‘It Was Ugly’: Maternal Instinct on Stage at the Fin de Siècle

Abstract

This article explores how plays in the 1890s engaged with an aspect of evolutionary theory that had become particularly vexed—namely, the idea of gender essentialism: whether motherhood was the true calling for women; whether the bond with the infant was inevitable and instinctive; whether, as Shaw's teleological, progressive vision would have it, the woman's evolutionary role was to be the ‘life force’, selecting the superior mate for the continued improvement of the species. Considering this question can deepen our understanding of the interaction between science and literature in this period, and also usefully complicate the narrative often told about the figure of the New Woman in drama. Two plays of this period address particularly well the question of what is ‘natural’ maternal behaviour: James A. Herne's Margaret Fleming (first staged in 1890) and Elizabeth Robins and Florence Bell's Alan's Wife (first staged and published in 1893).