Compare the school being represented here to Miss Pinkerton's academy in Vanity Fair. What type of school is this? What tone does Punch use to describe it? What exactly is being mocked, if anything? (February 27, 1847)
Life in Victorian London
Fictions and Forms of Revolution: London 1848
Miss Griffin's school ("Establishment for Young Ladies") seems different than Miss Pinkerton's in terms of its method, but the aims, I feel, are somewhat similar. In this school, the students learn very domestic tasks – that is, they all seem to relate to cooking. Cooking is definitely one of the assignments here, but also picking out food at the market (a skill which only a 'select class' can experience) and making a drink for one’s husband. Learning to doing things for one’s husband is really the main goal of the program; if husbands are “easy to cage, but difficult to keep,” then Miss. Griffin is teaching the women to keep their husbands once they get them. On the other hand, Miss Pinkerton’s school seems to encompass domestic duties as well as the humanities; it’s also an all-girls school, but the girls learn to sing and spell as well as they learn needlework and “morality.” Miss Pinkerton teaches the girls to be “young ladies of fashion” (judging by her note on page 3), and while I can presume that the ultimate goal of this teaching is to find these ladies husbands, it’s never specifically alluded to.
ReplyDeleteThe Punch article seems to mock the severity with which the classes are taught. They article writes that the girls “prattle” their examinations, and much of the article overstates a lot of the events: the article reads that “until then we never saw the latent beauties of cabbage and gherkins” and that “we left Miss Griffin’s establishment with a still higher appreciation of he noble qualities of the female mind.” Thackeray employs some of this mockery, it seems, with all the attention he gives to Becky’s machinations on Joseph. This scheming to find a husband is serious business. In one instance, Becky smells flowers she received from Joseph, but we discover that she might have just been looking for a love note from him. She says “How I should like to see India” to “provoke” a proposal from Joseph… The image in the corner of the Punch article also seems to poke fun at the goal of the “establishment.” I can’t fully make sense of it, but the branch-holder looks very devious; I’m not sure if those devils are supposed to be girls Miss Griffin teaches, or if the devils are assistants, but the picture, the article, and Vanity Fair itself hints that something is wrong with the way marriage is set up in society.
I, too, struggled to make sense of the picture in light of the article. If you look closely, it appears that the girls at Miss Griffin’s finishing school are all “out on a limb,” so to speak. They’re clinging to the branches much like they would hypothetically cling to a man for sustenance and support. The tree itself seems to be growing out of Miss Griffin, implying that the skills and knowledge she imparts on her students provide a lasting foundation for them to establish roots, i.e. a relationship and a family. Without this foundation, they would be lost.
ReplyDeleteThe tone of the article, both sarcastic and condescending, mocks this assumption, much like Rebecca Sharp mocks Miss Pinkerton’s finishing school. In her last act of defiance at the school, Rebecca accepts a dictionary and then “flung the book back into the garden” (Thackeray, 7), symbolizing a penchant for disregarding (and, quite literally, discarding) the rules. What’s so interesting to me, though, is that Rebecca doesn’t abandon all rules completely – only those made by others. She seems to follow her own set of rules and puts on a performance accordingly to elicit pity and benevolent favor from those around her, specifically Joseph Sedley. In an effort to engender charity and compassion, “she dropped her voice and looked so sad and piteous, that everybody felt how cruel her lot was” (Thackeray, 30). Far from innocent and naïve (characteristics commonly ascribed to Victorian women), Thackeray portrays Rebecca as a manipulative, calculating woman unafraid (if not eager) to use her feminine wiles to further her station in life. Quite deft at subverting traditional female stereotypes to suit her own purposes, I would certainly not characterize her as a member of the “weaker” sex.
The article’s reference to women as ‘treasure to any man’ aptly described the status of women in Miss Pinkerton’s finishing school. Cooking aside, the girls bought or traded their way into the school, and their distinction and popularity were appropriated thusly. Miss Amelia, paying twice the tuition, earns the favor of all the girls and women of the school while Miss Sharp, meaner in character and shoddy in appearance, remains wholly forgotten by the girls upon her leave. Further, while these class distinctions blur somewhat in what Thackeray dubs ‘the real world,’ individuals are no less sensitive to them. Miss Amelia and Miss Sharp live together in Russell Square and Miss Sharp becomes, in Mr. Sedley’s opinion, not at all ill-suited to Jos’s favor, but Mrs. Sedley doesn’t dare to think that Miss Sharp could dream of soliciting Jos, as disparate and pitiable as she is in class.
ReplyDeleteTrue it is more Miss Amelia’s appealing character that wins over the hearts and admiration of all around her, and Miss Sharp’s biting cynicism only disappears in her scheme to capture the wealthy Joseph Sedley, but if the finishing school ought to serve as an extension of what education may impart to all women, rich or otherwise, of the academy, it is that women are meant to be wives and domesticated in their value as such.
As Allison mentioned, the two schools differ in their instruction but largely serve the same aim: to create marriageable women. What's interesting is the way the schools' philosophies differ in determining what it takes for a woman to get or keep a husband.
ReplyDeleteAt Miss Pinkerton's school, qualities that seem only loosely related to one's wifely duties are taught. This implies that well-to-do men are seeking women who can carry on a conversation along with anything she might do in the home, the ability to charm and entertain guests being a chief skill for any married woman. This is largely a reflection of class - although speaking French or singing may not on the surface appear to be necessary qualities for a woman, men of means would not choose wives who lacked the kinds of skills taught at Miss Pinkerton's. (This is similar to higher education in the U.S., where elite colleges teach almost no actual job skills but create the kinds of people that competitive companies seek to hire.)
Miss Griffin's school, on the other hand, is more of a "vocational training" school. The girls are taken to market and tested on an endless array of cooking and houseworking skills. The fact that these women are being taught to work implies that they will be marrying men who cannot afford servants, and therefore they are taught "useful" skills instead of superfluous ones.
Punch appears to be mocking the seriousness with which the girls learn seemingly menial housekeeping skills and the establishment that teaches them. Miss Pinkerton's school teaches French, embroidery, and music. Presumably these traits may be taught to girls who will enter households with servants to do cooking and the like. Both sets of skills serve the same goal of acquiring and "keeping" a husband.
ReplyDeleteThere is a great deal of competition at Miss Griffin's school. The girls struggle to outdo each other, rattling off recipes to "bring down" the other students, ascending the ranks in order to carry off such symbols of their domestic vocation as butter dishes and ladles, "fitting prizes," Punch remarks. This almost cutthroat atmosphere is similar to the desperation portrayed in "The Weaker Sex in Alarming Numbers," discussions in Vanity Fair of parents who spend a fifth of their income on parties to help marry off children, and the aggressiveness with which Becky Sharp pursues Jos.