Creating Character: Theories of Nature and Nurture in Victorian Sensation Fiction by Helena Ifill

Abstract

Reviewed by: Creating Character: Theories of Nature and Nurture in Victorian Sensation Fiction by Helena Ifill Ashton Foley-Schramm (bio) Helena Ifill, Creating Character: Theories of Nature and Nurture in Victorian Sensation Fiction (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018), pp. viii + 229, £75/ $110 hardcover. Helena Ifill's Creating Character: Theories of Nature and Nurture in Victorian Sensation Fiction analyzes the works of popular sensation authors Wilkie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Braddon in relation to contemporaneous ideals of identity formation. Focusing on texts from the 1860s and 1870s, Ifill demonstrates how these authors employed an evolving understanding of determinism to highlight the complexity of character formation in sensation fiction, a previously underappreciated aspect of these novels. Unlike realist fiction, or "novels of character," sensation novels were often viewed as "novels of circumstance" (6). Such texts seemingly value plot above providing characters with "psychologically nuanced personalities embedded in detailed social networks" (6). However, Ifill argues that Collins and Braddon carefully crafted their characters by employing determinism, or the belief that personality and character are formed (to varying extents) through forces outside the individual. Furthermore, this deterministic approach to character overlaps with ideas about religion, morality, free will, self-control, criminality, education, insanity, and heredity in the works Ifill analyzes. Creating Character is organized thematically, and part one (comprising the first two chapters) grapples with issues of self-control, will-power, and monomania. Ifill draws on medical discourse about monomania and moral insanity, including sources from several periodicals, to analyze Basil's (1852) titular character and Robert Mannion. Although the novel never directly classifies Basil or Mannion in these terms, Ifill argues that Collins's readers would recognize delusional symptoms as clear markers of these diseases. This chapter questions the extent to which Mannion is responsible for his actions because his type of mental deterioration was generally understood as manifesting in individuals with a hereditary "constitutional predisposition" to insanity (41). Similarly, in No Name (1862), Magdalen Vanstone suffers from monomania. However, Collins depicts her inner moral struggle through her outward actions, showing how Magdalen works to overpower her drive for revenge through will-power and self-control. Ifill draws on Sally Shuttleworth's observation that many women in sensation fiction "suffer from insurmountable hereditary insanity" to highlight the uniqueness of Magdalen's situation (59). She suffers from a "'masculine' form of insanity" and is able to "regain the ranks of respectability" by overcoming it (59–60). Both Basil and No Name, Ifill argues, show Collins raising "the same ethical and social dilemmas concerning personal responsibility and the assignment of blame as those debated in [End Page 207] medical and popular works on the subject" while depicting characters that demonstrate an individual need for self-control and will-power (63). John Marchmont's Legacy (1863), rather than focusing on an inciting incident that causes monomania, explores how daily external factors test a person's internal character. In this novel, Braddon also engages directly with ideals of womanhood and femininity, showing the consequences for an individual woman who does not fit these aspirations. Ifill reads Olivia Marchmont as a character stuck between contradictions. Despite these complications, Ifill agrees with other scholars who argue that Braddon ultimately upholds patriarchal ideals because depicting Olivia as insane minimizes her threat to the patriarchy. As Ifill points out, Olivia's repression of her natural instincts leads to her mental breakdown. Mary Marchmont and Belinda Lawford, identified as the two heroines of the novel, offer alternative models of ideal women. Both Mary and Belinda use their womanliness and femininity to serve those around them. By interpreting the three women through the lens of Herbert Spencer's social Darwinism, Ifill shows how their characterization is influenced by theories of heredity and how upbringing and daily life influence procreation. Part two focuses on heredity and degeneration as seen in Braddon's The Lady Lisle (1862) and Collins's Armadale (1866). Braddon and Collins both examine education and upbringing as ways of developing or negating inherited traits. Ifill points out that Braddon's careful selection of ideas in The Lady Lisle leads to "a class-inflected engagement with several issues that relate to character formation, including the perceived degeneration of the upper and...