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FASHION AND THE “INDIAN MUTINY”: THE “RED PAISLEY SHAWL” IN WILKIE COLLINS'S ARMADALE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2016

Suchitra Choudhury
Suchitra Choudhury*
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
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Extract

In the April issue of the Quarterly Review of 1863, H. L. Mansel, Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Oxford, disparaged “sensation” novels by comparing them to cheap fashion wear. “A commercial atmosphere floats around works of this class, redolent of the manufactory and the shop,” he taunted, “The public want novels and novels must be made – so many yards of printed stuff, sensation pattern, to be ready by the beginning of the season” (500). To scholars of Victorian literature, Mansel's analogy now serves as a commonplace for literary commercialism. Its other emphasis, which is on fashion, however, has received less attention. This paper examines Wilkie Collins's use of dress in Armadale (1864-66), as presented in the example of Lydia Gwilt's favoured attire, a “black gown and a red Paisley shawl”; and suggests that Collins uses the Paisley shawl to provide an indirect reference to the Indian Mutiny. In particular, the essay argues that as well as generating a humanised reading of Lydia's character, her shawl is a powerful metaphor to symbolize mid-century anxieties about class and empire.

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , December 2016 , pp. 817 - 832
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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