Tags
1851, 1864, 1865, angel in the house, bloomerism, dress reform, education, freedom of dress, gender, gender roles, John Ruskin, middle-class, Of Queens' Gardens, Punch, Sesame and Lilies, Something More Apropos of Bloomerism, The London Charivari
By Cheylyne Eccles
In the Victorian era, the divide between gender and its expectations had never been greater. In 1864, John Ruskin delivered two lectures that comprised Sesame and Lilies in Manchester (Leighton and Surridge 301) to a “mixed-audience . . . of middle class men and women” (Millet 65). The astounding success of Sesame and Lilies spoke to the interests of the Victorians in the duties of gender, and the idea of separate spheres in which to separate and guide them. The 1851 bloomer phenomenon, as well as Punch’s “Something More Apropros of Bloomerism” served to influence and shape Ruskin’s ideal woman that he espouses in the chapter “Of Queen’s Gardens,” and in turn, revealed a deeper fear of gender subversion that was manifest in the Victorians at this time.
In “Of Queen’s Gardens,” Ruskin subtly but visibly reveals the presence of this fear of gender subversion by suggesting that women be allocated to the home. Indeed, the Victorian home is conveyed in “Of Queen’s Gardens” as a utopian haven and is defined by its state of being untouched by the unpalatable realities of the public sphere and “outer world” (Ruskin 303). Continue reading