{"id":514,"date":"2012-10-08T08:51:02","date_gmt":"2012-10-08T06:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/?p=514"},"modified":"2012-10-08T08:51:02","modified_gmt":"2012-10-08T06:51:02","slug":"an-early-portrait-of-gender-related-violence-dickenss-sketch-the-hospital-patient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/2012\/10\/08\/an-early-portrait-of-gender-related-violence-dickenss-sketch-the-hospital-patient\/","title":{"rendered":"AN EARLY PORTRAIT OF GENDER-RELATED VIOLENCE: DICKENS\u2019S SKETCH \u201cTHE HOSPITAL PATIENT\u201d <\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read with my class the interview in Oliver Twist<\/em> between the whore Nancy and the lady Rose \u2013both 17-year-old girls separated by a social abyss. Dickens speaks through each girl\u2019s mouth, first to claim (through Nancy) that it\u2019s not inborn malice but the bad luck of finding yourself in an appalling environment as a child that leads to prostitution. Then through Rose\u2019s lips he impresses on Nancy the idea that any prostitute can be \u2018saved\u2019, as long as she\u2019s willing to fight for herself (and show repentance for her sin… yes, so typically Victorian). Despite Rose\u2019s perplexed tears, though, Nancy decides to return to her pimp, the brutal Sikes, to be, as she somehow foretells, murdered by him. She just can\u2019t leave him. Or won\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Dickens was accused of being untruthful to human nature in making Nancy so defenceless \u2013or, as we\u2019d call her today, so emotionally dependent on her abuser. He lashed back in the 1841 preface to the novel claiming that Nancy\u2019s plight was true enough. He could do no more, lacking the contemporary research on domestic abuse that so well explains why a victim will not abandon her victimiser, not even at the risk of dying. Women like Nancy, used to being abused and exploited from early childhood, end up believing that violence (physical or psychological) is a natural part of human emotional life and even confuse abuse with an expression of love.<\/p>\n

One of Dickens\u2019s most poignant sketches is, precisely, \u201cThe Hospital Patient\u201d (1836) \u2013which might well be the foundation for his assertion that Nancy is \u2018true\u2019 to life. Curious about a street crowd, Dickens reaches a police station where a \u201cpowerful, ill-looking young fellow\u201d is being questioned \u201con the very common charge of having, on the previous night, ill-treated a woman, with whom he lived in some court hard by.\u201d She\u2019s dying in a nearby hospital and, with the police\u2019s permission, Charles the inquisitive young journalist accompanies the magistrates to doublecheck the prisoner\u2019s identity (there were witnesses) \u2013and face, as he knows, a horrific scene. Thus they find the girl: \u201cHer face bore deep marks of the ill-usage she had received: her hand was pressed upon her side, as if her chief pain were there; her breathing was short and heavy; and it was plain to see that she was dying fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked to identify her murderer, the victim bursts into tears and claims she injured herself: \u201cHe didn\u2019t hurt me; he wouldn\u2019t for all the world. Jack, dear Jack, you know you wouldn\u2019t!\u201d Dear Jack, taken by surprise, starts sobbing \u2013if you believe that. The dying girl assures him that \u2018they shall not persuade me to swear your life away. He didn\u2019t do it, gentlemen. He never hurt me.\u2019 Her last words are of repentance (\u2018I hope God Almighty will forgive me all the wrong I have done, and the life I have led\u2019), followed by a blessing for Jack and love for her poor, disappointed father. Dickens closes the sketch simply with her death, no comments added. It is understood that \u2018dear Jack\u2019 will be, anyway, hanged as his neighbours witnessed the attack and her testimony was just a formality.<\/p>\n

One can always suspect that Dickens, so fond of sentimentalism, added tears to the already tearful scene and, perhaps, those words of repetance. Yet beyond all this claptrap there lies a truth which he describes as \u201cvery common,\u201d at least among low-lives like Jack (Sikes\u2019s predecessor) and his victim (Nancy\u2019s). J.S. Mill later clarified in his The Subjection of Women<\/em> that middle- and upper-class Victorian ladies were also subjected to all kinds of abuse (Anne Bront\u00eb had already made the point in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall<\/em>). What is surprising is why it has taken us so long to react.<\/p>\n

By the way, my class and I agreed that in that interview the less credible character is Rose, the lady. Her hands, joined as if in prayer, and her abundant tears when begging Nancy to reconsider her choice seem fantastic \u2013yesterday and today. So far I haven\u2019t found in the Sketches<\/em> any evidence that angelic ladies like Rose existed -except in Dickens\u2019s imagination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read with my class the interview in Oliver Twist between the whore Nancy and the lady Rose \u2013both 17-year-old girls separated by a social abyss. Dickens speaks through each girl\u2019s mouth, first to claim (through Nancy) that it\u2019s not inborn malice but the bad luck of finding yourself in an appalling environment as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,37],"tags":[212],"class_list":["post-514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oliver-twist","category-victorian-literature","tag-gender-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}