Damsel In Distress

      The old damsel in distress trope has served literature well for centuries. The pictures above illustrate the woman tied up just waiting for anyone to just come along.  The helpless maiden trapped by circumstance and a cage, unable to free herself because her fair skin and delicate limbs are too fragile for the job. The stock character knight slays the dragon and the damsel is free to repay him by marrying him and giving him little knights. It is still going strong today in high grossing film, video games, and any medium that needs basic plot structure. The tale usually ends happily ever after with the pair being together forever. However, in the perverse and strange world of British literature this is not always the case. Woman’s issues have been a major theme throughout the semester: feminism, woman’s autonomy, and sexuality have all had major discussion time in class. The damsel is a reflection of all the negative things discussed. Some out right rejected the theme, Elizabeth Barrett Browning as a child had “an unwilling identification with the damsel.”(Mermin, 1986)  The damsel in distress has been seen in many forms in the Gothic, Romantic and Victorian works. However, these stories hardly ever end up happily ever after. These stories see the roles switched up, with the knight becoming the dragon and the damsel never truly being saved. Lets explore this corrupt trope where romance and love are the only things being slain. Follow this link to better understand the concept of the damsel in distress trope and its many forms                
    
          Briefly lets state what makes a character a damsel in distress. The only qualifiers are that a character must be completely helpless in the face of some kind of obstacle, usually a person, and that only the intervention of a “hero” may set her free. The main theme behind a damsel is that she suffers from some kind of weakness that can come in any form. The Damsel is also characterized by her beauty and innocence, and typically is clueless of the situation around her. Gothic literature is packed with these type of characters and use this device for many of its dark tales. Of course there is no better example of a classic Gothic damsel in distress than Matilda from The Castle of Otranto. Her vulnerability stems from the men in her life, that of her father and her beloved Theodore. Classically we would see these men protecting and saving her. Sadly this is not the case, as it is Matilda who sets Theodore free from the dungeon. The villain, her father, the one she loves ends up giving her the knife and ending her poor pious life. This leaves the beautiful Matilda without her would be hero Theodore, and certainly she never gets her chance at her happily ever after. The presence of men in Matilda’s life was her downfall. The next damsel suffers from the lack of one.

         Martha Ray from Wordsworth’s The Thorn is a damsel who never sees her hero return to save her. Martha Ray’s cage is that of isolation as she exists entirely on a sullen shore shrieking in pain towards the sea. There she waits on Stephen Hill endlessly waiting for her knight to return. Her happily ever after was so close to coming to fruition, as they had planned a wedding day and a child was going to complete their family. In true damsel fashion, she is trapped in circumstance as she now has no provider and no lover to save her. So with no hero to complete her story she has no other option than endlessly cry, “O misery!” The same misery is felt by Tennyson’s Mariana, who rather be dead than than have to wait any longer for her hero to return. Her cage is the dusty, lifeless cabin that sits quietly in the robust sounds of nature. The two women would make one sad duo. But Perhaps Martha Ray was even once beautiful as any good damsel should be; her pain has twisted her and turned her into a “wretched woman” and she reflects the ugly thorn that now can only inspire ghost stories. She is powerless in changing her own life, by the rules of the thematic device, and is bound to forever wait for a hero that will never come.

    Martha Ray’s man is a simple solution to all of her troubles, but in Porphyria’s Lover the man is exactly the trouble. Porphyria is a damsel that, much like Martha Ray and Matilda, thought that she had found her hero. Porphyria fits the perfect description of a damsel in distress as she is a victim of her beauty and her lack of understanding of her situation. The most vivid description in Browning’s poem is that of the lovely and delicate Porphyria. Her only crime was worshiping her hero, the harbinger of her happy destiny as a damsel. Her beauty is perfectly represented by her long, blonde hair. Her hero/villain uses a strand of this hair to strangle her to death. A symbol that her beauty and simplicity is what truly got her killed. There is another damsel that lacks autonomy because her long beautiful hair: Rapunzel. This untainted example of a damsel in distress also suffers because of her beauty. She is kept in a tower due to the fact the witch needed a way to get up and down her tower. Her hair represents her subjugation, and it is not until her prince comes to take her virginity and her hair “as fine as spun gold,” does she get her chance at her happy ending. Porphyria was compelled to do the same, but her prince was not interested releasing her from the cabin. Hair is a powerful symbol not just for beauty but also the traditionally passive role of womanhood.  In Japanese literature there is a theme of woman dramatically cutting of their hair and breaking away from a life that they had little control over. Long hair in japan represented status and prestige; whenever a women needed to escape a villain or just escape the constraints of her life all she had to do was cut her hair short. This symbolized  a new beginning for the woman, allowing her to lead a new life set by her own rules. For more information on this follow this link.  However, remember that damsels in distress lack the ability to guide their own destinies. Thus Porphyria had no choice of short hair and had to be burdened with her long beautiful hair (her murder weapon) locked in her tower (the cabin). We will see beautiful blonde hair used again in the next story as well.

"Not today, murderer!"

    The next damsel comes from Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market. Here we see two women that both have the potential to fulfill the role but only one untimely fills the position. In the beginning, we see that the two are represented as mirroring each other by the lines “like two blossoms on one stem, like two flakes of new-fallen’n snow.”(812) Although only Lizzie possess the weakness that qualifies her as a damsel in distress. Her weakness is in her being seduced, and eating from the goblin men. She pays for the fruit with a lock of her hair, which is a symbol of her womanhood and thus her lack of autonomy. Her fate is sealed as shown by the memory of Jeanie, who died from eating the fruit. Without her sister to save her, she would have been met the same fate as Jeanie. This story does have a happy ending, where the old maids recant the tale to their children. This is hardly a “corrupted” version of the damsel in distress, but instead plays out more like the classic examples. The only difference is the fact that her hero is her sister, combating the strict gender roles that guide the trope. But what of the little mentioned Jeanie? She had no hero to call her own. Perhaps she met a similar fate as Martha Ray, suffering alone as a victim of not having anybody to rush in and save her. The final damsel waited as these did, but met her fate in a quite different way.
 

                                    This image shows the price Lizzie must pay for their fruits.                                                                   Notice the crow grasping her hair

                 The Lady of Shallot is quite a departure from the damsels from before. She of course lacks autonomy as she is confined to her loom, however she has knowledge of her fate. The only weakness the Lady of Shallot possess is that she is a damsel in distress. She knows that she will never escape her cage unless someone comes to save her. This is the curse that she mentions is upon her. As soon as she see the “Tirra Lirra” singing Lancelot, she understands that this goof is her knight. However she does not love him, she only desires to go to Camelot. She rejects him; instead of hopping on his stead, she takes the boat to Camelot alone. This choice kills her because she is not suppose to have a “choice.” In rejecting her hero she also rejected her role as a damsel and this could have no other outcome but her death. She got to be in Camelot but she could never make it there alive. In one last act of defiance she writes her name on her boat for everyone to see that she is her own person, she is the Lady of Shallot. You go girl!

                          She may be dead, but she did it of her own free will

          While the trope has enjoyed many version in literature over the years we can see that not every princess gets her dream life. Matilda, Martha Ray, Jeanie, and the Lady of Shallot all met a devastating fate as a result of simply being a damsel in distress. The weakness of trust, lack of a hero, beauty, ignorance, and seduction coupled with being unable to steer their own lives, left these women in their own cages. The corrupted version of this device is truly impossible, perverse and strange.