The Woman of Colour: A Tale

“An unportioned girl of my colour, can never be a dangerous object; but in the habits of intimacy which our present situation naturally produces, confidence usurps the place of common-place politeness, and I insensibly talk to Honeywood as I should do to a brother.”

Olivia continues to think about her own social presence as a woman of color, specifically in the context of her relationships with men. This quote also highlights the way relationships and interactions change according to geographical location: In this case, because Olivia and Charles are in the middle of a long ocean voyage, they are able to develop a unique kind of platonic emotional intimacy.

“Mrs. Milbanke, I do not wish to be uncharitable or harsh in my judgement; but did we not every day see matches made in Jamaica, for which gold was the only inducement?”

Here, Olivia openly acknowledges that problems can arise for couples whose marriages exist primarily as financial partnerships and foreshadows potential issues she and Augustus may experience if they end up marrying. This quote also points out that life for wealthy West Indians is not that different from life for wealthy Brits.

“‘Am I then so very fastidious a being, Mr. Honeywood? Believe me, I look not for perfection in an imperfect state; my own faults are great and manifold, and, I trust, I can behold those of my fellow-mortals with charity, and make allowances in proportion!’”

Olivia refuses to let Charles place her on a pedestal, thus demonstrating to the reader how she conceptualizes herself, her actions, her moral framework, and her relationships with others.

“I am not likely to lose my senses and fall in love, as it is called; but I freely confess to you, my dear Mrs. Milbanke, that I think my cousin is a singularly prepossessing young man,—most probably his opinion of your Olivia is quite the reverse.”

After meeting Augustus for the first time, Olivia emphasizes that she is a fundamentally rational, realistic, mature person not likely to be driven by emotions, but she simultaneously admits that Augustus has an unexpected effect on her, one that has upended her typically logic-driven approach to social interaction. She also reveals that she does not find herself attractive and does not believe others could possibly think of her as such, which is notable, given that she is otherwise depicted as a confident, self-possessed woman.

“[There] is such a splenetic tendency in every word she utters, such a look of design, accompanied with so much self-importance, and so large a portion of conceit and affectation, with such frivolous conversation, that I seem hardly to consider her as a rational being.”

In this early description of Letitia Merton, Olivia focuses on what she dislikes most about her subject: her inauthenticity, shallowness, and silliness. She contrasts these to her own more desirable tendency toward rationality and reason. Her use of the word “design” foreshadows the revelation of Letitia’s intricate revenge plot later in the novel.

“[How] artless is this little fellow! his lips utter the sentiments of his heart—and those alone!—My love, you will soon lose that beautiful character of your mind, ingenuousness; for it is a sad and melancholy truth, that as we grow older, we grow acquainted with dissimulation.”

Here, Olivia is speaking about and to Letitia and George’s three-year-old son, who has just claimed that Dido’s black skin has dirtied his own white skin. Before she explains to him that darker skin is not dirty, Olivia expresses appreciation for the child’s honesty and authenticity, which seems to be a subtle barb aimed at Letitia, whose manipulative personality and dedication to “dissimulation” Olivia has noted and will continue to note unfavorably.

“[I] could not help surveying her with the utmost curiosity, as a species of animal which had never before fallen under my notice. She was dancing with a boy, who aped the man, as much as his partner threw herself back into the girl.”

As Olivia watches the elderly Miss Singleton dance with a teenage boy, the text uses the same kind of dehumanizing language that white English characters have used to discuss Olivia; this suggests that British high society is just as strange to Olivia as Olivia is to members of British high society. It also emphasizes that social identities and relationships are highly changeable and often unpredictable, as both Miss Singleton and her young partner “perform” ages different from their own.

“Good heavens! my dearest friend, how can I resolve to give him my hand, if he still retains this constrained manner?—A depression seems to hang on his spirits, melancholy clouds his brow.”

In this description of Augustus, Olivia highlights the character traits that most align him with Gothic literary heroes: his reserve, his sadness, and his often-unreadable moods. Importantly, these are some of the character traits that seem to make Augustus most attractive to Olivia.

“Oh, Mr. Merton, think how much misery will be spared to us, if you refuse the proffered terms. You have the power of doing so. A tame acquiescence to the will of my father, will secure you the enjoyment of his fortune, certainly; but can it secure your happiness, if it is to unite you to an object, for whom you feel no regard?”

Olivia makes an emotional appeal to Augustus to refuse the marriage if he sees her only as an object that will bring him immense wealth. The emphases in this passage call attention to how Olivia perceives power, privilege, and agency in the gendered marriage arena.

“My mind seems hampered, and I think I shall breathe more freely in the pure air, and amongst the sylvan scenes of the country.”

As Olivia begins to put together her utopian vision of rural life with Augustus, she imagines what will be one of the greatest benefits of leaving London: mental freedom. This adds to her belief that London is marred by an overabundance of spectacles and material wealth, to such an extent that it affects its residents’ inner lives as well as their physical ones.

“[Although] here she be ‘blacky,’ and ‘wowsky,’ and ‘squabby,’ and ‘gushy,’ and all because she has a skin not quite so white,—God Almighty help them all—me don’t mind that though, do we, my dear Missee?”

In this passage, Dido expresses her excitement about leaving London by citing the racist treatment she has received at the hands of wealthy Londoners. In the same way that Olivia idealizes rural life, Dido believes she will be respected, valued, and important there in a way that London’s sociopolitical and economic structures prevent her from being.

“[By] showing how much I am disgusted with Miss Blacky, I draw out sensitive Augustus, and put him on his metal; as I slight, he is doubly diligent—he will compassionate this ‘interesting mulatto’—he will marry her to rescue her from the ‘tyrannic fangs’ of Mrs. George Merton!”

In her letter to Almenia Danby, Letitia reveals her intention to manipulate Augustus by her own explicit display of racism, understanding that this will draw out his compassion for Olivia—not as a person, however. Notably, Olivia is not referred to by name here. She is merely a person of color and a pawn, an object of extreme yet casual racism that brings out a response of compassionate, but not particularly effective, anti-racism.

“Better had she perished on the ocean, better had the tempestuous billows overwhelmed her, ere she set her foot on this inhospitable shore!”

In Augustus’s letter to Lionel Monkland, he gives voice to the turbulent emotions he feels about Olivia’s situation. He also hints at the fact that England is not the liberal, progressive place both Olivia and her father hope it would be. Additionally, his polished, poetic writing style is very distinct from Letitia’s, amplifying the differences in their personalities.

“The insipid routine of a town life, where a man has no regular avocation, and is too far plunged into the ceremonials of the world to spend his time as he chooses, must surely be very irksome.”

After she and Augustus move to New Park, Olivia reflects on why Augustus prefers rural life to city life. Her focus on the “ceremonials” she witnesses during her stay in London reminds the reader of the novel’s sharp distinction between the urban landscape and the rural one.

“[Lady Ingot] felicitated herself on the pleasure she anticipated in my acquaintance; assured me, that she very rarely met with any thing like polished or cultivated society in the uncivilized part of the world, in which Sir Marmaduke had fixed the Pagoda.”

In this description of Lady Ingot, Olivia points to her apparent reversal of values regarding rural England as “uncivilized” relative to (presumably) India and by extension other parts of the Global South. However, Lady Ingot is not so much opposing the complementary 19th-century view that the non-Christian peoples of color and places of the Global South were inherently uncivilized, as she is putting on an air of cosmopolitanism that is entirely affected.

“[We] have had an opportunity of seeing the graceful languishment of Circassian loveliness, unrivalled for voluptuous and attractive elegance; and these degenerate imitators of that luxurious ease, which they have never felt, are the greatest threat to us, who see the distorted barbarism of the likeness!”

Here, Lady Ingot directly addresses the differences she believes exist between how people in India position their bodies and how English people position theirs. She implies that the former style is simply superior, both aesthetically and morally, to the latter. In an instance of remarkable verbal irony, she references “degenerate imitators” of Eastern traditions without offering any awareness of the fact that she and her entire family consistently imitate traditions that do not belong to them. Her muddling of geography—“Circassian” refers to the people of Black Sea region of Caucasia, now a part of Russia—underscores the ignorance she seeks to pass off as sophistication.

“[With] the assured ease of a girl used to the world, the lady stared at me with an expression of unbridled curiosity, which made my cheeks glow.”

Olivia describes the moment when Augustus introduces her to Miss Danby. She focuses on Miss Danby’s lack of constraint, directly contrasting it to Augustus’s reserved manner, and connects her boldness to familiarity with “the world.” The phrase “the world” suggests that Miss Danby is fundamentally secular, focused primarily on material concerns, and thus does not embody the kind of moral femininity that Olivia and some other women throughout the novel do.

“She has frequently been my companion in my morning’s ramble; and she is so sweetly grateful for my notice, that your Olivia could almost fancy herself a superior, instead of an inferior being, notwithstanding her colour! But thank God, I am loved not feared by this child of nature.”

While recounting the beginning of her friendship with Caroline Lumley, Olivia describes herself as inferior to Caroline despite the fact that she is much wealthier and thus of a higher social class. Olivia is aware that being biracial means that most English people will always see her as less worthy of respect than Caroline, no matter how much money she has. However, she distinguishes Caroline from the mass of English people by pointing out that Caroline does not judge her based on her race.

“‘Oh, what a morning of Ossian!’ said Miss Singleton, throwing out her hands with an air truly theatrical, and making a truly Arcadian appearance, in a gipsy hat, tied with a pink handkerchief, and ornamented by a wreath of half-blown roses.”

While walking with Frederic Ingot around New Park, the elderly Miss Singleton is the comical embodiment of a faux naturalism, both in viewing nature through the lens of a mishmash of culture—Ossian, based on legendary Irish bard Oisín, is the narrator of an 18th-century epic song cycle by Scottish poet James Macpherson, while “Arcadian” refers to ancient pastoral landscapes associated the Greek region of Arcadia—and in decking herself out in motley naturalistic-seeming attire.

“[Though] he does all in his power to give Mr. Ingot’s mind a right turn, and to form it to laudable pursuits, and to plant into it just notion, yet his labours are daily subverted by the false and ridiculous theories and systems of his refined mother, and the overweening and worldly maxims of Sir Marmaduke.”

Here, Olivia describes Mr. Waller’s attempts to educate Frederic Ingot and explains why this has been so difficult for Waller to achieve. This is a reminder that Olivia cannot abide inauthenticity: The Ingots pretend to care about Frederic’s education as part of their social performance, but behind the scenes, they interfere with and undermine Waller’s efforts, ultimately keeping their son shallow and oblivious.

“To weeks of agony of despair, is now succeeded the calm stupor of settled grief;—the short, the transient taste of perfect happiness which I lately enjoyed, has rendered the transition doubly acute.”

Here, Olivia describes the emotional devastation that follows the collapse of her marriage. The odd sentence structure, more convoluted and difficult to follow than Olivia’s writing typically is, reflects her disordered mental state and the fragmented quality of her life during this period.

“I resolved to walk across the park, and to visit my innocent rival; perhaps there was something of romance in this resolution, but I had determined on it; I longed to behold this (to me) most interesting of females.”

In this passage, Olivia reflects on her plan to visit Angelina. Describing the imagined encounter as “something of romance” suggests that Olivia is self-consciously idealizing her decision—and is fully aware that she is doing so—which gives this moment a meta-narrative quality. Additionally, her curiosity about the mysterious Angelina, “most interesting of females,” makes Olivia seem like an observer in the same mold as the reader. She “reads” herself as a tragic romance heroine and ultimately wants to “read” Angelina to determine what kind of character she is.

“Dido has no small portion of superstition, and has laid up carefully all those signs and omens which she has gleaned from the English servants while in Devonshire.”

Here, Olivia describes a kind of cultural mixing between the religious beliefs Dido brings with her from Jamaica and those she encounters while interacting with white English servants. Interestingly, however, Olivia also sees a number of things as omens throughout the novel, including the storm at sea and the storm during her wedding. While it is unclear how seriously she takes Dido’s belief in these “signs and omens,” Olivia’s own reading of the world around her is not very different from Dido’s.