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Feminist Critiques of "Black Beauty"

Anna Sewell has been lauded for bringing attention to the issue of animal cruelty during the Victorian Era in her novel “Black Beauty”. Many theorists have applied principles of feminist literary criticism, more specifically the theories of first-wave feminism, to the novel claiming it to be a commentary on the condition of women in the Victorian Era. While Sewell has been praised for her overt animal cruelty critique there exists an undertone of commentary which codes Black Beauty as emasculated or feminine. Contemporary theorists analyzing the text through a feminist lens postulate that by using Black Beauty as a medium for her critique, Sewell's tale of the cruel subjugation of the horse is an allegory of the oppression of women through psychological and physical means during the Victorian Era.

Gina Dorré

Dorré's article "Horses and Corsets: Black Beauty, Dress Reform, and the Fashioning of the Victorian Woman" details the physical restraints women and horses were subjected to in the name of Victorian fashion. The controversial bearing rein was utilized to hold the horse’s head up in an unnatural fashion and the bit (horse) pulled the horse’s mouth uncomfortably, damaging its windpipe and creating lifelong breathing problems. Similarly, the corset and numerous posture-enhancing mechanisms were outfitted to women in order to create a certain figure. Dorré refers to this figure as a “horse-like silhouette” since the woman’s protruded posterior and bustle gave her a centaur-like appearance . The wearing of the corset also limited a woman’s breathing and cinched her waist creating an unnatural appearance. This style was criticized by Victorian feminists and non-feminists alike condemning both its physical restrictions which moralists claimed could lead to potential issues with childbearing and which feminists claimed perpetuated the physical and mental oppression of women . In Dorré’s essay a Victorian woman gives an account of her experience wearing a posture-former: “Although perfectly straight and well-made, I was encased in stiff stays, with a steel busk in front; while above my frock, bands drew my shoulders back until the shoulder-blades met. Then a steel rod with a semi-circle, which went under my chin, was clasped to the steel busk in my stays”.. Both the horse and the woman of the Victorian era had to endure suffering in the name of ornament and visual pleasure. Due to the fact that Victorian woman and horse were often regarded as property; their poise, gait and personalities indicated their breeding and class standing and greatly affected their marketability. .

Dorré also refers to the parallel of socialization of horses and women. She equates Black Beauty's breaking-in or horse training to the 'induction of a girl into womanhood' . Just as girls were given moral educations in order to teach them docility and duty so Black beauty is taught a 'code of postures, manners and appropriate accoutrements' .

Robert Dingley

In his article titled, "A Horse of a Different Colour: "Black and Beauty" and the Pressures of Indebtedness" Dingley describes the violent means of control men attempt to exert upon Ginger as an allegory for gender-definition. He reminds readers of Ginger's initial experiences with the bearing rein and the trauma it induced in her psyche. Dingley and other theorists liken this experience to the scene of a violent rape. Dingley describes Ginger's numerous moments of forceful submission as a challenge to Black Beauty's 'simpler moral pattern' and his 'account of virtue at last rewarded' insisting that Ginger, despite her suffering, is granted no respite . Dingley recounts Ginger's moments of triumph over male oppressors and describes the fleeting power she feels in exerting her liberty. He describes her inevitable submission and conclusion that "men are strongest" as a "dispiriting truth" . Dingley regards Ginger as a "passive victim of male aggression and exploitation", a sentiment shared by those Victorians fighting against the subjugation of women.

Moira Ferguson

In her article titled, “Breaking in Englishness: Black Beauty and the Politics of Gender, Race and Class”, Ferguson details the gender politics evident in Black Beauty concerning the differences between Black Beauty and Ginger's breaking-in or horse training. She deems Black Beauty the 'preferred passive' in comparison to Ginger the "fiercer alter-ego who invites contestation" . Ginger is the voice of women's anger at the monstrous treatment they have been subjected to by men. Ferguson states that any woman in the text resistant to societal (human or horse) norms is 'reconfigured in a socially prescribed way' . She cites Ginger; Lizzie, a nervous filly whose excitable nature, Ferguson believes, denotes a fear of sexual encounters; and Lady Anne, who upon failing to ride her horse demurely is injured and rendered unable to ride. Ferguson believes that the punishing of these 'wild-spirited creatures' denotes Sewell's recognition that such 'unorthodoxy' was ill-suited or premature for their era .

Ferguson also postulates that Black Beauty is Sewell's mirror-image and represents her refusal to be an invalided Victorian female, limited "discursively or physically" . Believing Black Beauty to be the manifestation of Sewell's dream of being a horse Ferguson argues that Sewell frees herself from being trapped and controlled by her invalidism as many middle- and upper-class Victorian women.

Bonnie Blossom

In her article titled, "Black Beauty as Antebellum Slave Narrative" Blossom details various critics and theorists who argue in favour of "Black Beauty" being recognized as a feminist allegory of the subjugation of Victorian women. She states that Black Beauty's body has "carried the weight" of many identities, among those: women and Anna Sewell herself . Blossom finds that Sewell is like many female writers both prior to and during the Victorian era who equated women with animal counterparts in order to draw attention to the condoned abuse both were subjected to . She quotes feminist theory contemporaries who agree that like animals 'women knew what it is like to be victimized, to have one's difference used as rationale for suppression and violence' . Furthermore, she states different hypotheses concerning the allegories Black Beauty and Ginger represent. From Ruth Padel she deduces that Ginger's death is representative of indoctrinated beliefs concerning women's acceptance of their socially constructed roles . She concludes from Gina Dorré that Sewell employs Black Beauty to aid her in gaining agency over her "powerlessness" caused by illness and gender politics .

Ruth Padel

In her article titled, "Saddled with Ginger" Padel writes that "Black Beauty" reads "almost as one of the great feminist texts" . She argues that Black Beauty and Ginger's experiences with men are reminiscent of "contemporary abused human heroines" . Like these abused heroines Black Beauty and Ginger find themselves worn rugged and their natural beauty ruined by male abuse . Padel equates Black Beauty and Ginger to characters in Augustan era, Romantic era and Victorian era pornographic literature listing similarities in the chronological sequence of events occurring in their lives . The character is removed from their idyllic original home after which they experience the initial violent scene of breaking-in or defloration. After this initial act, various accounts of male abuse occur in the lives of Black Beauty, Ginger and other abused heroines. Padel uses the following characters in relation to Black Beauty and Ginger: Justine (Justine, 1791), Ruth (Ruth, 1853), Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, 1748) and Maggie Tulliver (The Mill on the Floss, 1860) .

Padel also discusses Black Beauty and Ginger as moralist and feminist, respectively. Like other theorists she details Ginger's intial rebellion and subsequent (and inevitable) "fall" . In comparison, Black Beauty is praised for his ideal feminine passivity and morality and, like other heroines who follow this model, he is rewarded with an idyllic life and a perpetual state of [nobility]] . Padel writes, "Men ennobles nature, woman, animal by imposing suffering on "her"" . She postulates that if not for the exploitation of men Black Beauty and women would not earn their noble and virtuous state and that it is for that reason why even Anna Sewell believed this cycle cannot or should not change .

Natalie Hansen

Hansen, in her article titled "Horse Stories: Rethinking the Human-Animal Divide," seeks to illustrate Black Beauty's socialization as an allegory for the type of moral education women were taught during the Victorian era. The socialization of the horses in the novel and Victorian women was used to control their bodies and minds and mould them into an ideal sought by theirmasters and husbands. Hansen states that the explicit view of Black Beauty is that of the quintessential noble Victorian servant willfully serving his master no matter the circumstance. To further lend to the argument of Black Beauty’s emasculation, the moral lessons Black Beauty is taught by his mother appear similar to the rhetoric taught to Victorian women in their socialization . Black Beauty is assimilated into “horse society” by his mother and as a moral Victorian he recalls her teachings in times of distress. Hansen finds that his acculturation into the proper type of behaviour, that of willing obedience, is an attitude applicable to women as well. She asserts that the bodies of women and horses were connected by a ‘feminine ideal of docility, duty and acquiescence’ . Hansen also mentions Ginger’s argument that her prior handlers failed to recognize her as a ‘sensitive, responsive, and communicative individual’ an argument held by Victorian feminists attempting to gain recognition for feminine intellect . Hansen argues that although both Black Beauty and Ginger experienced hardships and cruel treatment, Sewell as in the tradition of the quintessential Victorian author makes it clear that moral guidance prevails . Black Beauty in the tradition of the ‘noble Victorian servant’ is rewarded for his hardships because of his moral formation . However, Ginger is then doomed to fail because she lacks the moral formation that Beauty received from his mother and is therefore unable to conform; hence her demise .

References

Blossom, Bonnie L., "Black Beauty as antebellum slave narrative" (2008). Graduate School Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/145

Dingley, Robert . "A Horse of a Different Colour: "Black and Beauty" and the Pressures of Indebtedness." Victorian Literature and Culture Sep. 1997: 241-251. JSTOR. Web. 26 Feb. 2013.

Dorré, Gina Marlene: "Horses and Corsets: Black Beauty, Dress Reform, and the Fashioning of the Victorian Woman" Victorian Literature and Culture, (30:1), 2002, 157-78. (2002)

Ferguson, Moira: "Breaking in Englishness: Black Beauty and the Politics of Gender, Race and Class" Women: A Cultural Review, (5:1), 1994 Spring, 34-52. (1994)

Hansen, Natalie Corinne: "Horse Stories: Rethinking the Human-Animal Divide" Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences,(70:11) 2010 May, 4297. U of California, Santa Cruz, 2009. DA3384771 . (2010)

Padel, Ruth. "Saddled with Ginger: Women, Men and Horses." Encounter Nov. 1980: 47-54. www.unz.org. Web. 26 Feb. 2013.