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Archived Group Reads 2022
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The Half Sisters: Week 1: Chapters I-X
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As our story opens, we meet sixteen-year-old Bianca who has travelled with her mother to England from Italy having spent all their savings, in search or someone. Her mother has taken ill, and Bianca is unable to speak English and is just about managing when the worst hits. The doctor, rather brusquely announces that her mother is not well in mind. But fate hasn’t completely abandoned them, for in the inn they are staying, is also Mr Simpson the proprietor of a circus who offers Bianca the part of a dumb girl in a play. Taking the offer up, Bianca joins. Initially she has few friends among the other employees, but her nature and story change that soon enough and she becomes comfortably established. Alongside we learn of her mother meeting and falling in love with a young Englishman Phillip Helmsby, with whom she lives, even though both families have opposed the wedding. She loves him with an intensity he does not seem to deserve, and when his father dies and he has to take over the business, she is soon abandoned while Helmsby marries his partner’s daughter, inherits a lot of money and settles comfortably with his ‘new’ family, unaware that he had a daughter.
Helmsley though is dead by the time Bianca and her mother have arrived in England, and his wife and daughter, fourteen-year-old Alice are living a comfortable life as far as means are concerned. But Alice finds herself with a mother who might love her but who certainly doesn’t understand her. Discouraging her interests in reading, she wishes her to engage in only pursuits that ‘become’ a lady in her position like mending and embroidery dubbing reading and learning as useless. Love has no place in life either, only duty to love the person one is married to (whether one actually does or not), and think of nothing but his comfort. A woman by herself has no value. Alice is introduced to the Haslitts who have a young son whom her mother thinks will make a suitable match. Young Haslitt seems far more ‘human’ than his mother in his thoughts, but eventually picks another as his bride. This is well for Alice for she didn’t really love him. Meanwhile a middle-aged man, Mr Bryant, well-travelled and well placed, is introduced to their society and Alice finds him interesting and takes to him immediately. He seems to enjoy her company and we learn that a proposal is to come, but on his part at least, the decision is based on her suitability rather than ‘love’ of any kind. What will this mean for Alice?
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Bianca: a child of sixteen when we meet her; brought up by her mother and uncle, and has never known her father; forced to grow up and take charge all of a sudden; starts work as an actress to support her mother but soon starts to enjoy it
Alice: a girl of fourteen when the story starts; interested in reading; wants to marry for love but is encouraged by her mother to think of only practical things and do her duty; marriage is her only course;
Mrs Helmsby: matronly; a practical thinker who believes that marriage is the only path a woman has unless she has means and can set up for herself with dogs, cats, and parrots; has little value for reading or learning; believes a woman has little worth or value on her own and her only job is to make her husband comfortable without bothering him or imposing on him in any way.
Bianca’s mother: passionate, intelligent, but her highly emotional nature perhaps leads her to love too intensely for her own good; so much so that she falls ill; this leads to Biance having a greater hold over her life than Alice but also far greater responsibility.
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The theme that stands out right from the start is women’s worth and role in society; employment is to be considered by only those with no means (like Bianca) while those like Alice have only one course available. From Mrs Helmsby’s point of view, women have little worth or value on their own, they are simply there to ensure men’s comfort. This means no wishes or interests or even opinions of their own; love is of no consequence, only duty. Reading and learning are of no consequence, only practical pursuits like organizing meals, mending, and embroidery
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Alice and Bianca’s lives take them on different paths: while Alice living in well-off circumstances must suppress all her interests and simply wait for a suitor to come claim her hand (This reminded me of something I read in Stacey Halls’ The Familiars where the main character considers poorer women freer than the rich for the latter must simply wait to be married while the former can at least choose their partners). She may have means but has little agency or freedom.
Bianca, meanwhile, is unfree in other ways, for she is forced by circumstances to enter employment early in life. But having these impositions means she is free in other circumstances taking at least some decisions on her own—for instance, to stay with the circus when she begins to like it rather than being persuaded to enter more ‘respectable’ employments.
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Men on the other hand are free to do anything with impunity, like Mr Helmsby taking up with Bianca’s mother when it suited him, and conveniently and without consequence abandoning her when it suited him again. He got ‘tired’ and that is ok.
Young Haslitt though pleasantly surprises for he seems to at least feel for the servants much more than his mother does who treats them as less than human.
Mr Bryant seems sensible and intelligent, and at least sees some value in Alice more than her mother does, but doesn’t seem to have much room for love as Alice does.
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Coincidence has a role to play in the plot; in Bianca’s story particularly since Mr Simpson just happens to be staying in the very inn that Bianca is at
I had never heard about Jewsbury until this group read, and started reading without any expectations. - And already I’m hooked. The circus setting reminds me of the circus in Dickens’ “Hard Times” (published 1854). Jewsbury’s description of characters and atmosphere are so much better. Dickens applied his sharp, satirical pen to harsh realities and delivered caricatures. Jewsbury does not romanticize it, either, but she humanizes.
The main characters, too, are described with an attitude of understanding which reminds me of E. Gaskell. We learn how they have come to be how they are, and Jewsbury leaves them vague and embryonic enough to create interest in their development.
And all that not without a nice dose of subtle humour. Here’s my favourite quote:
“and there was no doubt but that he would fall in love afterwards quite as much as was necessary”
I love that the author has chosen such an unusual path through life for Bianca (explained in the introduction section as having based Bianca on her friend Charlotte Cushman). Bianca's mother is a bit of a cliché Victorian idea of the passionate Italian taken to the extreme, and reminds me a bit of Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre, who was also an "exotic" type from a hot country! But Bianca, of course, has cool English blood as well so she's fine, and her name suggests purity--she remains untouched by the "immoral" behavior around her and even has a good influence. It's interesting that this future actress must have an unconventional, non-English past, and be forced by circumstances into the circus. Thus Jewsbury avoids any taint of bad taste.
As for Alice, she is a good portrait of the intelligent middle-class woman of a type I'm sure Jewsbury represented herself and knew well. Inevitably her story isn't nearly as interesting as Bianca's, but I'm looking forward to her marriage and lots of repression and troubles and her being either a baby machine or an invalid.
I would love to see a love triangle involving the young guy Bianca meets in the inn...I wonder if he'll reappear?
I too had never heard of this book but am reading it as it looks like a very interesting 'niche' read. So far, I have found the writing style, characterization and plotting to be as skilled as any of the more reknowned Victorian novelists writing in the 1840s.Lady C has provided sufficient insight on the book so far that I really am only posting to get notices of further discussion.
Brian wrote: "I too had never heard of this book but am reading it as it looks like a very interesting 'niche' read. So far, I have found the writing style, characterization and plotting to be as skilled as any ..."The only mild criticism I have so far would be that Alice's mother sounds like a "guidebook for young ladies". Jewsbury does not trust herself to show the woman's mindset through her actions, and instead makes her preach.
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The circus setting reminds me of the circus in Dickens’ “Hard Times..."
Me neither Sabagrey. It was only when the book was nominated that I first came across her. This group has also previously introduced me to George Moore whom I hadn't read before either.
Re Dickens and circuses, I'd very much recommend Nicholas Nickleby which has a very colourful and far more detailed portrait of a theatrical group which Nicholas becomes part of for a while
I enjoyed the introduction to the characters too; we've already seen a few years pass by in their lives, and now looking forward to see what their lives have in store and how they grow accordingly
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True Jane, I think the fact that it was Bianca the 'foreigner' who could acceptably be the actress character does stand out. And I agree with your assessment of Bianca's mother too--it does very much seem the stereotypical portrayal.
I am tempted to compare this book to Wilkie Collins' No Name: By Wilkie Collins - Illustrated where the characters, again two sisters (not step) who take very different paths--conventional and unconventional.
Alice is conventional in many ways, yet also not since she does pursue her interests (reading) and hate conventional chores like mending, so somewhat straining, if only mildly the mores of the day. Marriage won't be as she imagines it but whether it causes her to simply fall within the expected mould or question it more remains to be seen.
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I too was interested because of the 'feminist' angles in the exploration of the book's themes.
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One assumes her feelings (if she had any) have been subdued over the years and she tends to think pretty much on the same lines as she preaches. Perhaps we will get to see some backstory on her, let's see.
I started this late, but was also glad to read this unusual start with the circus - shock! ;) Glad we´ll be reading lesser known Victorian authors here too.Wonder how all the women, the mothers more clichéd, the daughters having their own will, will live their life in future. Looks as though the half sisters will be very different.
From Chapter IV (about prayer): " ... who can look back on his past life without trembling when he thinks on the mad and fatal petitions he has offered up, and reflects on what must have been his destiny had they been granted!" So true.
Welcome to the first week of our discussion of Geraldine Jewsbury’s The Half Sisters! The Half Sisters (1848) tells the story of two sisters, one legitimate, one illegitimate, who don’t know of each other’s existence. While one of them, Alice, leads a conventional life where ‘duty’ is stressed on over feelings or interests, and the value of women is defined in restrictive terms, the other, Bianca is forced by circumstances to grow up before her time and take up employment as an actress. Both find their freedoms curtailed in one way or another, but Bianca is able to retain more agency than Alice even though the latter may be living in better circumstances and wants for nothing.