The New Woman: The Rise of the Female Voice as a Metaphor for the Decay of Modernity

With the dawning of the twentieth century, a new voice appeared on the forefront: the Modernist woman had not only a strong voice, but many obstacles to overcome. Men still dominated the literature environment, creating female characters which lacked depth and complexity. However, the psychological advances of Sigmund Freud greatly influenced the characterization of females within literature. Henry James employed a side of hysteria greatly associated with Freud's works, while Virginia Woolf engaged in a more introspective, less exaggerated means of psychological unhinging. Both demonstrate the instability of their modern characters, as a metaphor for the uncertainty of the transition into the more scientific, modernized society, as well as a mean to voice their opinions on the feminist movement beginning to brew within English society. Marianne Dekoven discusses the ambivalence felt towards the "New Woman" during this time in her essay "Modernism and gender." "Much of this preoccupation expressed a male modernist fear of women's new power, and resulted in the combination of misogyny and triumphal masculinism that many critics see as central, defining features of modernist work by men" (Dekoven 174). James allows his governess to fall into an assumed madness, while Woolf manages to weave Clarissa Dalloway into the image of outer perfection and inner insecurity. Yet, both women are hearty in their convictions and strength, despite the intention of their authors.

Modern writers disregarded the standards set forth by their predecessors. Often times they sought refuge from the limitations set forth by reliable narrators and the realism present in prior works. As Peter Childs explains in his essay Modernism: "In fiction new writers spearheaded a rejection of several of the fundamentals of classic realism such as: a dependable narrator; the depiction of a fixed stable self; history as a progressive linear process: bourgeois politics, which advocated reform not radical change; the tying up of all narrative strands, or closure" (Childs 22). With this new found freedom, female characters were now employed as means of exposition, rather than mere romantic interests; and with the emerging psychological advancements, male and female characters were allowed greater room to explore their selves and their environment. Such is the case Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Woolf allows the reader to experience the day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, as she prepares for her party. The reader is also invited to explore the slow mental decay of Septimus Smith, a war veteran who has lost touch with the reality of Modern London. While Septimus is losing grips with his sanity and is seemingly happy to do so, Clarissa emerges as a woman who, despite deep insecurities, manages to maintain control of the reality she has created for herself. However, James takes quite a different approach to the "New Woman" as he unravels the mind of the governess.
The Haunting of the Governess

There is little secret to the obstacles faced by women during the twentieth century, and many male writers did not support the notion of female empowerment. James is one who, while eventually agreeing to the possibility of female empowerment, found the thought of feminism unappealing. Dekoven writes: "Henry James's essay 'The Future of the Novel,' written in the pivotal year 1899, encapsulates in a single text this characteristic, irresolvably contradictory attitude of the male Modernists toward an empowered femininity. James begins with the standard modernist attack on femininity. He links it with the social and aesthetic deterioration of standards connected to a debased, feminine/feminized popular culture, by deploying the figure flooding frequently used in modern fiction..." His non-acceptance of the new female empowerment is evident within his novel The Turn of the Screw. In a novel of an almost entirely female cast, he portrays the women as manipulative, jealous, and in the case of the governess, subject to fits of madness. Yet, the novel is first seen as a ghost story.

There can be no doubt that James was affected at an earlier age with tales of hauntings. In 1848, at the age of five, James heard tell of the Fox family, in Hydesville New York, which was contacted by mysterious rappings on the walls of their house. The mother and her two daughters eventually began to communicate with the mysterious noises. Another woman, a guest of the former occupants of the house, claimed to have seen the full figure of a man standing in the kitchen. This knowledge became the seed planted within James's mind, which would become the background for The Turn of the Screw. Many groups formed after the knowledge of the Foxes leaked out, including the Society for Psychical Research, which came out the founding of Trinity College. Peter Beidler describes the spiritualism phenomenon in his book Ghosts, Demons and Henry James:

Henry James's knowledge of some of the key ideas and personalities associated with the psychical research leads me to call attention here to the fact overlooked virtually all previous scholars: that Douglas, the fireside reader of the governess's manuscript in the frame-story of The Turn of the Screw, had gone to Trinity college, Cambridge...Given that the three prime practionioners of serious psychical research in England at the time were all Trinity men and that Henry James knew all of them...personally, can there be any doubt that James's making Douglas a Trinity man was purposeful? By associating Douglas, the only person in the frame-story who had actually met the governess, with the very center of serious and scientific ghost research in England, was not Henry James setting himself up as a reliable judge both of her and of the narrative she writes? If a Trinity man thinks that the governess is a trustworthy witness and that her ghosts are genuine, why should we doubt? (38-9)

Should the reader doubt the reliability of the governess? This is the question that most readers try to answer. If first considered to be a reliable source, then the story becomes a haunting tale of unlike none other. However, if the governess is a truly unreliable source, then James creates an air of insanity to parallel the growing fear of female empowerment. By making the governess ambiguous, James promotes the ideas shared by Freud and other male Modernists writers: females are the weaker of the sexes.

Should the reader chose to view the novel as a ghost story, there were ample events occurring at the turn of the century to support the spiritual and metaphysical element to his novel. One such case, though it cannot be for certain that James had access to this information, is the story of the Bell family of Robertson County, Tennessee. In a strange twist of events, the story of the Bell Witch and the subsequent death of John Bell, the patriarch of the family, almost mirror that of the James novel. Part of the Southern American lexicon of hauntings, the Bell Witch is one of the first cases of a haunting which is solely responsible for the death of a man. Only the true details of the Bell family came to knowledge in 1995, when a handwritten manuscript of Richard Powell, a witness to the haunting of the Bell family, was unearthed. In the lengthy manuscript, he detailed the four years in which the Bell family suffered at the hands of the Bell Witch. John Bell was a farmer and businessman; a well-respected member of the Adams community, until he was found guilty of usury against Kate Batts. During the proceedings, Bell shamelessly called Kate a witch, to that she replied: "Witch, am I? Then let me offer you a witch's malefaction, Old John Bell: You may have you broad acres as well as mine, purchased at a penitence. You may have you big house and your salubricated health right now. But just you wait and see what sad changes shall soon descend upon you. And more than you among the Bells" (Powell 15). Shortly after, the family was besieged with noises and physical attacks, primarily centered on the Bell's young daughter Betsy. The spirit, who proclaimed herself to be the production of Old Kate Batts, not only physically attacked Betsy, but had lengthy conversations with many members of the Adams community, including the local pastor. When asked why the spirit would not leave the family alone, the spirit replied: "...I will not leave until Old Jack Bell dies" (Powell 79). Two years later, the spirit was granted her wish.

While the Bell family tale occurred several decades before the birth of James and the subsequent writing of The Turn of the Screw, the similarities are uncanny. Paranormal researchers acknowledge that poltergeist occurrences, much like those in An American Haunting and The Turn of the Screw, is typically brought about in a household where there happens to be young women. It was the same case with the Fox family, who had two young daughters, twelve and fourteen. The connection between poltergeist and young women is still very much unclear, but the arrival of poltergeist tends to occur during times of extreme duress, such as discussed by Lauren Forcella in her essay: "Investigating Poltergeist Phenomena":

During a poltergeist experience, the agent, in an attempt to relieve emotional stress, unknowingly causes the physical disturbances using mental forces. The mental mechanism that allows the poltergeist agent to unconsciously cause these physical disturbances is called psychokinesis. Psychokinesis, PK, more commonly known as "mind over matter," is the human ability to mentally affect the physical environment. Because the psychokinetic activity of the poltergeist agent is recurrent and spontaneous, this form of psychokinesis is termed RSPK or recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis. Most agents are unaware that they are causing the physical disturbances, and even those with vague awareness usually have no conscious control over how and when the disturbances will occur...Adolescence is commonly a stressful life period (psychologically and physically) and not surprisingly, the majority of reported poltergeist cases involve adolescent agents (the age range is from 12 or 13 to early 20s). However, people of all age groups are potential poltergeist agents (although there has been a noticeable lack of agents under 10 or 11). (http://www.mindreader.com/opi/poltergeists)

Like Betsy and the Fox girls, the governess is haunted by the former governess Miss Jessel and her supposed lover Peter Quint. Unlike the governess, the other girls had credible witnesses to the spiritual activity surrounding them, though initially many were skeptical to the girls' claims. Yet the governess differs in that she is (seemingly) the only one who can see the apparitions. While it is implied that the children are party to the ghosts, the reader cannot be sure that they truly do see them, as the governess does.

The story of the Bell family is a first hand account of the former teacher and future husband of Betsy Bell, Richard Powell, who penned the manuscript for his daughter, in case Betsy should be "revisited" by the Bell Witch. The concern and fearfulness that Powell demonstrated in his manuscript begs the question if he did indeed believe that his wife was unstable. It is curious that a husband would make this statement, as if implying that the spiritual world had a definite affinity for Betsy. Could he have considered Betsy to have such a weakened mental state which would serve as a beacon for poltergeists? Knowing this true tale begs the question: was the governess similar to Betsy, in that she had a weakened constitution which invited spiritual activity to over take her, or was James simply attempting to show the fatal flaw in the New Woman?

Most definitely it is James's supernatural overtones which make the novel both gothic and modern. With the Modernist movement, the return to paranormal and occult explorations becomes more and more commonplace. The removal of reason and human-centered thinking that marks the Modernists period, which prior to the twentieth century, as Childs explains, was not the case: "Above all, it is characterized by the attempt to place humanity and in particular, human reason at the centre of everything, from religion and nature, to finance and science" (Childs 16). Prior to this time, it was logic which guided most minds; the idea of something inside of one's self was unheard. It simply was not possible, until the Modernists arrived, considering if there was something more introspective to learn.

James's story hinders on the fragility of the human mind, particularly the mind of the governess. With the knowledge of the events of the Bell and Fox families, there can be no doubt that paranormal, supernatural events can and have occurred, which makes the ghostly element of the novel completely plausible. Ghosts do exist; however, it is the governess's tendencies to elaborate and fabricate stories which make her an unreliable narrator and had the reader wondering if it is a ghost story to begin with. Beilder describes the governess's propensity to exaggerate:

Although Miss Jessel said nothing, the governess reports to Mrs. Grose that she had "a talk" with Miss Jessel in which Miss Jessel said that she suffered the torments of the damned and wanted Flora to share them with her. Why does the governess lie? She lies because she feels the need to keep the literal-minded and skeptical housekeeper informed about what the governess's more subtle powers of perception reveal to her. We must reveal that we know the governess lies only because she herself reveals, even admits, that she did. When Mrs. Grose asks if Miss Jessel really spoke, the governess clarifies her hasty statements by saying, "It came to that" (James 60). (Beidler 13)

With this admission it begs the question as to how reliable the governess truly is. Unlike the Bell Witch, Miss Jessel, or for that matter Peter Quint, never speaks and never appears to anyone but the governess. However, as the governess becomes even more embroiled in the mysteries surrounding the spirited lovers, the more she is thrown into a psychological tailspin.

One of the more interesting aspects of the novel is the relationship between Mrs. Grose, the children Flora and Miles and the governess. Mrs. Grose has had the children in her care since the untimely death of Miss Jessel, the former governess. When the new governess comes along, the tension begins, though not quite sensed by the reader. C. Knight Aldrich reveals the mounting dislike in his essay "Another Twist to the Turn of the Screw": "Could any housekeeper deposed from the role of mother-substitute to two children she adored consent so willingly to her exclusion from the welcoming scene? It is more consistent with the situation to interpret Mrs. Grose's heartiness as a compensatory effort to conceal her resentment at the rapidity with which she had been consigned to the kitchen" (Aldrich 369). So does this mean that everyone is out to get the governess? It would seem she is set up at every turn: first by the uncle, then by herself, and finally by the housekeeper, which brings a new light to this "ghost story."

If one considers how fragile and insecure the governess is, it could easily be rationalized that she had become a victim to the wickedness of not only three deeply intertwined characters, but of her own imagination. Assuming Mrs. Grose's jealousy, the story takes a completely different meaning. After all, it is Mrs. Grose who identifies the description of the figures that are seen by the governess as Miss Jessel and Peter Quint; and it is Mrs. Grose who discourages the governess from giving the description to Miles: "Ah don't try him!" (James 49). The availability Mrs. Grose has to contribute to the governess's madness is astounding. When the governess comes across Miss Jessel again, while with Flora, she naturally assumes the child sees the former governess as well, though it is never clear that Flora witnesses anything. Aldrich points this out, stating how this is simple fact gives Mrs. Grose ample opportunity to manipulate the governess to the point of insanity:

...Mrs. Grose is content to "sink the whole subject," recognizing that she had firmly planted the governess' suspicions. She needs to say no more; from now on avoidance of the subject will serve to increase the intensity of suspicions. She therefore changes her tune and now appears reluctant to incriminate the children, as she observes that her reluctance strengthens the governess' conviction. The more she protests their innocence, the more convinced is the governess of their guilt. When she believes that the governess is so convinced that she will defy prohibition against communication with the uncle, Mrs. Grose encourages the governess to write to him (371-2).

While Betsy Bell, who originally was discredited, was found to be mentally competent through the four years of torment she suffered at the hands of the Bell Witch, the governess was not so fortunate. Already insecure and determined to find love for herself, the governess left herself open for victimization at the hands of her co-habitants, if not, her own imagination. Whether James intended the story to be a true haunting or the ravings of an increasingly unstable woman is ambiguous. What is clear is that there are many psychological and metaphysical explanations, as well as a more subversive misogynistic statement of the New Woman hidden in the paragraphs of The Turn of the Screw.
The Haunting of Clarissa Dalloway

Considered the foremother of the New Modern Woman, Virginia Woolf gave a heavy voice to the rising feminist faction to arrive within the Modernists movement. Within the text of Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf uses Clarissa Dalloway as a barometer for the current the superficial appearances made by the upper class of Modern London. Preparing for a party, Clarissa Dalloway gets lost in her thoughts and judgments of those around her, as she feels she had been judged by them. In "A direction of one's own: Alienation in Mrs. Dalloway and Sula," Lorie Watkins Fulton acknowledge Clarissa's main intention for her day. "Mrs. Dalloway's main action reveals much through its depiction of Clarissa Dalloway's interaction with friends and family throughout a day filled primarily with preparations for the party she gives at the novel's conclusion" (Fulton 67). These interactions are what form Clarissa's perception of herself and those around her. Her former lover, Peter Walsh, unexpectedly arrives in London, and can do nothing except snicker when Clarissa announces she is throwing another party. "Oh these parties, he thought; Clarissa's parties. Why does she give these parties, he thought" (Woolf 48). Woolf acknowledged that Clarissa was based on a superficial socialite that Woolf had the privilege of knowing, who was known for throwing unnecessary parties. So, why did Woolf choose this particular behavior to characterize within her novel?

The obvious reasoning is Woolf's growing political and social dissatisfaction with the socialites of Modern London. As Sara Blair explores the political and social reform of Modern England in her essay "Modernism and the politics of culture": "Woolf's local image usefully suggests the entanglement of what we call politics and what we call culture as forms of experience; and it evidences the way in which writers committed socialist, Fabian, feminist, and other left platforms insisted on that connection" (Blair 164). However, Woolf's political opinions are not the only metaphor which is intertwined within the characters of Mrs. Dalloway. The themes she manages to weave together allow readers to not only view the social and political revolution occurring in London at the time, as well as the growing understanding of psychology.

Most readers will find Clarissa to be a collected person, who enjoys giving social gatherings; yet, when her motives are explored on a deeper level, the insecurity and need for social approval becomes evident. Woolf planned for her novel to expose the tension between the sane and the insane within reality. Suffering with her own moments of manic depression, Woolf explored the depths of madness in her novel. While Clarissa remains limited by her own obsessions of perfection, Woolf created Septimus Smith as the psychological doppelganger to Clarissa. Initially, Woolf intended Clarissa to end her own life, however, the conclusion did not satisfy Woolf, and so the war veteran Septimus Smith was created, as explored by Michael Cunningham in the fictional telling of Virginia Woolf's experience writing of Mrs. Dalloway in his book The Hours. While Cunningham cannot be sure what Woolf truly thought and felt during the writing, his fictionalization of her process gives the reader more information on how Woolf thought of her character Clarissa Dalloway:

Yes, Clarissa will have loved a woman. Clarissa will have kissed a woman, only once. Clarissa will be bereaved, deeply lonely, but she will not die. She will be too much in love with life, with London. Virginia imagines someone else, yes, someone strong of body but frail-minded; someone with a touch of genius, of poetry, ground under by the wheels of the world, by war and government, by doctors; a someone who is, technically speaking, insane, because that person sees meaning everywhere, knows that trees are sentient beings and sparrows sing in Greek. Yes, someone like that. Clarissa, sane Clarissa-exultant, ordinary Clarissa-will go on, loving London, loving her life of ordinary pleasures, and someone else, a deranged poet, a visionary, will be the one to die. (211).

The dynamic between Clarissa and Septimus is an interesting one, considering that they have limited interaction. When Clarissa learns of the suicide of Septimus, she is in mid-party, and immediately feels the relief that he must have had when he killed himself. Catherine M. Lord discusses Clarissa's reaction in her article "The Frames of Septimus Smith: Through Twenty Four Hours in the City of Mrs. Dalloway, 1923, and of Millennial London: Art is a Shocking Experience":

What has inspired Clarissa Dalloway is Septimus' refusal to be compromised with life's superficialities. By making the ultimate sacrifice, the interior monologue suggests, what has indeed been preserved is the value of this life, this 'thing'. Paradoxically, its value can only be weighed in its surrender. Ultimately, however, this 'life' or 'thing' cannot be summed up, cannot be unequivocally signified. In other words, it refuses to be nominalized or qualified. Mrs. Dalloway remembers throwing away a specific and quantifiable noun into the river Serpentine- a 'shilling' and 'never anything more.' To fling away a life is the ultimate defiance as it is to throw away what cannot be coerced into having material value. What her character-narrative refuses is a capitalist ideology which insists on attaching to life any market value. The death of Septimus Smith has produced a shock which rippled through Clarissa's psyche. These waves constitute secondary shocks transforming themselves into a creative act. This after-affect/effect is that which, through Mrs. Dalloway, posthumously does its work. (38).

Clarissa views the death of Septimus as a freedom she will never experience. Despite being married to a man who is good to her, she remembers why it was that she did not marry Peter Walsh, as Reuben Brower states: "As a lover Peter had allowed her no independence, and as a husband he would have been intolerable, leaving her no life of her own" (Brower 13). Not being allowed to live as she desires, Clarissa would no doubt suffocate under the weight of her own life.

This is what makes the extremities of Septimus and Clarissa so brilliant. Clarissa's greatest fear is not being able to live, while Septimus can no longer bear to live, after the events that he witnessed during the war. Their juxtaposition is mirrored in their own thoughts: Clarissa thinks only of the things that inhibit her, while Septimus thinks only of the things that could free him. Clarissa cannot see past the everyday; she is superficial and worried about appearances. She cares nothing for anything more introspective then what flowers to purchase for the party she was throwing. While her counterpart seems to be concerned with the world outside of him; the grander picture, no doubt a result of the atrocities he witnessed while fighting in the First World War. Though Woolf intended Clarissa to demonstrate the sane of society, the obsessive nature of her superficiality calls into question just how sane she truly was. However, when compared next to Septimus, she appears to be the picture of perfect health. Yet, just exactly who was actually insane: Clarissa, who insists on being the center of society's attention, or Septimus, who wants nothing more than peace within himself and relief from the societal pressures he felt? But this is not a tale of simple ordinary pleasures of Modern London; this is a tale in which every step develops the female narrative of Clarissa Dalloway, even through the madness of Septimus Smith and his ultimate demise.

As Woolf builds the story around Clarissa's afternoon preparing for the party she was throwing at her house, Woolf creates a Modern voice to the psychoanalytical development of the New Woman. The novel is a tale of the female experience; the feelings, the thoughts, the emotions which inhabit the female mind, and allow the readers to gain access to the feminist revolution, as Dekoven notes: "Woolf revised the association of Modernism with masculinity by associating it with femininity instead. Her arguments for the subversiveness of modernist form, its ability to penetrate and represent the underlying, multiplicitous truths of consciousness and psyche beneath the outward, unitary, coherent appearances of social, and realist fictional, convention..." (Dekoven 187). Woolf's stream of consciousness writing is free form, much like James's The Turn of the Screw; however, Woolf's insightfulness and gentleness of the psyche of the female draws the reader in, while James throws the reader into a frenzy, much like his leading lady.
The Haunting New Woman

With women beginning to take more interest in the world around them and asserting their opinions and ideas, their combined efforts greatly impacted the literature of the Modernist time. Woolf was one of the forefront writers and leaders in the feminist movement. David Trotter explores the feminist movement and Woolf's beliefs within the new modernist novel, in his essay "The modernist novel":

Female Modernism was an answer to relentless conversions of difference-within into difference-between which had for so long sustained patriarchal ideology in general, and literary representations of women in particular. That is why Virginia Woolf insisted on the disabling exteriority of literary realism...Woolf though that writers should proceed to intimacy form a different ground (the ground of difference-within itself): the "pattern" which each incident or impression "scores upon the consciousness." Identity was to be grasped by means of a poetic of awareness: the more aware a person is, the more representable he or she becomes; and, by implication, the more representable, the more aware. Female Modernism might thus be understood as a program for the conversion of difference-between into difference-within. (91)

It is this difference-between and difference-within which make the comparison of Mrs. Dalloway and The Turn of the Screw so compelling. Not only are they written from two separate viewpoints, but it is those viewpoints that demonstrate the mounting tension between male and female Modernist writers.

When taken into consideration, the governess is viewed as the epitome of the female hysteric; she is Freudian masterpiece. Harold Goddard discusses this very notion in his essay "A Pre-Freudian Reading of The Turn of the Screw": "The insane woman is telling her own story. She cannot see her own insanity-she can only see its reflection, as it were, in the faces, trace its effect on the acts, of others." (Goddard 266). James builds the governess's as the poster child for the anti-feminist sentiment growing within the Modernist movement. By allowing the governess to be questionably unstable, he uses her as a metaphor for the standard viewing of the female form. They are hysterics, in capable of handling the stresses of every day life without the help of a man, as demonstrated with the governess's desire to write to the uncle for assistance. Women were seen as inferior, and with the rise of female empowerment in the Modernist movement, doubt was cast as to whether literature could survive. Dekoven addresses the hysterical female which Freud professed in his years of female psyche research:

Freud developed psychoanalysis largely by working with women-his observation of Charcot's treatment of female "hysterics" in the Salpetriere Clinic in late nineteenth-century Paris initiated his theorizations of the unconscious, and these theories of the sexual etiology of the neuroses were then developed and articulated in large part through Freud's subsequent work with his own female patients...However, the theorizations that emerged relegated women to an inferior status in every way: of secondary important in the central Freudian Oedipal nuclear family drama of the psyche...Further, women are by Freudian definition "castrated," defined by and as "absence" and "lack," in the Lacanian-Freudian formulation; doomed to permanent moral immaturity, with a sexuality characterized, when "normal," as inherently masochistic. (179)

This moral immaturity and sexual frustration is ever present within the governess, as she secretly searching for the fulfillment of her "lack" which eventually drives her into madness. However, when compared to the seemingly well-developed Clarissa Dalloway, it becomes evident the difference of opinion between male and female writers.

Woolf guides Clarissa through the jungles of the patriarchal society of Modern London, as Elizabeth Abel describes in her essay "Narrative Structure(s) and Female Development: The Case of Mrs. Dalloway": "Clarissa Dalloway's recollected development proceeds from an emotionally pre-Oedipal female-centered natural world to the heterosexual male-dominated social world, a movement, Woolf implies, that recapitulates the broader sweep of history from matriarchal to patriarchal orientation" (Abel 246). Woolf is completely aware of the misogynistic environment surrounding her, which makes it interesting that she chose Septimus Smith to be the suicidal madman, rather than continue on with her original plan of Clarissa, as written in Cunningham's novel: "Clarissa Dalloway, she thinks, will kill herself over something that seems, on the surface, like very little. Her party will fail, or her husband will once again refuse to notice some effort she's made about her person or home" (Cunningham 84). Yet, Woolf chooses to let Clarissa live and love in London, a sure sense of the dying patriarchal hold on pre-Modernist literature. Instead, it is a man who fall victim to hysteria; it is a man who kills himself.

These novels represent the two opposing sides of Modernist literature; one who views women as nothing more than the decay of the mind and another who sees hope within the female form. This political debate brings Sara Blair to this statement:

In a vast array of contexts and places, writers during the era of high Modernism and beyond adapted its formalism and techniques, even its defining idioms, often so as to contest its political commitment. This is especially true for certain women, African-American, and socialist writers - what we can cautiously, with qualification, term writers on the left - attempting to open new public spaces or spheres for the expression of varied responses to modernity, and various political and social claims on its realities. By considering the broader political and social contexts of Modernism, and of literary production at large, we will gain a clearer view of these efforts, of their successes and their limits - and of the ways in which distinctly literary experimentation participated in the matrix (if not vortex) of modern social and political life. (162-3)

While authors such as James, William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, and others, believed that the introduction of women into the literary field would bring about the demise of substantial literature as it were, in essence, it did. However, not in the negative way those most anti-feminist writers believed. The introduction of the stronger and psychologically deeper female character (and writer for that matter) created a stronger Modernist movement, while destroying the archaic beliefs held for centuries. Female leads were no longer simply the damsel in distress, bound for hysteria and sexual repression, but a more self-aware, independent female, capable of surviving without representation from a man.

The feminist movement of Modernity did indeed reform history, and paved the way for open spaces for females that were not available prior to this. Much like the Industrial and Scientific Revolution of the time, the feminist movement produced avenues new to Modern England, allowing experimentation and a freedom unknown to many females at the time. As Simone De Beauvoir discusses in her book The Second Sex: "In England, Virginia Woolf remarks, women writers have always aroused hostility" (De Beauvoir 107). Yet, female writers continued on with their work, regardless if it aroused hostility. The Modernist movement was about breaking barriers, forging new paths within literary forms, and experiment with a new "realism," so why object to the growing feminist movement?

As many questioned the impending scientific and industrialization of Modern London, the same affect is felt within the literary groups, with the introduction of the female voice. The "New Woman" is found too intimidating and emasculating for male writers, as De Beauvior writes: "...woman has always been man's dependent, if not his slave; the two sexes have never shared the world in equality. And even today woman is heavily handicapped, though her situation is beginning to change" (De Beauvoir xxvi). The belief within most male-centered groups was that the emerging female voice and writers actually decayed the literary field. As Peter Childs notes:

Modernism can also be discussed in terms of exclusion and its critical reformulations. I have mentioned its Eurocentric bias, but it has also been characterized as a reaction to mass culture and to feminisation, and this to rest upon a masculinist elitism...Around the turn of the century, literature was increasingly perceived as a 'profession' and as therefore supposedly outside of women's domestic sphere, and it was beginning to be seen as a serious academic discipline, one that had to be assessed and regularized...One of the Committee's conclusions was that Victorian literature had been too feminine and moralistic, and that writers such as George Eliot, whose reputation has never been lower, had held back the English novel in comparison with its European equivalents. (22-3)

While literature became a profession, the attitude of writing changed. No longer was it appropriate for women to write, as it was simply a passing fancy for them. Men gathered and discussed literature in great deal, seeing it as a foundation of English Society. Since women's suffrage and feminism was still in its infancy, the idea of a woman contributing to literature as a profession seemed undesirable. It could be argued that this masculine elitism considered the New Woman as not only a threat in the literary world, but as capable of being responsible for its ultimate demise.

Yet, during this time, some of the most intriguing works came from women writers. Despite the anti-feminist characterization in James' novel and essays by other prominent authors of the time, the female voice would not be silenced. While the governess was eventually driven mad and Clarissa Dalloway desired to have the relief from the life she knew, both women spoke to the depths of the lives of females during the Modern era. Both represent the transition of the communal life of Victorian England merging with the industrial and modernized systems of Modern England. James wrote the governess as representative of the female form prior to the feminist movement: weak minded, insecure, prone to madness and in need of rescue by a man; while Woolf addressed the dichotomy of the emerging New Woman: she desires the independence that Septimus (men) have, while being limited by the marital and social standards of English society.

While the struggle between the domesticated and independent female continues to wage on, the female development in literature and in society made during the Modern era is invaluable. Woolf, as well as Gertrude Stein, Marianne Moore, H.D. and others, opened doors for future women writers, during a time when women were still regulated to the marital demands placed upon them. Modernism was not limited to its intriguing economic and scientific endeavors, but also helped to pave the way for modern organizations, such as The National Organization of Women, and for female empowerment for the decades to come. Much like the impact of the Industrial Revolution on Modern English society, the feminist movement did nothing to destroy English literature and in fact, improved it greatly. While it can be said that the "New Woman" did create a sense of demise within English history, the only portion of history that was destroyed was the centuries old foundation of a patriarchal society. The "New Woman" helped to crack the foundation, and move literature forward, as the Industrial Revolution helped modernized civilization and move it towards a brighter future.

Works Cited

Abel, Elizabeth. "Narrative Structure(s) and Female Development: The Case of Mrs. Dalloway" Modern Critical Views: Virginia Woolf. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986.

Aldrich, C. Knight. "Another Twist to The Turn of the Screw." A Casebook on Henry James's The Turn of the Screw. Ed. Gerald Willen. 2^nd Edition. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1969.

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