![\"Goblin](\"http:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/files\/2016\/01\/GoblinMarket_SarahSovereignPhotography4.jpg\")
<\/a>Goblin Market by Sarah Sovereign<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cIt was the best of times, it was the worst of times\u201d . . .<\/p>\n
In writing the lived experience of the ordinary Briton, the novelists of this period chronicled and represented the response to rapid change<\/a>, all the while contributing to the developing forms of the genre.<\/p>\n The nineteenth century marks the rise of the novel as the dominant form of literature in the Western world, and the novelists of Britain were at the forefront of this movement. The century might best be described as one of startling change and progress \u2013 economically, socially, politically, religiously \u2013 and yet there was great division in how this progress was experienced, between the rich and poor, or the \u201ctwo nations\u201d as Disraeli characterizes it in his novel Sybil, or the Two Nations<\/em> (1845). Progress, moreover, was not a singular, upward trajectory but was punctuated by moments of regression, for example, the downturn of the \u201chungry forties\u201d or the shock to Victorian sensibility brought about by Darwin\u2019s new science and the advent of biblical criticism.<\/p>\n What follows is a series of photographs created by former ENGL 333 student, Sarah Sovereign, with an artist statement describing the connection between novel and image.<\/p>\n Intrigued? Join me to meet these women (and many men) closeup in English 333 this semester.<\/p>\n Wilkie Collins\u2019s The Woman in White<\/a><\/p>\n Photo credit: Sarah Sovereign<\/p><\/div>\n Laura Fairlie finds herself as more of a puppet than a person throughout the story. Her character is unable to rise above fretful confidences to her sister and continual pining for Walter Hartright. <\/p>\n George Eliot\u2019s Adam Bede<\/a><\/p>\n Photo credit: Sarah Sovereign<\/p><\/div>\n The novel presents two characters who seem to perfectly juxtapose each other, but also reflect a lot of the expectations and projections of the society that surrounds them. We are continually presented with Dinah\u2019s selflessness and Hetty\u2019s narcissism from their introduction. The two photographs I\u2019ve created to reflect this contrast in the two characters is reflected in Dinah\u2019s black and white, plain appearance and the colour, growth and beauty inside her soul. For Hetty\u2019s image, despite her beauty, her inner self only reflects the mirror she often admires herself with. She possesses a truly tragic narcissism. She is cold, antisocial and egotistical and appears to see the world only as a reflection of how the world sees her.<\/p>\n Photo credit: Sarah Sovereign<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Thomas Hardy\u2019s The Mayor of Casterbridge<\/a><\/p>\n Photo credit: Sarah Sovereign<\/p><\/div>\n In many ways, the novel is a story about potential \u2013 the potential to be great \u2013 in a world wrought with flaws and tragic consequence. In the photograph attached, a woman stands wrapped in tulle, poised at the edge of fulfillment. She is a figure of potential, a being whose own story has not yet been told. She is the raw potential of Michael Henchard, not bowed down with alcoholism or pettiness, the even tempered, intelligent visage of Farfrae and the adaptable, swift figure of Elizabeth-Jane. Wrapped as she is, as a cocoon, she is poised to break free. However, can she do so when she is so tightly wrapped? The very same cocoon which fosters her and helps her grow may reveal itself as her prison when she reaches out for freedom. The ideas, beliefs and prejudices we wraparound ourselves can quickly hinder our journey to fulfillment. The figure is crouched, ready to leap up and out but she is so tightly wrapped that she may not be able to reach the form she is meant to and may wither and spoil in her cocoon.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nMy photograph attempts to depict this lack of feminine agency within the novel. A bride, in white, binds her hands in her own dress while ominous, winter-bare trees promise a fruitless marriage. Her downcast eyes suggest submission, her voice is silenced as the shadows engulf her. The dress used is a period wedding dress. The photo is presented in stark black and white to underline the dramatic lack of vitality and the desaturation of life\u2019s riches<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>