Summary Of Barbara Of The House Of Grebe - 769 Words

Alison Moretti ENG 243 – Short Paper #2 â€Å"Barbara of the House of Grebe† Thomas Hardy explored the workings of degeneration is his Gothic tale, â€Å"Barbara of the House of Grebe† (1891). Degeneration, which flourished during the Victorian Era (1837-1901), supposed that certain groups, including the urban poor, the mentally ill, prostitutes, criminals, assumed the traits of their surrounding to adjust to immoral, polluted cities, becoming physically and mentally flawed in the process. Degeneration was used by Victorians to act against others they labeled as abject. In the book, the abject degenerates are working-class men and upper-class women who were subjected to classism and sexism rationalized by degeneration. Hardy shows how belief in the myth of degeneration could ruin relationships and lives. Like the stereotypical upper-class male of her time, Barbara possesses a sense of the erotic that rests on beauty. That is how her class and gender prejudices intersect, causing her to feminize her working-class husband. Barbara makes it clear, more t han once, that she wants someone that is consistent with her babyish and youthful features. â€Å"She could no how fancy this to be her chosen one – the man she had loved; he was metamorphosed to a specimen of another species† (232). This quote supports abject degeneration because she, as an upper-class woman wants someone to compliment her exterior image and he as a working-class man now feels sorrowful that he can no longer give her what