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`there are half a million more women than men in this unhappy country of ours . . . So many odd women - no making a pair with them.' The idea of the superfluity of unmarried women was one the `New Woman' novels of the 1890s sought to challenge. But in The Odd Women (1893) Gissing satirizes the prevailing literary image of the `New Woman' and makes the point that unmarried women were generally viewed less as noble and romantic figures than as `odd' and marginal in relation to the ideal of womanhood itself. Set in grimy, fog-ridden London, these `odd' women range from the idealistic, financially self-sufficient Mary Barfoot and Rhoda Nunn, who run a school to train young women in office skills for work, to the Madden sisters struggling to subsist in low-paid jobs and experiencing little comfort or pleasure in their lives. Yet it is for the youngest Madden sister's marriage that the novel reserves its most sinister critique. With superb detachment Gissing captures contemporary society's ambivalence towards its own period of transition. The Odd Women is a novel engaged with all the major sexual and social issues of the late-nineteenth century. Judged by contemporary reviewers as equal to Zola and Ibsen, Gissing was seen to have produced an `intensely modern' work and it is perhaps for this reason that the issues it raises remain the subject of contemporary debate. *Introduction *Textual Note *Bibliography *Chronology *Explanatory Notes *Map
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The novel opens in 1872, with Dr Madden and his six daughters living together in a form of domestic harmony which has not prepared the daughters for independent life outside their childhood home.
Alas, this harmony is quickly destroyed. When the need arises for the sisters to earn an income, they face a number of challenges. It is hard for them to reconcile their middle-class respectability and their lack of employment related training with their need to earn income. Marriage is unlikely to be an option for at least two of the sisters because of their relative disadvantage in a society with an oversupply of females relative to males. As the sisters are grappling with this new and harsh reality, an acquaintance of theirs - Rhoda Nunn and her friend Mary Barfoot are assisting women to train for employment. The contrast between the hindrances of the old and the possibilities of the new world for women could not be greater. Are the Madden sisters able to rise to the challenge, and adapt? Is it possible for women to be both married and independent?
I enjoyed this novel for three main reasons. Firstly, the novel explores a number of important class and gender issues in late Victorian culture. Secondly, none of the characters is without flaw. While it is possible to prefer one set of choices over another, no choice is without some cost. Finally, the writing itself guides rather than chides the reader through a story that represents the beginning of an enormous social change - for both men and women.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Alas, this harmony is quickly destroyed. When the need arises for the sisters to earn an income, they face a number of challenges. It is hard for them to reconcile their middle-class respectability and their lack of employment related training with their need to earn income. Marriage is unlikely to be an option for at least two of the sisters because of their relative disadvantage in a society with an oversupply of females relative to males. As the sisters are grappling with this new and harsh reality, an acquaintance of theirs - Rhoda Nunn and her friend Mary Barfoot are assisting women to train for employment. The contrast between the hindrances of the old and the possibilities of the new world for women could not be greater. Are the Madden sisters able to rise to the challenge, and adapt? Is it possible for women to be both married and independent?
I enjoyed this novel for three main reasons. Firstly, the novel explores a number of important class and gender issues in late Victorian culture. Secondly, none of the characters is without flaw. While it is possible to prefer one set of choices over another, no choice is without some cost. Finally, the writing itself guides rather than chides the reader through a story that represents the beginning of an enormous social change - for both men and women.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Odd Women is a brilliant exploration of the choices faced by young women in late Victorian Britain. While marriage to a wealthy man certainly remained one possibility not all women had the opportunity, and many did not have the desire, to pursue such an objective. There were fewer men in the country than there were women and so, as was often pointed out, even if all the women in the land had the looks of Helen of Troy and the ability to fascinate of Cleopatra, there would still have been a large number consigned to a life of spinsterhood. Given such a mathematically-unarguable situation was it not sensible for women to be educated for careers so they could support themselves? Besides, with attitudes changing and with the rise of the more independent New Woman, not every lady in the country saw a life as some sort of decorative arm-adornment for a man as being a worthy aim for her talents. The smell of freedom was in the air, and crinolines and bustles were, metaphorically at least, being burnt.
Gissing examines these alternative options - the pursuit of marriage on one hand and the pursuit of education with a view to being self-supporting on the other - along with the more typical roles women occupied such as those of governess or dress-maker, but he never casts his own opinions into the ring. Just when you think he is about to take a stance in the debate he will skillfully present, via the experiences of one of the women in his novel, the alternative side of the arguement. He holds a mirror up to the lives of his characters - in particular to Rhoda Nunn with her passion for independence and her school where women are taught skills with which they can search for relatively well-paid employment; and Monica Barfoot, young and beautiful and with an attentive (perhaps too attentive) admirer. The trials and choices of the two women, along with those of their friends and sisters - whether they be feistily independent; obsessed with the need for a marriage at all costs, or simply resigned to the life of the lonely and unloved - are all beautifully described but never judged.
It is a shame so little of Gissing's work is readily available in print. His descriptions of city life are tremendously powerful, although tinged with a bleakness that even Hardy might have envied, and his portrayal of men and women is compellingly sharp. Gissing is often described as being 'the English Zola' and there is much of Zola's intensity in The Odd Women - the frightening jealousy, and its consequences, of Monica's admirer being one example - but he remains at heart a very English novelist and one who clearly understood the times in which he lived. Few men wrote about the 'New Woman' - who was an object of ridicule for some, admiration for others and fear for many - with quite such balanced understanding regarding their hopes, desires and fears, and The Odd Women is all the more powerful, and all the more moving, as a result.
Gissing examines these alternative options - the pursuit of marriage on one hand and the pursuit of education with a view to being self-supporting on the other - along with the more typical roles women occupied such as those of governess or dress-maker, but he never casts his own opinions into the ring. Just when you think he is about to take a stance in the debate he will skillfully present, via the experiences of one of the women in his novel, the alternative side of the arguement. He holds a mirror up to the lives of his characters - in particular to Rhoda Nunn with her passion for independence and her school where women are taught skills with which they can search for relatively well-paid employment; and Monica Barfoot, young and beautiful and with an attentive (perhaps too attentive) admirer. The trials and choices of the two women, along with those of their friends and sisters - whether they be feistily independent; obsessed with the need for a marriage at all costs, or simply resigned to the life of the lonely and unloved - are all beautifully described but never judged.
It is a shame so little of Gissing's work is readily available in print. His descriptions of city life are tremendously powerful, although tinged with a bleakness that even Hardy might have envied, and his portrayal of men and women is compellingly sharp. Gissing is often described as being 'the English Zola' and there is much of Zola's intensity in The Odd Women - the frightening jealousy, and its consequences, of Monica's admirer being one example - but he remains at heart a very English novelist and one who clearly understood the times in which he lived. Few men wrote about the 'New Woman' - who was an object of ridicule for some, admiration for others and fear for many - with quite such balanced understanding regarding their hopes, desires and fears, and The Odd Women is all the more powerful, and all the more moving, as a result.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Superb book, about the plight of women who were brought up only to be wives, and had no way of supporting themselves without a husband, except as a governess or companion, with no freedom and little money. More interesting now even than it must have been when published in 1893. You are transported into a story of characters living out their lives and struggling with the expectations of their roles as women - and men - at a time well before the emancipation of women. It is a time machine into middle class society 120 years ago. Through the story it is evident that the expectation that women should only be educated to be dependent wives puts intolerable strain on marriages and individuals. The freeing up of gender roles and educating women to support themselves independently has been an emancipation for men as well. Today men are no longer expected to support all their unmarried sisters. Today people can marry even when they have little money, and both contribute to the household income. Unhappy marriages can end, and the parties can go their separate ways, supporting themselves independently. Well, in the countries where women are emancipated, anyway.
The issues today have moved on but still exist - how to balance childcare and work - how to apportion money fairly, and in the best interests of children, when a marriage does break down. We need another such book today, dealing with the same issues, with modern characters, and from different levels of society.
The issues today have moved on but still exist - how to balance childcare and work - how to apportion money fairly, and in the best interests of children, when a marriage does break down. We need another such book today, dealing with the same issues, with modern characters, and from different levels of society.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Fascinating discovery
Serendipity is a wonderful thing. I was at my local library looking for George Gissing's novel about journalism, New Grub Street, and could not find a copy. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Bacchus
A revelation
This is a truly extraordinary novel that lays bare the problems facing women of a particular class in Victorian England. Read more
Published 3 months ago by B J Burton - Author
One of my favourite books
This book is fantastic and very ahead of its time for a Victorian novel. I'm always surprised Gissing isn't a better-known author. Read more
Published on 2 Feb 2010 by K. Ralph
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