Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T18:26:13.626Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

DEATH BECOMES HER: ON THE PROGRESSIVE POTENTIAL OF VICTORIAN MOURNING

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2013

Rebecca N. Mitchell
Rebecca N. Mitchell*
Affiliation:
University of Texas – Pan American
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

On the occasion of her Golden Jubilee, Queen Victoria was depicted in a woodcut by William Nicholson that was to become extremely popular (Figure 1). So stout that her proportions approach those of a cube, the Queen is dressed from top to toe in her usual black mourning attire, the white of her gloved hands punctuating the otherwise nearly solid black rectangle of her body. Less than thirty years later, another simple image of a woman in black would prove to be equally iconic: the lithe, narrow column of Chanel's black dress (Figure 2). Comparing the dresses depicted in the two images – the first a visual reminder of the desexualized stolidity of Victorian fidelity, the second image an example of women's burgeoning social and sexual liberation – might lead one to conclude that the only thing they have in common is the color black. And yet, twentieth- and twenty-first-century fashion historians suggest that Victorian mourning is the direct antecedent of the sexier fashions that followed. Jill Fields writes, for example, that “the move to vamp black became possible because the growing presence of black outerwear for women in the nineteenth century due to extensive mourning rituals merged with the growing sensibility that dressing in black was fashionable” (144). Valerie Mendes is more direct: “Traditional mourning attire blazed a trail for the march of fashionable black and the little black dress” (9). These are provocative claims given that most scholarly accounts of Victorian mourning attire – whether from the perspective of literary analysis, fashion history or theory, or social history or theory – offer no indication that such progressive possibilities were inherent in widows’ weeds. Instead, those accounts focus almost exclusively on chasteness and piety, qualities required of the sorrowful widow, as the only message communicated by her attire: “Widows’ mourning clothes announced the ongoing bonds of fidelity, dependence, and grieving that were expected to tie women to their dead husbands for at least a year” (Bradbury 289). The disparity in the two accounts raises the question: how could staid, cumbersome black Victorian mourning attire lead to dresses understood to embrace sexuality and mobility?

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , December 2013 , pp. 595 - 620
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

WORKS CITED

Adburgham, Alison. Shops and Shopping, 1800–1914. London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1989.Google Scholar
Allet (pseud.). Spurs and Skirts. London: Saunders, Otley, 1862.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. The Fashion System. Berkeley: U of California P, 1983.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. “History and Sociology of Clothing: Some Methodological Observations.” The Language of Fashion. Trans. Stafford, Andy. Oxford: Berg, 2006. 3–20.Google Scholar
Bedikian, Sonia A. “The Death of Mourning: From Victorian Crepe to the Little Black Dress.” Omega 57.1 (2008): 35–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowlby, Rachel. Just Looking: Consumer Culture in Dreiser, Gissing and Zola. London: Taylor and Francis, 2009.Google Scholar
Bradbury, Bettina. Wife to Widow: Lives, Laws, and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Montreal. Vancouver: U of British Columbia P, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Taken at the Flood. London: Skimpin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1891.Google Scholar
Breward, Christopher. “Femininity and Consumption: The Problem of the Late Nineteenth-Century Fashion Journal.” Journal of Design History 7.2 (1994): 71–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronfen, Elizabeth. Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity and the Aesthetic. New York: Routledge, 1992.Google Scholar
Buck, Anne. Dress in Eighteenth-Century England. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1979.Google Scholar
Canfield, John Douglas. Tricksters and Estates: On the Ideology of Restoration Comedy. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1997.Google Scholar
Casteras, Susan. The Substance or the Shadow: Images of Victorian Womanhood. New Haven: Yale Center of British Art, 1982.Google Scholar
“Charivaria.” Punch 126 (6 April 1904): 235.Google Scholar
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening and Selected Stories. New York: Penguin, 1986.Google Scholar
Chopin, Kate. “The Dream of an Hour.” Bow Bells: A magazine of general literature and art for family reading 30 (12 April 1895): 380.Google Scholar
Cobbett, William. Advice to Young Men, and (Incidentally) to Young Women, in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life. London: Griffin, Bohn, 1862.Google Scholar
Collyns, Charles H. “Dress and Home.” The Art of Living or, Good Advice for Old and Young. Ed. Paterson, T. V.. London: A. J. Barnes, 1885. 122–24.Google Scholar
Craik, Jennifer. Fashion: The Key Concepts. London: Berg, 2009.Google Scholar
Cunnington, C. Willett. Feminine Attitudes in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Macmillan, 1936.Google Scholar
Cunnington, Phyllis Emily, and Lucas, Catherine. Costume for Births, Marriages and Deaths. London: Adams and Charles Black, 1971.Google Scholar
Curl, James Stevens. The Victorian Celebration of Death. Detroit: Partridge, 1972.Google Scholar
Curran, Cynthia. When I First Began my Life Anew: Middle-Class Widows in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Bristol: Wyndham Hall, 2000.Google Scholar
Davey, Richard. A History of Mourning. London: McCorquodale, 1890.Google Scholar
De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: U of California P, 1984.Google Scholar
De Grazia, Victoria. “Introduction.” The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective. Berkeley: U of California P, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“The Diligence.” Blackwood's 55.344 (June 1844): 693.Google Scholar
Dowie, Ménie Muriel. The Crook of the Bough. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1898.Google Scholar
Edelman, Amy Holdman. The Little Black Dress. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.Google Scholar
“Editor's Table.” Godey's Lady's Book 28.18 (May 1844): 244.Google Scholar
Eliot, George. Middlemarch. New York: Penguin, 2003.Google Scholar
Ellis, Sarah Stickney. The Women of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits. New York: Appleton, 1843.Google Scholar
“Etiquette for Mourners.” Punch 28.709 (Feb. 1855): 51.Google Scholar
Fields, Jill. An Intimate Affair: Women, Lingerie, and Sexuality. Berkeley: U of California P, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flanders, Judith. Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic life in Victorian England. New York: Norton, 2005.Google Scholar
Forster, John. The Life of Charles Dickens. New York: Baker and Taylor, 1911.Google Scholar
Garcia, Nina. The Little Black Book of Style. New York: Harper Collins, 2007.Google Scholar
Gevirtz, Karen Bloom. Life After Death: Widows and the English Novel, Defoe to Austen. Newark: U of Delaware P, 2005.Google Scholar
Gibson, Charles Dana. A Widow and Her Friends. London: John Lane, 1901.Google Scholar
Gilmartin, Sophie. “The Sati, the Bride, and the Widow: Sacrificial Women in the Nineteenth Century.” Victorian Literature and Culture 25.1 (1997): 141–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Going into Mourning.” Graphic [London] (18 March 1876): 283.Google Scholar
Goldthorpe, Catherine. From Queen to Empress: Victorian Dress 1837–1877. New York: Publications of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1988.Google Scholar
Hamley, Edward Bruce. Lady Lee's Widowhood. London: Blackwoods, 1854.Google Scholar
Harvey, John. Men in Black. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1996.Google Scholar
Hector, Annie French (Mrs. Alexander). The Freres. New York: Henry Holt, 1882.Google Scholar
Holland, Samantha. Alternative Femininities: Body, Age and Identity. London: Berg, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hollander, Anne. Seeing Through Clothes. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993.Google Scholar
Hood, Thomas. “The House of Mourning: A Farce.” The Works of Thomas Hood. Vol. 9. London: Moxon, 1972.Google Scholar
Hosgood, Christopher. “‘Doing the shops’ at Christmas: Women, Men, and the Department Store in England, c. 1880–1914.” Cathedrals of Consumption: The European Department Store, 1850–1939. Ed. Crossick, Geoffrey and Jaumain, Serge. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999. 97–115.Google Scholar
Illustrated London and its Representatives of Commerce. London: London Printing & Engraving, 1893.Google Scholar
Jalland, Pat. Death in the Victorian Family. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jay's Mourning Warehouse. Advertisement. Graphic [London] (29 June 1878): 32.Google Scholar
Jones, Barbara. Design for Death. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967.Google Scholar
Kirk, Ellen Olney. A Daughter of Eve. Boston: Ticknor, 1889.Google Scholar
Kirton, John William. Happy Homes, and How to Make Them. London: Frederick Warne, 1870.Google Scholar
Kortsch, Christine Bayles. Dress Culture in Late Victorian Women's Fiction: Literacy, Textiles, and Activism. London: Ashgate, 2009.Google Scholar
Kucich, John. “Death Worship among the Victorians: The Old Curiosity Shop.” PMLA 95.1 (Jan. 1980): 58–72.Google Scholar
Loeb, Lori Anne. Consuming Angels: Advertising and Victorian Women. New York: Oxford UP, 1994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ludot, Didier. The Little Black Dress: Vintage Treasure. New York: Assouline, 2001.Google Scholar
Lysack, Krista. Come Buy, Come Buy: Shopping and the Culture of Consumption in Victorian Women's Writing. Athens: Ohio UP, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacDonell Smith, Nancy. The Classic Ten: The True Story of the Little Black Dress and Nine Other Fashion Favorites. New York: Penguin, 2003.Google Scholar
Madsen, Axel. Chanel: A Woman of Her Own. New York: Holt, 1990.Google Scholar
Melville, Herman. The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1857.Google Scholar
Mendes, Valerie. Black in Fashion. London: V&A, 1999.Google Scholar
Monro, Theodore Russell. The Vandeleurs of Red Tor. London: Samuel Tinsley, 1877.Google Scholar
Moore, Doris Langley. Fashion through Fashion Plates, 1771–1970. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1971.Google Scholar
Morley, John. Death, Heaven and the Victorians. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1971.Google Scholar
O'Brien, Alden. “Maternity Dress.” The Berg Companion to Fashion. Ed. Steele, Valerie. London: Berg, 2002. 501–02.Google Scholar
Pascoe, Charles Eyre. London of To-day; An Illustrated Handbook for the Season, 1892. London: Hazell, Watson, & Viney, 1892.Google Scholar
“A Passage in the Life of a Maître-d'Armes.” Blackwood's Magazine 53.332 (June 1843): 738.Google Scholar
Paton, Margaret. Diaries, 1849–1872. Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.Google Scholar
Poe, Edgar Allan. “Philosophy of Composition.” The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allen Poe. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1922.Google Scholar
Puckle, Bertram S. Funeral Customs: Their Origin and Development. London: T. Werner Laurie, 1926.Google Scholar
Quilter, Harry. What's What: A Guide for To-day to Life as It Is and Things as They Are. London: Sonnenschein, 1902.Google Scholar
Rappaport, Erika. Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of London's West End. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2001.Google Scholar
Rainey, Lawrence. “Secretarial Fiction: Gender and Genre in Four Novels, 1897–1898.” English Literature in Transition, 1880–1920 53.3 (2010): 308–30.Google Scholar
Rubenstein, Hal. 100 Unforgettable Dresses. New York: Harper Design, 2011.Google Scholar
Schaffer, Talia. The Forgotten Female Aesthetes: Literary Culture in Late-Victorian England. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P, 2000.Google Scholar
Sherrow, Victoria. For Appearance’ Sake: The Historical Encyclopedia of Good Looks, Beauty, and Grooming. Phoenix: Oryx, 2001.Google Scholar
Stearns, Peter N.Consumerism in World History: The Global Transformation of Desire. 2nd ed.New York: Routledge, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steele, Valerie. The Black Dress. New York: Harper Collins, 2007.Google Scholar
Steele, Valerie. Fashion and Eroticism. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1985.Google Scholar
Strange, Julie-Marie. Death, Grief and Poverty in Britain, 1870–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strange, Julie-Marie. “‘She cried a very little’: Death, Grief and Mourning in Working-class Culture, c. 1880–1914.” Social History 27.2 (2002): 143–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sully, James. My Life and Friends: A Psychologist's Memoirs. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1918.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sully, James. “The Philosophy of Shopping.” Saturday Review 40.1042 (15 Oct. 1875): 488–89.Google Scholar
Summers, Leigh. Bound to Please: A History of the Victorian Corset. Oxford: Berg, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Lou. Mourning Dress: A Costume and Social History. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983.Google Scholar
The Times Law Reports. Ed. Russell, Arthur. Vol. 14. London: Edward Wright, 1898.Google Scholar
Toth, Emily. Unveiling Kate Chopin. Jackson: U of Mississippi P, 1999.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. Can you Forgive Her? London: Chapman and Hall, 1864.Google Scholar
Twycross-Martin, Henrietta. “Woman Supportive or Woman Manipulative? The ‘Mrs Ellis’ Woman.” Wollstonecraft's Daughters: Womanhood in England and France, 1780–1920. Ed. Campbell Orr, Clarissa. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1996. 109–19.Google Scholar
Valverde, Mariana. “The Love of Finery: Fashion and the Fallen Woman in Nineteenth-Century Social Discourse.” Victorian Studies 32.2 (1989): 168–88.Google Scholar
Vanderbilt, Amy. Amy Vanderbilt's Etiquette. London: Doubleday, 1972.Google Scholar
Walkowitz, Judith. “Going Public: Shopping, Street Harassment, and Streetwalking in Late Victorian London.” Representations 62 (Spring 1998): 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, Marriott. “Suits of Woe.” National Observer 5 (13 Dec. 1890): 91.Google Scholar
Whyte-Melville, George. General Bounce; Or, the Lady and the Locusts. London: Parker and Son, 1855.Google Scholar
Wilson, Elizabeth. Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity. 1985. London: I. B. Tauris, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“The World of Women.” Penny Illustrated Paper [London] (30 Jan. 1892): 69.Google Scholar