Solidarity Sisters: 19th Century Female Relationships and The Lamplighter

I’d like to begin by taking a moment to reflect on Carroll Smith-Rosenberg’s “The Female World of Love and Ritual.” I had never read this article, even though I’ve seen it cited and referenced many, many times. It was a good read, and it’s easy to see how many of the ideas introduced in this piece have been further developed and explored in subsequent scholarship. In fact, there were a couple of moments when I found myself shocked (and pleased) by how much our theories about sex and sexuality have changed since 1975. Early on in the essay, Rosenberg argues that the “essential question is not whether these women had genital contact and can therefore be defined as heterosexual or homosexual,” for “the twentieth-century tendency to view human love and sexuality within a dichotomized universe of deviance and normality, genitality and platonic love, is alien to the emotions and attitudes of the nineteenth century” (8). Rosenberg highlights an antiquated idea about sex and sexuality, typical of the 1970’s and 1980’s, that depends on sex acts between people of the same or opposite gender to determine who is gay and who is straight. It is, of course, quite different some 30 years later. A woman can identify as “straight” but still desire sexual intimacy with other women, and a man can identify as “gay” and still engage in sex acts with his wife. No one bats an eye. Well, at the very least it’s becoming more common. We certainly don’t depend solely on sexual intimacy to determine sexual identity, which, when I think about it, seems more and more like relationships in the nineteenth century when love between two women was considered “socially acceptable and fully compatible with heterosexual marriage” (8). I’m not saying that I think all the women in nineteenth-century novels were engaging in lesbian sex acts, even within the institution of marriage; I’m only thinking that nineteenth-century feminine relationships seem more like those of today (thank you, Adrienne Rich and countless others) than 30-something years ago. That being said, I’d like to look at some passages from The Lamplighter.

**WARNING: I’m going to spoil some points of the plot, so if you haven’t finished Larisa, stop reading now!!**

There are a lot of intimate, female relationships in The Lamplighter. Gerty’s relationship with Nan Grant is both intimate and terrible, making it painfully clear that all not all feminine relationships are affectionate. Most other female relationships in the novel are friendly and loving, but the most intimate and important feminine relationships in the novel are also portrayed as instructive. Gerty’s first feminine companion is Mrs. Sullivan, who teaches young Gerty the ways of domesticity. She learns to cook, clean, and generally keep house from this surrogate mother, so it should come as no surprise that Gerty eventually marries Mrs. Sullivan’s son, Willie. The second intimate, feminine relationship that Gerty develops is with Emily. This relationship, which dominates the plot of the novel, is also instructive, though not necessarily “maternal.” Emily is portrayed as a beloved, refined, and wise big sister who teaches Gerty to trust in a higher power. Emily, the kind benefactress, teaches young Gerty to be a lady, but as Gerty gets older the relationship is reciprocal; they depend on each other for mutual love and support. Both of these relationships are rich for further exploration, but the relationship I would most like to explore is one in which Gerty becomes the “instructor,” teaching a young girl the ways of true virtue and refinement.

In her relationship with Kitty, Gerty becomes the feminine mentor, instructing Kitty to prioritize and value “true” sentiments. (We could read “true” sentiments as “sentiments from other women,” but I don’t necessarily have any textual evidence to support that claim.) The relationship between Gerty and Kitty was honest and kind, though not markedly intimate, until Gerty refused a proposal from Mr. Bruce (Kitty’s favored gentleman). Gerty refuses the proposal with grace and poise, taking care not to damage Mr. Bruce’s feelings. But when Kitty’s deceived heart enters into the mix—Mr. Bruce had been using Kitty to make Gerty jealous-- Gerty is overwhelmed with emotion: “She could say no more, but, sinking into the nearest seat, burst into tears, and hiding her face in her hands, as had been her habit in childhood, wept without restraint” (264). Championing for Kitty, Gerty lays plain Mr. Bruce’s deceit: “But, think of her happy, trusting nature, and how it has been betrayed! Think how she believed your flattering words, and how hollow they were, all the while! Think how her confidence has been abused! How that fatherless and motherless girl, who had a claim to the sympathy of the world, has been taught a lesson of distrust” (265). Of course, Kitty, who is listening to the entire exchange, is heartbroken, but the lesson she learns is not one of “distrust,” but of feminine solidarity. Rather than turning her back on love and marriage, she, through her now intimate relationship with Gerty, shuns all silly behavior and coquettery in search of a deeper bond. The scene immediately following Gerty’s admonition of Mr. Bruce begins this new, intimate, and instructive female relationship.

Gerty finds Kitty listening outside the window, and upon discovery Kitty throws herself into Gerty’s arms, unable to speak or cry, she merely “shook and trembled with an agitation which was perfectly uncontrollable” (266). Gerty “supported her to a seat, and then, folding the slight form to her bosom, chafed and cold hands, and again and again kissing the rigid lips, succeeded at last in restoring her to something like composure. For an hour she lay thus, receiving Gertrude’s caresses with evident pleasure, and now and then returning them convulsively, but speaking no word, and making no noise” (266-67). Let me begin my analysis by saying that I read Rosenberg’s article and understand her argument about the nature of feminine relationships in the 19th century, and even though I understand that not all intimacy is codified as sexual, this passage paints an undeniable sexually intimate portrait. To be honest, I resisted my temptation to read sexual intimacy into this passage, because it felt juvenile and silly, but the language is so suggestive that to ignore the sexuality may do the text a disservice. These two women, both suffering from a certain kind of trauma, find comfort in one another. They caress each other “with evident pleasure,” returning each other’s love “convulsively,” in a scene that transcends both words and sounds. That they are lovers, there can be no doubt. In a scene more sexually intimate than all other scenes of heterosexual love (and subsequent marriage) in the novel, I have to wonder what’s at stake in Cummins’ choice to depict this scene of healing in such a sexually intimate manner. I don’t pretend to have any answers to this question, but I do have some ideas.

Kitty, whose most intimate female relationship is with the silly, frivolous Isabel, lacks any refined female instruction or solidarity, a piece of feminine identity prized by the novel. In the wake of romantic heartbreak, the trust and support of another woman would have been a powerful draught for Kitty, intensely personal and private. I have to wonder, then, if in order to do Kitty and Gerty’s new relationship justice, in the wake of Mr. Bruce’s villainous dishonesty, the union of these two women had to be codified as sexual. I’m just working this out in my head, but if Gerty’s instruction and friendship are to change Kitty for the better, making her into a new woman of poise and grace (as we know it does), then the experience would have to be intensely intimate and almost unrestricted. I’m not arguing that all intense and intimate female relationships must be sexual, but this moment between Kitty and Gerty, a mere ½ page after Mr. Bruce’s thwarted romantic efforts, channel some (if not all) of that romantic intimacy and reclaim it for personal, feminine agency to reinvent Kitty. Just some things to think about. :)