus an ‘interplay of social forces and individual psychology’ (Gissing, p. 119). Furthermore, Pierre Coustillas (2002) argues that Gissing was able to incorporate ‘genuine realism’ in the novel without pandering to mundane didacticism, and thus succeeded in engaging with the discourses of the period (p. 336).

In a similar vein, Diedre David (1984) maintains that Monica’s abysmal marriage to Mr. Widdowson underscores how the discursive practices of the period left no recourse for women other than to suppress their individual wishes in a system that terrorizes and forces them into submission through marriage, which in turn acts as an enabling agent of the patriarchal system (p. 127). Once caught within the shackles of marriage, there is hardly any way out for a married woman other than submitting to the enforced norms of the society she lives in. Alam and Ramli (2020) are of the view that Gissing has adroitly tackled the dominant gender ideology by evoking alternatives to the conventional roles expected of them. The novel draws attention to the discourse dynamics that make women willing victims of an oppressive system by focusing on the influences of dominant gender discourses (Alam & Ramli, 2020).

Gissing successfully initiates a debate on gender roles and how discourses shape environments for strands of gender discourses to flourish. Monica’s marriage to the patriarchal tyrant Edmund Widdowson serves as a launching pad for his mission. Mr. Widdowson represents a typical Victorian conception of man and is thoroughly enshrined in the Ruskinian doctrine¹ which maintains that ‘an educated woman had better become a domestic servant than try to imitate the life of a man’ (Ruskin, 1904, p. 171). Widdowson’s misgivings towards the ‘new women’ underscore the general apathy of Victorian England towards any attempt to redefine gender boundaries as sanctioned by the patriarchal agenda.

According to Elaine Showalter (2007), Gissing reignited the debate on gender roles through his engagement with socio-economic issues in The Odd Women , and this challenged the gender norms of the period. She argues that Gissing’s work contains powerful signs of a world where men are mired in despair and uncertainty in the face of the changing dynamics of gender, where powerful women are ready to take charge. Showalter declares in the preface to the novel that:

… femininity is a construct; growing up female means learning to play a role. Women can make other women “unwomanly”; men can force womanliness upon them, by controlling their mobility, education, and economic dependency (p. 16).

Historically, women in Victorian England had to battle innumerable challenges to carve out liberties for their gender in a patriarchal world. Sharon Marcus (2007) notes that before the Divorce Act of 1857, the doctrine of coverture was in place, which dictated that a married woman had to forego all essence to man, and in the eyes of the law, the couple was considered entwined as one and the wife had no legal right over her property or body. This situation gave the husband full control over the wife; until 1891, Victorians regarded the family as a ‘peaceful refuge’ (p. 206). The Matrimonial Clauses Act of 1857 gave a reprieve to women by sanctioning that marriage was a voidable contract that could be annulled under certain conditions. This was met with zealous opposition, where critics deemed the law an attack against the ‘greatest, oldest, and most universal of all social institutions’ (Marcus, 2007, p. 213). Philosopher John Stuart Mill (2009) championed the cause of liberty for women and noted in his The Subjection of Women that ‘if ever any system of privilege and enforced subjection had its yoke tightly rivetted on the necks of those who are kept down by it, this has.” (pp. 21-22). To Mill (1909), as he notes in his On Liberty , gender norms had to be routinely discussed and debated, which would guarantee in the long run that the subjection and oppression of women would cease to hold sway and would soon be held as ‘a dead dogma, not a living truth’ (p. 40).

Similarly, a leading feminist of the period, Mona Caird, argued in her The Morality of Marriage (1987) that if women were able to ‘secure a liberty as great as that of men’, gender ideology would be greatly affected in favour of women (p. 167). Furthermore, she argued that change in gender was inevitable, and the inherent liberty of women could not be held back much longer by the ‘moldering branch of patriarchal tree’ (p. 54). Correspondingly, Francis power Cobbe’s (1822–1904) article Wife Torture in England (1878) was pivotal in facilitating the passage of laws in favour of women, whereby oppressed and cornered wives could seek the annulment of their relationships in a court of law (Marcus, 2007).

However, there were others on the spectrum of the gender debates in Victorian England who sought to justify the oppressed lot of women, and some, i.e., Margaret Oliphant (1856), maintained that the institution of marriage was irrevocable, and that it was like death, which is complete without revisions and goes unchanged for eternity. Similarly, another critic standing against the New Woman was Eliza Lynn Lynton, who argued in her Girl of the Period that women must be free from any traces of personal ambition and should only exude domestic modesty by remaining quiet in their conduct and demeanor (340). More strikingly, it was W.R. Greg’s essay Why Are Women Redundant that influenced Gissing in the choice of his title for the novel. Greg (1864) had argued that since women of marriageable age in Victorian England outnumbered men by half a million, they must be transported to the colonies, as they were the odd ones and had no role here in England. The idea of a single, unmarried woman was abhorrent to Greg, as he maintained that a single life meant a lack of ‘natural duties’ for women, making their lives painful and artificial without purpose (p. 282).

Thus, the epistemic landscape of gender discourse was undergoing a transition, and this change was captured in fin de siècle literature. Gissing’s The Odd Women seizes on the spirit of the age and argues for greater gender liberties through its engagement with the divisive gender ideology of Victorian England and by laying bare its faulty constitutive elements based on a patriarchal quest for power.

Foucauldian Discourse Analysis as the Methodological Framework

Michel Foucault’s conception of discourse is particularly amenable to explicating the mechanics of gender as, according to Nicola Gavey (1989), it is considered a construct in the wider web of power relations. It therefore occupies an important place in feminist research. Furthermore, Aram Vesser contends that the lack of specificity in the operations of gender, and how they are influenced by dominant discourses in a certain epistemic environment, underscores the fluid nature of the ideological basis of normative power, which, if understood and classified, can aid in rerouting discourses (1989). This indeterminate nature of gender and its ideological basis stems from its being an amorphous discursive practice that sustains itself within broader systems of thought. As far as Gissing’s The Odd Women is concerned, Dorothy Zaborszky (1985) views it as a thorough and ‘fair treatment’ of prevailing discourses on the feminist movement in Victorian England (p. 492).

Michel Foucault’s conception of discourse is crucial to this study given his work puts its primary emphasis on the interplay of power and ingrained discourses of a period affect individual conception of external reality, and by extension how they interact with socioeconomic phenomenon epistemic environments. Foucault’s take on power relations attempts to understand the constitutive elements of discursive practices in terms of their effects on social relations (Weeks, 1982). If Gender roles are envisaged consequent upon dominant discourses, it is important that we consider how those discourses garner their valiance at a given period. Since Gissing’s The Odd Women explores gender roles in the Victorian Society at the turn of century, Foucauldian discourse analysis provides the investigative tools to parse the building blocks of those discursive practices that orient worldviews of the authors and by extension those of the characters in our novel under analysis.

What makes Foucauldian discourse analysis especially pertinent to this study is its view of discourse as a dynamic in inveterate flux, whereby notions of power and identity emanating from it invariably change in accordance with how the discourse is structured. Thus, according to Foucault in Discipline and Punish, discourse assumes pivotal importance in forming individual subjectivity and in how individuals come to regard a ‘natural’ domain for gender roles in terms of the inherent ideology that feeds them (1977, pp. 26–27). As with discourse, the Foucauldian notion of power differs from the received idea of it as a fixed entity that seeks to dominate or oppress. It conceives power as fluid and constantly shifting, reflective of epistemes. In noting how gender dynamics operate in The Odd Women, it is vital to understand how power relations change and in turn affect the course of discourses. For Foucault, beginning in the twentieth century, there was a slow but subtle dynamic in the relations of power that ensured subjects regulated themselves without apparent outside influence and became cognizant of how they conducted themselves in the face of discursive practices. It all happened at a subconscious level without conscious individual effort. They seek to adjust in terms of social regimes. This ensures there are no visible punitive forces that enforce authority (Dean, 1999). All institutions, over time, use implicit power to ensure compliance without overt tools of enforcement. Patriarchal structures derive their potency from the Foucauldian notion that discourses of oppression are subtle and rooted in the subconsciousness of subjects. Foucault borrowed Jeremy Bentham’s analogy of the Panopticon to show how power structures ensure compliance without the tangible display or use of force that was employed in former times. Bentham’s idea of the Panopticon is based on the idea of a three-pronged Panopticon used in prisons that forces inmates into believing that they are always being observed. Thus, they are kept in subordination without any physical application of force. Similarly, Foucauldian discourse sustains itself through the passive operations of age-old value systems that ensure compliance in individuals, forcing them into a set of gender ideation that obfuscates the means to independent thinking.

Michel Foucault notes in his Discipline and Punish that domains of knowledge are invariably determined by the duality of power/knowledge relations, and ensuing discourses and perceptions of social realities are dependent on the operations of their subtle mechanics (1977, p. 26). For him, power manifests itself through its operations and not by means of its possession. A detailed examination of day-to-day discourse practices reveals how the epistemologies of power operate. Foucault (1980) maintains in Power/Knowledge that discursive relations form subjectivity by adhering to their own ‘regimes of truth’ (p. 132). For him, all-encompassing narratives cannot be trusted. In the novel, Gissing’s protagonists Monica, Rhoda and Barfoot subscribe to an ideology of gender that operates on a spectrum ranging from total docility in the case of Monica, through a median in Mary Barfoot, to total aversion to patriarchy in Rhoda Nunn. This is corroborated by Foucault’s argument in Discipline and Punish that discursive relations form subjectivity by adhering to their own ‘regimes of truth’ (p. 132). For him, all-encompassing narratives cannot be trusted.

His idea of the ‘hermeneutics of the self’ as laid down in his 1993 About the beginning of the hermeneutics of self (p. 198) is crucial, as it informs the analysis of how power relations assert themselves through their normalizing agents or discourse practices.

The theoretical framework grounded in the Foucauldian philosophy of discourse aids in identifying discourse practices as they emerge in The Odd Women and affect how gender ideology is formed. Foucault’s categorization of gender as outlined in his The History of Sexuality (1979) is postmodernist in character. He views it as a socioeconomic, cultural and historical construct which is subject to change and, akin to discourses, fluid (p. 147). This conception breaks with the dominant view of gender as a fixed, dichotomous binary carved in stone. Judith Butler also agrees with Foucault that it is, in fact, an ideology that has constructed gender as a binary and that it is not a scientific fact impervious to change (2009). This belief system is sustained by patriarchal institutions through discourses that cater to their interests.

Through the differing ideological lanes occupied by Monica, Rhoda and Mary, the thesis of the novel squarely aligns with Judith Butler’s argument that gender is not a fixed reality of nature but a mixed bag of incessant instances of performing gender through cultural feedback dependent upon dominant discourses of power dynamics operating in each society (2009). Besides Foucault and Butler, Norman Fairclough (2007) views gender as an essential category of discourse. To him, discourses are not innocuous means of perceiving social relations but play a crucial role in how gender is constructed in society. Therefore, our sense of reality and the range of subjective action are also determined by discursive practices. Analogously, Foucault maintains in The History of Sexuality that regulatory power acts upon a subject by subjugating him through acts of power; for him, there is no preconceived or preexisting gender, and he calls sex a ‘fictitious unity’ (1979, pp. 81-82).

As discourses affect the sense perceptions of subjects in terms of their engagement with external reality, Foucault notes in The Archeology of Knowledge that individuals’ scope of action and thought processes are circumscribed by the discursive environment they are a part of. Discourses influence and regulate conduct and determine the parameters of social ideals to be upheld (1972). When considering how discourses continue to sustain themselves with unabated legitimizing force, Foucault’s idea of ‘games of truth’ needs to be taken into consideration. This implies that all systems of values in conjunction with their disciplining institutions enforce their power by giving the impression of being on the side of truth, classifying taboos and norms; all that is accepted or held true is negotiated through a space of indirect domination.

Gissing’s protagonist Monica’s worldview, in terms of her initial submission to authority in The Odd Women, aligns with what Foucault calls a docile character who gives in to the regulatory power of gender discourses not only through the external effect of subjectivity, but also by self-regulating through an unconscious internalizing of disciplinary institutions. It is an effect of Foucauldian biopower. Monica conforms to the idea of docility as the forces of regulatory power exercise their control over her subconscious and affect her subjective volition. It is as if, as Foucault (1977) regards it in his Discipline and Punish, ‘power relations’ exercise their hold by forcing the subject to ‘to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs’ (p. 25). They operate as formative agents in ensuring conduct that conforms to a set criterion decided by the disciplinary body. They operate as conduits for the power structures in society, giving them legitimacy. Thus identity, although amorphous in infancy, is largely subject to the social cues long set by disciplining institutions and affects how individual consciousness is molded according to preconceived criteria.

Analysis and Discussions

Until the onset of the late nineteenth century, there were hardly any means available for women to materialize a meaningful change in how the epistemic gender dynamics operated. The only logical course for women was to settle down and get married. Opportunities for women were limited. Employment was scarce and options were soon exhausted beyond being governesses, companions to a rich lady, or rendering services in schools as teachers. However, change, albeit subtle, was beginning to manifest itself. The period from 1890 to 1910 in English history has been called the age that gave rise to female clerks who integrated women into the domains of the male workforce, and their numbers saw dramatic growth (Chase, 1984). The Remington typewriter had made its appearance, and the feminist Rhoda Nunn makes use of it in her bookkeeping and commercial correspondence (Gissing, p. 27). Furthermore, in the novel, Rhoda’s use of the typewriter serves as a symbolic liberation from the bifurcation of gender roles, and she uses it to herald her personal freedom despite the scorn of Everard Barfoot, who looks down upon her work as mere ‘copying with a typewriter and teaching others to do the same’ (Gissing, p. 205). Rhoda mounts a rebellion against patriarchal norms by dabbling in outré adventures despite the scorn of men to open the way for women’s socio-economic liberation (Chase, 1984).

The nineteenth century was largely a period of transition the New Women movement had triggered much interest in the debate of educating women to expand their employability and the range in the job market. Activists had burst forth on the scene was zealous calls for a change in the current situation. There was a complete break with ways of thinking in women who thought their primary duty was the service to men and called for education reform that took into consideration the gender dynamics with a focus on the greater happiness of women through an empowerment of their sex (Helsinger, 1869). Again, in his The Archeology of Knowledge, Foucault argues that the building blocks of the episteme are the discourse mechanisms that set outlines for act (1974). The self-defeating ways of thinking by women against their own interests explains the lasting influence of those epistemes. It thus, demonstrates that the regimes of truth and knowledge do not have an unadulterated essence but are structured by relations of power.

Gissing’s work is a masterful distillation of gender role expectations in force in the late Victorian period. The exchanges on gender dynamics taking place among Rhoda Nunn, Mary Barfoot and Everard Barfoot stand out for their perceptive encapsulation of how discourses were engulfing the Victorian psyche. Monica Madden’s unfortunate marriage to Edmund Widdowson allows Gissing to peer into patriarchal notions of the so-called ‘proper’ conduct for women. This line of thinking orients Monica’s husband to regard her friends Rhoda Nunn and Mary Barfoot as utterly ‘unwomanly’ by maintaining that both are on the way towards making women ‘unwomanly’ and that their influence could ‘corrupt’ women into failing their domestic duties and failing to serve their husbands (Gissing, p. 183). Again, Rhoda Nunn cannot bring herself to accept hordes of women who are no more than sheep in a directionless herd, operating as ‘feeble, purposeless, hopeless woman living only to deteriorate’ (Gissing, p. 322). Ms. Nunn is convinced there must be a way out of this purposeless life. She declares:

‘… I look upon them as a great reserve. When one woman vanishes in matrimony, the reserve offers a substitute for the world’s work. True, they are not all trained yet–– far from it. I want to help in that––to train the reserve’ (p. 44).

Critic Lise Sanders (206) argues that Monica, when caught in a relationship she abhors, strives to break free from the shackles of a system beyond her immediate control by cutting ties with the ‘monotonous conditions of bourgeois domesticity’, rearing wild fantasies of ‘transgressive sexual desires’ (p. 194). Her ceaseless anxieties over married life with a man who denies her the right to personal freedom make Mr. Widdowson ‘anxious, suspicious, irritable’ (Gissing, p. 172). On the other hand, being confronted with the hopeless prospects of domestic slavery under the garb of social propriety engenders in Monica an even greater desire to reject the status quo by indulging in ‘comparison with women’s labor outside the home’ (Sanders 208). Monica’s resistance is an instance of challenging the norms outside her subjectivity. Foucault notes in The History of Sexuality (1879) that discourse, besides operating as an effect of power, also contains points of resistance given the fluid dynamics of its construction, and Monica’s challenge to the draconian mindset of her husband is an instance of exploring these points of resistance to seek her own independence. Therefore, resistance is possible where subjects can ‘do their genders’ in defiance of dominant structures of regulatory power; in Foucauldian philosophy, as outlined in his The Archeology of Knowledge (1974), there is always a possibility of resistance, of being able to ‘think otherwise’ (p. 16).

It is striking how the force of established discourses within the Victorian epistemic space has infiltrated those apparently on the fighting side of the women’s movement. This is succinctly underscored in The Odd Women when Mary Barfoot laments to her friend Rhoda Nunn that men regard women as they often do because woman has been ‘a clog upon a man’s ambition’ (Gissing, p. 97). The Odd Women delves deep into the discursive practices around gender values cherished by Victorians by putting forward women’s quest to seek out a personal space for themselves in a class-ridden society where intellectual debate was often stymied by gendered values sustained by the invisible forces of patriarchy held in place by its institutions. Monica’s decision to marry the ill-suited Mr. Widdowson is dictated by her personal quest to escape the awful fate suffered by her two elder sisters: that of crushing poverty and socioeconomic oppression in a system that afforded them no window of escape. Monica makes up her mind to marry in order to stand out and gain leeway in the face of entrenched discourses denying her any space to prosper. As a scion of this discursive period, Mr. Widdowson plays his role as a Victorian husband, oblivious to the discourse mechanics that ensure that he remains an enabler in a cause governed by the dominant discourse. He is genuinely at a loss in the face of Monica’s progressive views, and Gissing notes that it was as if ‘reason and tradition contended in him, to his ceaseless torment’ (Gissing, p. 220).

Given Michel Foucault’s contention that discourses contain ammunition that can be used to break free from the reigning ideological foothold of a period, it is similarly observed that Monica Madden grows to assert her individual self, despite the obvious traces of a Foucauldian docile character, through her immersion in the novels of the period. She experiences emotional maturity, coupled with psychological growth, in her engagement with the ideas in the texts she reads, which give her talking points in her debates with her husband, Edmund Widdowson, who insists upon her being a traditional wife.

Widdowson incessantly relies upon all facets of discourse to gain the upper hand and attempts to sensitize Monica to the force of religion as ‘a precious and powerful instrument for directing the female conscience’ (Gissing, p. 173). He invokes Ruskinian ideals of what it means to be a wife and genuinely subscribes to the notion that a woman’s ‘sphere is the home, Monica’ as he is convinced that Ruskin’s ‘every word…. about women is good and precious’ (Gissing, p. 171). Monica puts up a fight and does not want to be a victim of the traditional Victorian value system that subjected women to the domination of men and denied her the personal freedom to assert her independence. Victorian gender ideology is challenged in her debates with Mr. Widdowson.

Victorian gender roles are discussed in the very first chapter of the novel The Fold and the Shephard. The narrator tells us that Mrs. Madden had a certain ‘role’ to play as the mother of six daughters, and having ‘fulfilled her function in this wonderful world’, she had passed on (p. 5). This underscores what the family patriarch, Mr. Madden, expects from his daughters in the world and what their role is: to give birth and die in domestic toil, not worrying about money matters (pp. 5-6). It is as if all systems of values engulf epistemes as they operate as forces of oppression, defining limits to human values by appealing to a discursively mediated system of truth that does their bidding.

This is Gissing’s way of directing the course of the novel on gender roles in a hopeless Victorian set-up. Mr. Madden captures the essence of patriarchal thinking on gender roles. Therefore, as Zaborszky (1985) contends, Mr. Madden is unconcerned with and rejects roles for women in obtaining an education or working outside the domestic fold (p. 492). For Mr. Madden ‘the home must be guarded against sordid cares to the last possible moment ... women, old or young, should never have to think about money’ (Gissing, p. 6). Here he is, in effect, subscribing to a gender ideology that defined Victorian values on gender roles, rooted in the belief that while men braved the outside world, women stayed at home under the guidance and protection of men. He pays dearly for his views, and his patriarchal notions leave his daughters in utter poverty that condemns them to a life of penury. Mr. Madden’s death puts the daughters in financial misery that precipitates the early deaths of three of them, while the remaining three are forced to live on the pittance left by their father. The youngest, Monica, hates her job at the draper’s. She does not want to be chained to Rhoda Nunn, whose place she considers oppressive and suffocating.

Monica’s ill-conceived decision to marry Widdowson proves to be a huge mistake. She makes this choice out of fear, in order to escape poverty. Her husband, Mr. Widdowson, propagates the typical Victorian gender ideology and is convinced that ‘an educated woman had better become a domestic servant than try to imitate the life of a man’ (Gissing, p. 171). Mr. Widdowson fears that Monica’s association with Rhoda Nunn and Mary Barfoot will corrupt her thinking on domestic values. He declares the latter two to be utterly ‘unwomanly’ and fears they may work against his interests with Monica (171). He declares:

… woman’s sphere is the home, Monica. Unfortunately, girls are often obliged to go out and earn their living, but this is unnatural, a necessity which advanced civilization will altogether abolish (p. 171).

The role of his wife was designed and directed by Mr. Widdowson, who ‘took for granted that it was his to direct, hers to be guided’ (171). He goes to the extent of musing to himself that if Monica tried to get away, he would be ‘capable of killing her’ (265).

According to Deirdre David (1984), Mr. Widdowson is ‘chained to an ideology of female inferiority’ and thus resorts to incessant moralizing in the hope of ‘reforming’ his wife (p. 124). Widdowson viewed women as ‘born to perpetual pupilage’; he was convinced that women were incapable of emotional maturity and remained ‘imperfect beings’, unable to shake off the delusions inculcated in their childhood (Gissing, p. 219). Now, if we try to trace the ideological underpinnings of the discourses that guide Mr. Widdowson’s worldview and in turn his gender ideology, they bear a substantial tinge of Ruskinian orientation regarding the distinct spheres for men and women.

Mr. Widdowson’s treatment is centered around his gender mores rooted in Victorian discourses. Here the influence of Ruskinian Philosophy is at play in Widdowson’s exchanges with his cornered wife. He informs Monica ‘the natural law that points out a woman’s place . . . commands her to follow her husband’s guidance’ (Gissing, 185). To him, he is ruling over Monica for ‘own good’ (p. 250). Monica however does put up a fight her inalienable rights as a human being stuck in a strained relationship and tell Mr. Widdowson how fallacious his views are gender roles are and she would want to experience the world on her own terms by going out and making friends declaring that ‘life will be a burden to me before long, if I don’t have more freedom.’ (p. 183).

Gissing, through Widdowson, presents a window into Victorian patriarchal gender ideology and the discourses invoked to sustain it. He has imbibed the reigning Victorian discourses on gender and his conduct is reflective of his ideology. Under Ruskin’s influence, he is convinced that women’s lives would be ‘unnatural’ if they propose breaking the spheres of gender in vogue (p. 171).

On the other hand, as a foil to traditional thinking, Rhoda emerges with her militant brand of feminism and urges Monica to overcome her domestic troubles, asserting that if she does, she will be able to ‘prove by your life that we can be responsible human beings’ (p. 350). It is an echo of Francis Cobbe’s The Duties of Women (1881), admonishing women to assert themselves to be ‘responsible human beings’ (p. 152). Gissing brings out the dominant Victorian gender ideology through the troubled marriage of Monica to Widdowson and explores the exchanges on gender between Rhoda Nunn and Mary Barfoot. Rhoda is Gissing’s archetypal militant feminist of the New Woman movement. She has attained power through sheer persistence. Rhoda is averse to institutionalized marriage. Everard tries and tests her views. Gissing uses Everard to demonstrate the ideology of Victorian men on the role of women and gender expectations. Foucault reasons in The History of Sexuality that social norms affect individual conduct as their values are internalized through discourses (p. 152). Monica Madden, in giving in to discourses on gender, comes off as a Foucauldian docile character and is of the view that the difference between men and women derives from unfair treatment of the latter (Gissing, p. 183).

Through the works of feminists like Mary Wollstonecraft and others, the feminist agenda had already taken off by the middle of 18^th century. These writers wrote extensively to expose the oppressive aspects of patriarchy and how it had systematically used gender discourses to keep women at a socio0economic disadvantage and in a position of inferiority to men. This mission had been kept alive by feminists in the 19^th century with greater rigor. Barbara Bodichon (1857) had called upon women to rise against oppression and fight for their rights. She declared:

‘… women may not take a man as a god; they must not hold their first duty to be towards any human being . . . we ardently desire that woman should not make love their profession.’ (p. 9)

Bodichon’s calls for self-reliance are reiterated by Gissing’s Mary Barfoot in the novel, as she declares in her Women as Invader speech. She preached in favour of total gender autonomy so that women could live their lives on a par with their male counterparts without prejudice and opt for the myriad choices available to them other than being pigeonholed into patriarchal adumbrations of gender roles.

Conclusion

In summation, Gissing’s work is a powerful foregrounding of the Victorian episteme on gender norms and gender role expectations stemming from deeply entrenched discourses that are in turn sustained by patriarchal values. It furthermore explicates the mechanics of the operation of those discourses. It, therefore, stands to reason that George Gissing’s The Odd Women is a quintessential feminist work that captures the heart of discourses on gender roles in Victorian England. It thoroughly succeeds in charting gender relations within the purview of the epistemic ideology held in place by the patriarchal mission. It is a consummate portrait of a period where the old order is losing ground to fin de siècle discursive forces. A Foucauldian perspective has been crucial in explicating the dynamics of discourse construction. It portrays how, in line with Foucault's conception of discourse construction, gender roles in Victorian England were deeply influenced by socio-cultural and religious norms, as well as traditional morality upheld by the entrenched values of patriarchy. Gissing, as a vocal mouthpiece of his era, brings those discourses to bear with their full potential, which, in the final scheme of things, reveals that Victorian gender ideology was lopsided in its representation, submission, and definition of the sexual politics of the period. Varying aspects of the emerging discourses from all stakeholders in the spectrum receive a substantive intellectual rundown. Gissing brings into focus all facets of the women’s question by accommodating all feminist endeavors across the discursive spectrum. Rhoda is the extreme militant feminist; Mary is her softer counterpart and Everard serves as a go-between in the charged debates. On the other hand, Edmund Barfoot stands for the typical patriarchal discourse while Monica Madden serves as a Foucauldian docile character who succumbs to the patriarchal discourse and becomes its victim. The novel makes a case for greater gender liberation and an obfuscation of gender roles by doing away with rigid old views. They wanted this to be reflected in social policy. The moral injunctions of the period worked their influence on the subconscious of the characters and a constituent of discourses on gender blocked the independence of women. They always see themselves through narrowly carved-out discourses that serve the patriarchal mission.

Therefore, The Odd Women as a blueprint of an epistemic ideology does not restrain itself from exposing the moral landscape and socio-economic milieu that play subtle parts in advancing the tenets of that oppressive patriarchal ideology. It presents a depressing portrait of a family at the outset of the novel. A family patriarch who is opposed to any kind of female enterprise or to their working outside, seeking jobs, or being educated, dies suddenly, leaving his six daughters penniless. The irony is difficult to escape in how the ideology is a failing vestige of a bygone time. Three of the Madden daughters die deaths typical of the time period: one of consumption, another is driven to suicide, unable to cope with her depressive lot, and a third drowns herself. Monica joins a draper in Weston and then moves to a firm in London, although she detests the idea of serving behind a shop counter. It makes perfect sense to capture the essence of the gender arguments laid down in Gissing’s work through Mary Barfoot’s evocative cry for change. A dream not of a world where women are relegated to petty, menial positions, working subservient to men, but of a world where they are appreciated for their ‘intelligence, of honest effort, of moral strength’—it is only then that a space can be created where women can say goodbye to vestigial patriarchal moral code injunctions that chain them to a perpetual state of socio-economic dependence and inferiority.

References