The Hero. A valorous cavalier, a noble social activist, a virtuous clergyman, a worthy gentleman. These are the archetypal heroes of Western Culture. Curiously enough, these characters seldom if ever take their accustomed, comfortable place in the body of Victorian Literature. Often in their place at the center of a work is what would appear to be an inappropriate substitute. An unsure precentor, an emotional woman, a naive retired businessman, a disillusioned knight, even a little girl. And yet, these characters somehow resonate as heroic in ways that the "common" hero cannot, and often much more strongly.

"That they even get up in the morning is something..." — Bertolt Brecht

The Victorian novel characterized employs main characters who turn out to be particularly irregular heroes. The fact that so many heroes are not the classical hero type is remarkable in itself. Instead, their innate, unique personal qualities are the source of their heroic natures. The heroes of all three novels are never completely "masculine" or "feminine," either in the biological or stereotypically figurative sense. In addition to "un-heroes," the novels often have a character who does superficially exemplify the hero, but turns out to be just as fallible and vulnerable as anyone. Finally, each of the three very different genres employed add greatly to the delineation of the nature of Victorian heroism.

In The Warden, Anthony Trollope tells Septimus Harding's story in a very simple prosaic style, spending little to no time with such devices as imagery and symbolism, and even leaving out extraneous, unnecessary facts. Instead, he concentrates nearly the whole of his effort in making the environment and the characters more realistic, giving them more gray areas. The ending is no fairy tale, and none of the major forces are affected by even the most ambitious actions. Eleanor Harding is not particularly beautiful in a classical sense, but Trollope certainly gives her a familiar type of beauty which we can recognize in real people every day:

She had no startling brilliancy of beauty, no pearly whiteness, no radiant carnation: she had not the majestic contour that rivets attention, demands instant wonder, and then disappoints by the coldness of its charms. You might pass Eleanor Harding in the street without notice, but you could hardly pass an evening with her and not lose your heart. (95)

In the same way, Trollope makes it clear that Archdeacon Grantly, though he antagonizes his father-in-law through much of the novel, is "a gentleman and a man of conscience...a man doing more good than harm."

John Bold, "the Barchester Reformer," has all the trappings of a classical hero. He is a young man, an intelligent surgeon, a social and political activist; he is in love with Eleanor Harding. He has really great name, and yet it turns out that he is not the hero. On the contrary, his attempted reformation of Hiram's Hospital causes a great deal of grief and trouble for the warden. In addition, he occasionally acts somewhat unmannerly, he unnecessarily involves the newspaper, his actions inspire greed in the residents of the Hospital, and he eventually abandons his cause. Though his motivation is noble and his portrait is noble, his actions can hardly be said to be so. In truth, Bold becomes a foil for the real hero of the novel, the quiet, gentle, submissive warden and precentor, Harding.

Septimus Harding hardly comes across as the striking hero figure in his description in the first chapter:

Mr. Harding is a small man, now verging on sixty years, but bearing few of the signs of age; his hair is rather grizzled, though not grey, his eye is very mild, but clear and bright, though the double glasses which are held swinging from his hand, unless when fixed upon his nose, show that time has told upon his sight: his hands are delicately white, and both hands and feet are small; he always wears a black frock coat, black knee-breeches, and black gaiters, and somewhat scandalizes some of his more hyperclerical brethren by a black neck-handkerchief.

Mr. Harding's warmest admirers cannot say that he was ever an industrious man; the circumstances of his life have not called on him to be so; and yet he can hardly be called an idler. Since his appointment to his precentorship, he has published, with all possible additions of vellum, typography, and gilding, a collection of our ancient church music, with some correct dissertations on Purcell, Crotch, and Nares. He has greatly improved the choir of Barchester, which, under his dominion, now rivals that of any cathedral in England. He has taken something more than his fair share in the cathedral services, and has played the violoncello daily to such audiences as he could collect, or, faute de mieux, to no audience at all. (5-6)

Harding's physical characterizations, such as his stature, his "delicately white" hands, and his small hands and feet, commonly described women. Trollope refers to Harding as having "womanly affection," and he is prone to tears. He is easily swayed by, and at times is even somewhat afraid to confront his own his son-in-law. Yet even though the warden does not correspond to the active, energetic man as typified by contemporary theories, he clearly is not lazy. His state is such that he simply has never been required to attempt any remarkable feats in his lifetime. Like most people in the Victorian period, he never had to kill his adulterous murderer uncle or survive on a deserted island for 20 years.

Despite all of this, Harding has personal qualities which allow him to be heroic. His peculiar sense of discernment and taste, embodied in his "scandalous" black neck-handkerchief and evinced by his habitual imaginary cello-playing, are character quirks through which he is able to derive, not strength, but a clear sense of self. Harding is a true "Victorian Gentleman." He is gentle, kind, and sympathetic, with no desire to "live on other people's toil" in accordance with the views held by Ruskin (See Cody, "The Gentleman"), and is the very personification of the tenets of gentleman-hood set out by John Henry Cardinal Newman.

At the climax of the novel, Harding's confrontation with Archdeacon Grantly (Ch. 18, "The Warden is Very Obstinate"), after a novel's worth of wavering, the warden pulls on all of his resources, and proves himself finally to be heroic. He resigns his wardenship, partly out of his weakness in being unable to bear the attack on his character made by the Jupiter, but mainly because he does not feel morally justified in receiving the warden's �800 stipend. Throughout the entire argument, Trollope makes it clear that the warden is not strong. He "[moves] uneasily from one foot to the other... [knowing] his own weakness,...how prone he was to be led." He hangs his head, speaks weakly, and even half attempts to sneak out unnoticed. And yet, in the end, he holds to his moral convictions and his conscience, and resigns. This final act is what merits his declaration as "Trollope's grandest gentleman" by Hugh Walpole. We see The Warden as an exciting and fulfilling novel, simply because Septimus Harding held to his morals.

In chapter 11, "Iphigenia," Trollope makes another statement about what being a hero requires. In this episode, Eleanor Harding endeavors to convince her paramour, John Bold, to drop his suit against Hiram's Hospital, and thus relieve her father of the suffering he has undergone. In order to be assured that Bold will drop the suit because of the righteousness of that action rather than in exchange for the marriage proposal he was sure to give, she plans to expel her love for him:

There must be no bargain in the matter. To his mercy, his generosity, she could appeal; but as a pure maiden, hitherto even unsolicited, she could not appeal to his love, nor under such circumstances could she allow him to do so...She could not be understood as saying, "Make my father free, and I am the reward." There would be no sacrifice in that � (90)

Like Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon who sacrificed her life so her father could sail against Troy, and Jephthah's daughter, who submits to being sacrificed that her father might keep his honor, Eleanor wants to give up all she has for her father's sake. Her ideals are truly heroic. What ends up transpiring, as we know, is that he drops the action and they are affianced anyway. Trollope makes it clear that Bold does not take one in exchange for the other, and the originally intended heroic sacrifice turns out to be unnecessary. Eleanor is but a "mortal angel" (94) after all, and the heroism in Trollope's world requires only pure intention, not complete sacrifice. [Readers might also wish to look at Elizabeth Lee's discussions of similar representations of women in Victorian art. GPL]

Other Sections of "The Atypical Hero in the Victorian Novel"


Victorian
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Authors
 Aurora Leigh

The
Warden
The Alice Books

Last modified 30 November 2004