Charles Dickens’ collection of short stories in Sketches by Boz explore a variety of different ideas, one of which being an affectedness in people who engage specific facets of Victorian social life. “The First of May,” “The Dance Academy,” and “Horatio Sparkins,” along with many other sketches in this collection all explore differing aspects of Victorian culture and the pretenses that the people engaging in them constructed. One striking example of such a story is that of “Miss Evans and the Eagle.” In “Miss Evans and the Eagle,” Dickens cultivates two distinctive sets of characters, the women, who include Miss Jemima Evans along with Miss Jemima Evans’ friend, and the men, who are Mr. Wilkins and Miss Jemima Evans’ friend’s male companion.
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On the way to The Eagle, the men attempt to persuade the women to enter a bar and try some shrub to which the women protest with “great blushing and giggling, and hiding of faces in elaborate pocket-handkerchiefs” (269). Here, the women’s desires are seemingly to stay out of the pub and refrain from drinking. They appear to be sincere in their declination to accompany their male companions into the pub, however, after they have finally been persuaded into drinking the shrub their true feelings are revealed when the women are “easily prevailed upon to taste [the shrub] again” (269). Through this passage, Dickens subtly characterizes these women by having them contradict themselves between how they act before situations and how they behave after giving into said situation. This contradiction reveals that the women were just putting up the pretense that they did not want to engage in the activity of consuming alcohol or entering the pub. The true desire of these women was to participate in the activities that they were so fervently …show more content…
Initially the women are seen as ignoring the attention the two strangers are paying them and Miss Jemima Evans even chastises Mr. Wilkins for growing angry about the entire situation by “threatening to faint away on the spot if he said another word” (270). This initial reaction of Miss Evans and her friend implies that they do not see the attention of the strangers as something to be concerned with or excited about. Miss Evans tells Mr. Wilkins to ignore the men because she seemingly views the attention as unwanted by herself and meaningless. However, the women once again contradict this protesting against the attention of the strange men when they “[grow] lively and talkative” over time in reaction to the increasing attention paid to them by the strangers (271). Here, Dickens subtly gives away the women’s true feelings that they have once again been concealing behind a façade of protestations. In becoming more “lively” and excited as the attention of the strange men increases, the two women contradict the perception of indifference they had cultivated through pretending to ignore the strangers’ attention and chastising their male companions for being aggravated by it, illustrating that the women in these courtships had to construct pretenses to mask their true
On the way to The Eagle, the men attempt to persuade the women to enter a bar and try some shrub to which the women protest with “great blushing and giggling, and hiding of faces in elaborate pocket-handkerchiefs” (269). Here, the women’s desires are seemingly to stay out of the pub and refrain from drinking. They appear to be sincere in their declination to accompany their male companions into the pub, however, after they have finally been persuaded into drinking the shrub their true feelings are revealed when the women are “easily prevailed upon to taste [the shrub] again” (269). Through this passage, Dickens subtly characterizes these women by having them contradict themselves between how they act before situations and how they behave after giving into said situation. This contradiction reveals that the women were just putting up the pretense that they did not want to engage in the activity of consuming alcohol or entering the pub. The true desire of these women was to participate in the activities that they were so fervently …show more content…
Initially the women are seen as ignoring the attention the two strangers are paying them and Miss Jemima Evans even chastises Mr. Wilkins for growing angry about the entire situation by “threatening to faint away on the spot if he said another word” (270). This initial reaction of Miss Evans and her friend implies that they do not see the attention of the strangers as something to be concerned with or excited about. Miss Evans tells Mr. Wilkins to ignore the men because she seemingly views the attention as unwanted by herself and meaningless. However, the women once again contradict this protesting against the attention of the strange men when they “[grow] lively and talkative” over time in reaction to the increasing attention paid to them by the strangers (271). Here, Dickens subtly gives away the women’s true feelings that they have once again been concealing behind a façade of protestations. In becoming more “lively” and excited as the attention of the strange men increases, the two women contradict the perception of indifference they had cultivated through pretending to ignore the strangers’ attention and chastising their male companions for being aggravated by it, illustrating that the women in these courtships had to construct pretenses to mask their true