Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.15291/sic/1.15.lc.3
The Victorian Little Girl: Constructions of Childhood and Femininity in Nineteenth-Century England’s Photographic Records
Jéssica Iolanda Costa Bispo
; Nova University Lisbon, Portugal
Sažetak
Nineteenth-century England demonstrated a peculiar attitude toward the child. On the one hand, eighteenth-century Romanticism had brought about the idea of the Romantic Child, an idealized figure characterized by being inherently pure, innocent, and divine. On the other hand, the child was subject to intense sexualization and objectification, especially the “little girl,” an eroticized figure constructed by sociocultural tendencies and convention rather than being biologically determined, i.e., defined according to her age. The coexistence of these deeply ambivalent ways of perceiving the female child are, in turn, related to restrictive gender norms, with the middle- and upper-class Victorian woman idealized as the ‘angel in the house.’ As these women were expected to be confined to the domestic sphere and educate their children, a cult of childhood arose, along with philosophical incursions into the psychological development of the child. Taking into consideration this context, this article aims, firstly, to analyze how the child (in general) and the female child (in particular) is, thus, constructed according to the Victorian frame of mind since she is not only perceived paradoxically but is also merged with the ‘angel in the house’ herself in the collective imaginary, being simultaneously an angel devoid of sexuality, and a woman-to-be on the verge of manifesting sexual desire. Secondly, the article will explore how these constructions are portrayed in photographic records of the time, namely in the works of Charles Dodgson and Julia Margaret Cameron, so as to understand how this medium conveyed these particular perspectives on childhood. An analysis of the selected photographs—all of them portraying children—allows us to conclude that eroticism, innocence, and womanhood are simultaneously represented in them, and, as such, photography is capable of exemplarily illustrating the contradictory and gendered discourses on childhood during the Victorian Era.
Ključne riječi
Victorian Era, childhood, femininity, photography
Hrčak ID:
325641
URI
Datum izdavanja:
15.12.2024.
Posjeta: 8 *