dilluns, 23 de desembre del 2019

The (New) Woman

This essay is about how Irene Adler’s character in Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal In Bohemia” defies the Victorian gender ideology and reinforces the New Woman concept. 



Irene Adler is the only female character that outwits Sherlock Holmes. In Doyle’s story this character uses multiple and smart methods, for example dressing as a man, to mislead “The Great Detective” causing his admiration, deference and respect (Primorac, 95). 

According to Cassandra Poole, in Victorian society, -women were considered innocent and naïve creatures. The role of women was the role of the home-maker and the role of raising children -which were believed to be congenital (Danielová, 8). Women were not free to function in the outside world of society. Actually, women were thought to be less intelligent and more emotional than men, as Holmes suggests, “She has the face of the most beautiful women, and the mind of the most resolute of men” (Conan Doyle, 149). 

By disguising like a man and fooling Holmes and Watson, Irene Adler demonstrates that going around like a middle-class male youth provides the freedom that a woman cannot have: “Male costume is nothing new to me. I often take advantage of the freedom that it gives” (Doyle, 163). In her article “the Naked truth: The Post-feminist afterlives of Irene Adler,” Primorac suggests that Adler’s ability to shape-shift qualifies her as an autonomous subject. Changing clothes and being undetected as a woman denotes control of her own body and the fact that she acts in her interest and behalf. This character certainly makes a difference in Holmes's perspective of women: “He [Holmes] used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late” (Doyle, 166). 

For these reasons, Irene Adler breaks most of the Victorian conceptions of women becoming a model of the New Women at the end of the 19th century: independent, career-minded, self-confident and strong (Poole, 18). In his stories, Doyle is able to capture the social changes that were affecting women’s lives, challenging the social conventions of his world (Poole, 18) and giving readers a whole new dimension of his work.



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