A Man With An Agenda

This is a novel that is a labor of love for the reader, if they have any compunctions about the pace or the scale of a Victorian novel they should steer clear of this at any cost. However, for the reader willing to invest the energy and the time, 'Can You Forgive Her' is a rewarding experience and is a triumph of social critique. Trollope displays rare insight and sympathy for a woman's situation and her options in the mid-19th century.

"What should a woman do with her life?" Alice Vavasor asks this question of herself near the start of the novel while thinking of her engagement with the unimpeachable John Grey. In deciding whether she should marry Grey and have him be the object of her life as opposed to being alone or marrying her cousin and furthering his career with her money, she is the woman who the reader has to decide to forgive. Trollope broadens his scope to include a few other examples of conduct to consider. There is Alice's cousin Kate Vavasor, the sister of the man Alice was engaged to once before, who has devoted her life to her brother and the care of her grandfather; there is her aunt Mrs Greenow, recently widowed and seeking a new husband under the pretext of finding a husband for Kate; and most importantly there is Glencora Palliser, a cousin of Alice's on her mother's side, who was pressured into marrying Plantagenet Palliser as opposed to the man she loved in 'The Small House at Allington' by her relatives to preserve her fortune. Taken together the novel goes to great lengths to examine the why's of society's rules. Trollope is by no means a radical, but he's no misogynist and his female characters here have more life in them then the men, something very few of his peers, male or female, can boast.

Alice starts the novel safely engaged to John Grey, but in her youth Alice had been in love with and engaged to her cousin George, but after some disgraceful "wild" behavior on his part she honorably withdrew. With Kate's help the two are friends again and at the start of the novel the three are set on touring the continent. Her relations on her mother's side are opposed to George Vavasor as a chaperon, but Alice hates to be told what to do and resents any interference in her personal life, whatever the motive. Her motivations can be selfish, but she is guided by her sense of justice and right as opposed to propriety. The reader will be sorely tested by her indecision and inability to make up her mind. The problem with Grey is his perfection. He is wealthy and interested in academic pursuits, whereas Alice believes in politics and the necessity of seeking public life to promote the greater good. Grey is in an ivory tower and Alice dreads boredom and doubts her ability to provide the companionship Grey deserves. Her cousin George on the other hand seeks a seat in Parliament and only lacks the money to get it, did I mention Alice has a small fortune at her disposal?

Kate is Alice's best friend as well as her cousin, but she pounces on any doubts Alice has towards Grey. It is her fondest desire to see the two people she loves best be joined in marriage. She willfully ignores her brother's less desirable traits, but sees Alice as a source of redemption to her beloved brother. She is older than Alice, but has no desire to marry. She has little money but is willing to put it all behind her brother's campaign. In order to save some effort on my part I'll gloss over Mrs. Greenow's social triumph as a widow - very Dickens with two suitors competing for her very rich hand - and the question if she will marry again for comfort or charity? It raised some good points about the hypocrisy of mourning rituals and a woman's purpose in life, but I see it as fluffy potatoes to Alice's steak and Lady Glencora's asparagus. Metaphor!

Lady Glencora is spoiled and impetuous, but in many ways she is the Alice that Trollope wouldn't have been allowed to celebrate. Married at the behest of her relatives, she still acknowledges feelings for her old suitor, pretty boy Burgo Fitzgerald. Her husband has political interests that demand immaculate social performance and he appears to have no time for her as a person, especially as she hasn't been able to produce an heir yet. She is racked with guilt and in a mad fever of rebellion against the tacit edicts of her husband and society triggers one of the most shocking scenes in the body of Victorian literature - clutch your pearls and have a seat please -



She gambles a napoleon in the gaming rooms at Baden! The wife of the heir of a Dukedom no less. You can see the apprehension of her cousin beside her.

Have you ever seen the like? I don't approve of graphic images in reviews, but I needed to impress on readers the severity of Lady Glencora's actions. She deals with her situation with equal amounts of humor and self-pity. Her dilemma of how to live with the man she is married to consumes a deal of energy in the novel. Her unhappiness is an example to Alice and potentially readers to relenting to the pressure of expectations and appropriateness as opposed to feeling.

The novel ends happily and with most of the conventions of society vindicated, but not after a great deal of questioning and challenges to the assumption that what is socially acceptable and what is right are one and the same. Proceed with caution, but I felt my time was well spent.

The Pallisers

Next: 'Phineas Finn'

But I'm finding that Trollope had such a relationship with his characters that they carry on in dozens of novels, if only to populate the drawing rooms of other plots. I'll have to read every Trollope novel if I want to properly follow....challenge accepted?