Page-by-Page

Act 1, Scene 1

• “green electric lamp” – A lamp most likely converted from gas/oil (link)

• An example of a Victorian lampshade, circa early 20th cent. (link)

• “no rusty tool to snuff it out” – candles at the time were made of animal fat and required a candle snuffer to extinguish it. (link)

• “wet nurse” = n., a woman who cares for and breastfeeds children not her own (Merriam-Webster)

• “pram” = a baby carriage
  • Furniture specifically for children grew in this century as children became the center of their parents’ lives. London’s Encyclopedia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture published in 1833 “had a short section for children’s furniture, most of it miniaturized versions of adult objects. By the end of the century every shop and every catalogue had a full range of furniture designed specially for children’s needs.”
  • At the time, infancy was the most likely time of death, rather than in old age. By 1899, “more than 16% of all children did not survive to their first birthday. This improvement in the child-mortality rate, together with the increasingly child-centered world they inhabited, made parents ever more solicitous of the health of their children.” (2004 Flounders, p.77-8)

• “operating theater” = n., a room in a hospital where operations are done

• Dr. Givings’ notepad – most likely a leatherbound notebook

• Mrs. Daldry’s monologue about her mother’s green curtains and the grape arbor where she grew up – motif of windows, layers between human connection, and looking through them.
  • See ACT II, SCENE I motif: Mrs. Givings: “When I first met you…I wrote my name in the snow outside your window…”
• “Mr. Daldry please do not embarrass me with such vulgarities. I am shocked and disgusted and I will leave the room now.” – see Victorian Etiquette
  • “Avoid, at all times, mentioning subjects or incidents that can in any way disgust your hearers. Many persons will enter into the details of sicknesses which should be mentioned only when absolutely necessary, or describe the most revolting scenes before a room full of people, or even at table. Others speak of vermin, noxious plants, or instances of uncleanliness. All such conversation or allusion is excessively ill-bred. It is not only annoying, but absolutely sickening to some, and a truly lady-like person will avoid all such topics.
  • “I cannot too severely censure the habit of using sentences which admit of a double meaning. It is not only ill-bred, but indelicate, and no person of true refinement will ever do it. If you are so unfortunate as to converse with one who uses such phrases, never by word, look, or sign show that you understand any meaning beyond the plain, outspoken language.” (Hartley 11, The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politness)

• “hysteria” = a psychoneurosis marked by emotional excitability and disturbances of the psychogenic, sensory, vasomotor, and visceral functions
  • https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/201303/hysteria-and-the-strange-history-vibrators – breaks down victorian definition of women’s sexual frustration as “hysteria.” Until 20th century, men and physicians believed women did not experience sexual desire or pleasure.
• “Letitia” – as a girls’ name is pronounced le-TEE-shah. It is of Latin origin, and the meaning of Letitia is “joy, happiness, delight.” It is related to Laetitia, the Roman goddess of joy, gaiety, and celebration. 
  • The goddess’s name “could additionally be defined as the “Fruitfulness” or “Fertility” assumed to be the foundation of that happiness. Her name is related to the Latin word laetus, which has a whole cluster of meanings connecting happiness with prosperity and abundance: it can mean “happy”, “glad”, “lucky”, “successful”, “prosperous”, “luxurious”, “lush”, or “abounding”; and it was used to describe fertile land.” (source)
• Nursery – It is only ever offstage during the play, but a Victorian baby nursery would contain a rocking chair for an adult and a cradle for the baby.

• “The grounds” – the Givings are prosperous enough to have their own acres of gardens
  • “There’s a fountain and winter garden”
• “paroxysm” = n., a sudden violent emotion or action, for example as in rage or laughter.  (Merriam-Webster)
  • Through doctor-administered genital massage in this era, “women had orgasms and experienced sudden, dramatic relief from hysteria. But doctors didn’t call women’s climaxes orgasms. They called them ‘paroxysms’ because everyone knew that women were incapable of sexual feelings, so they could not possibly experience orgasm.” (Maines, Technology of the Orgasm)
• The dawn of electricity
  • 1752: Benjamin Franklin’s kite experiment with lightning where he confirmed that lightning is electricity rather than fire.
  • “One of the first major breakthroughs in electricity occurred in 1831, when British scientist Michael Faraday discovered the basic principles of electricity generation. Building on the experiments of Franklin and others, he observed that he could create or “induce” electric current by moving magnets inside coils of copper wire. The discovery of electromagnetic induction revolutionized how we use energy. In fact, Faraday’s process is used in modern power production, although today’s power plants produce much stronger currents on a much larger scale than Faraday’s hand-held device.” (“History of Electricity”)
• “Dr. Benjamin Franklin once decided to electrocute a bird for his turkey dinner on Christmas Eve…” 
  • https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/11/that-time-benjamin-franklin-tried-and-failed-to-electrocute-a-turkey/
• “Did you know they electrocuted an elephant in Coney Island last week?” 
  • Thomas Edison “had established direct current at the standard for electricity distribution and was living large off the patent royalties, royalties he was in no mood to lose when George Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla showed up with alternating current.” He staged a string of animal electrocutions, consisting of stray cats and dogs, and a few cattle and horses, to demonstrate the danger of alternating current. 
  • “Jan. 4, 1903: Edison Fries an Elephant to Prove His Point”
• Abolitionist movement
  • https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/abolitionist-movement
  • “The abolitionist movement was an organized effort to end the practice of slavery in the United States. The first leaders of the campaign, which took place from about 1830 to 1870, mimicked some of the same tactics British abolitionists had used to end slavery in Great Britain in the 1830s. Though it started as a movement with religious underpinnings, abolitionism became a controversial political issue that divided much of the country. Supporters and critics often engaged in heated debates and violent — even deadly — confrontations. The divisiveness and animosity fueled by the movement, along with other factors, led to the Civil War and ultimately the end of slavery in America.”
• Dr. Givings: “You’d rather have a Negro Protestant than an Irish Catholic, wouldn’t you? … It’s no time to stand on prejudice, Catherine.”
  • Racial hierarchy: [to be expanded]
• Mrs. Givings: “My husband is a very unconventional man, a scientist. I’ve no idea what the neighbors will say.”
  • Notion that the duty of housewife is to maintain respect of the household
• Dr. Givings: “The body is blameless. Milk is without intention.” 
  • Deontologicalism = an ethical philosophy where any intrinsic right or wrong is based on the intention to act, rather than the consequences of the act. Dr. Givings is notably a highly educated, science-oriented intellectual, which might be how he achieved this awareness of ethical philosophy. His intellectual mind is a foil to Mrs. Givings’ more emotional worries about their house’s reputation with the neighbors. (Notion of separate spheres) (“Intentions and Consequences”)

Act 1, Scene 2

• Annie reads Greek (46)
• Mrs. Givings: “Come again tomorrow or I will be very dull.”
  • Housewives = housekeeping duties; friendship situation
• Mrs. Givings: “Oh goodness! I haven’t any money, I’ll have to ask my husband.”
  • Separate spheres
  • Not used to paying African-American individuals for their labor
• Dr. Givings: “You would not understand. Leave me my dry boring science and I will give you the rest of the world. You said yourself that my electricity bored you.” (55)
  • Separate spheres
• Gentleman’s club
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentlemen%27s_club#United_States : “A gentlemen’s club, or traditional gentlemen’s club, is a private social club originally set up by and for British upper-class men in the 18th century, and popularised by English upper middle-class men and women in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
    • “Many countries outside the United Kingdom have prominent gentlemen’s clubs, mostly those associated with the British Empire. In particular, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have enthusiastically taken up the practice, and have a thriving club scene. There are also many extant clubs in major American cities. A gentleman’s club typically contains a formal dining room, a bar, a library, a billiards room and one or more parlours for reading, gaming or socializing. Many clubs also contain guest rooms and fitness amenities.”
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gentlemen%27s_clubs_in_the_United_States
    • “Personal wealth has never been the sole basis for attaining membership in exclusive clubs. The individual and family must meet the admissions committee’s standards for values and behavior. Old money prevails over new money” (Christopher Doob, Social Inequality and Social Stratification in U.S. Society, 2013/2016)
  • http://victorian-era.org/the-19th-century-clubs.html
• Dr. Givings: “Mr. Edison’s man is electrocuting dogs this evening…alternating current over and above direct current…” See above commentary on Mr. Edison’s electrocutions of animals.
  • Alternating current is in more widespread use now, due to its higher efficiency of transmitting across longer distances with less resistance. 
  • “Almost every home and business is wired for AC. However, this was not an overnight decision. In the late 1880s, a variety of inventions across the United States and Europe led to a full-scale battle between alternating current and direct current distribution.
  • “In 1886, Ganz Works, an electric company located in Budapest, electrified all of Rome with AC. Thomas Edison, on the other hand, had constructed 121 DC power stations in the United States by 1887. A turning point in the battle came when George Westinghouse, a famous industrialist from Pittsburgh, purchased Nikola Tesla’s patents for AC motors and transmission the next year.
  • “Over the next few years, Edison ran a campaign to highly discourage the use of AC in the United States, which included lobbying state legislatures and spreading disinformation about AC. Edison also directed several technicians to publicly electrocute animals with AC in an attempt to show that AC was more dangerous than DC. In attempt to display these dangers, Harold P. Brown and Arthur Kennelly, employees of Edison, designed the first electric chair for the state of New York using AC.”
  • https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/alternating-current-ac-vs-direct-current-dc/all 
• Mr. Edison invented recording device = phonograph

Act 2, Scene 1

• Uffizi = “The Uffizi Gallery is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums and the most visited, it is also one of the largest and best known in the world and holds a collection of priceless works, particularly from the period of the Italian Renaissance.” Estab. 1581
  • https://uffizi.it/
• Artists in Victorian time – reputation?
• Tea things

• Leo when he first sees Elizabeth enter: “I did not know there would be a lady in attendance.”
  • Probably super radical to immediately perceive such beauty in a black woman at the time
• Dr. Givings: “[Elizabeth] is the soul of tact and reserve.”
  • tact = n., a keen sense of what to do or say in order to maintain good relations with others or avoid offense
  • reserve = n., restraint, closeness, or caution in one’s words and actions
    • forbearance from making a full explanation, complete disclosure, or free expression of one’s mind
  • (Merriam-Webster)
  • Praising her obedience as an (cough cough African-American) woman. (I put the cough cough in there because women’s obedience is praised but white men would probably expect obedience out of black women most of all)
• “porous” = adj., permeable to outside influences (Merriam-Webster)
• Dr. Givings: “Hysteria is very rare in a man, but then again he is an artist”
• Mrs. Givings to Leo: “[Dr. Givings] seldom has men here. What a rare treat to make your acquaintance!”
  • Separate spheres
• “mackintosh” = raincoat (Merriam-Webster)
• “onanism” = masturbation (Merriam-Webster)
• Mrs. Givings: “When I first met you…I wrote my name in the snow outside your window…”
  • Motif of looking outside the window
• natural law
  • Encyclopedia Britannica: “Natural law, in philosophy, a system of right or justice held to be common to all humans and derived from nature rather than from the rules of society, or positive law.”
  • Wikipedia: “Natural law (Latin: ius naturale, lex naturalis) is law that is held to exist independently of the positive law of a given political order, society or nation-state. As determined by nature, the law of nature is implied to be objective and universal; it exists independently of human understanding, and of the positive law of a given state, political order, legislature or society at large. Historically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature to deduce binding rules of moral behavior from nature’s or God’s creation of reality and mankind.
  • “Contemporarily, the concept of natural law is closely related to the concept of natural rights. Indeed, many philosophers, jurists and scholars use natural law synonymously with natural rights (Latin: ius naturale), or natural justice, while others distinguish between natural law and natural right.”
• Leo: “I may be an artist but I am also a gentleman.”
  Mrs. Givings: “There is no such thing. Which is it, Mr. Irving? Do you dare to be an artist, or a gentleman?” 
• Mrs. Bovary books
  • https://campuspress.yale.edu/modernismlab/madame-bovary/
  • “Gustave Flaubert‘s Madame Bovary (1856) is the story of a bored housewife who has two extra-marital affairs but finds adultery almost as disappointing as marriage. The novel exemplifies the tendency of realism, over the course of the nineteenth century, to become increasingly psychological, concerned with the accurate representation of thoughts and emotions rather than of external things. In January, 1857, the French prosecutor Ernest Pinard accused Flaubert of an “offense to public and religious morality and to good morals” for publishing the novel. Pinard failed to win a conviction, but the court reprimanded Flaubert for forgetting that art “must be chaste and pure not only in its form but in its expression.”)”

Act 2, Scene 2

• Nursing Madonna, Virgo Lactans, or Madonna Lactans, is an iconography of the Madonna and Child in which the Virgin Mary is shown breastfeeding the infant Jesus.

• “charwoman”
  • Wikipedia: “A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. A charwoman might work independently, often for cash in hand, or might come through an employment agency.
• Needlework – notion of “separate spheres;” women bonded over home crafts (except Mrs. Daldry “hates needlework”)
• Dr. Givings: “Is every meal supposed to be romantic?”
  Mrs. Givings: “I do not enjoy you silently reading your scientific journals while I eat my toast.”
  Dr. Givings: “You prefer grand passions over toast? My God, woman, we are married, a man needs to be quiet at least once a day.”
  Mrs. Givings: “So I’ll be quiet then! HERE I AM! QUIET! QUIET AS A MOUSE!”
  • Subtextual notion of separate spheres, where logic and reason is alluded to masculinity, and emotionality is alluded to femininity.
• Thales of Miletus (c. 620 B.C.E.—c. 546 B.C.E.) (mentioned by Annie)
  • Greek mathematician, astrologer, philosopher who was one of the first to use empirical observations and natural philosophy to explain many events in nature, rather than through using mythology.
  • Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “Perhaps Thales anticipated problems with acceptance because he explained that it floated because of a particular quality, a quality of buoyancy similar to that of wood. At the busy city-port of Miletus, Thales had unlimited opportunities to observe the arrival and departure of ships with their heavier-than-water cargoes, and recognized an analogy to floating logs. Thales may have envisaged some quality, common to ships and earth, a quality of ‘floatiness’, or buoyancy. It seems that Thales’s hypothesis was substantiated by sound observation and reasoned considerations. Indeed, Seneca reported that Thales had land supported by water and carried along like a boat (Sen. QNat. III.14). Aristotle’s lines in Metaphysics indicate his understanding that Thales believed that, because water was the permanent entity, the earth floats on water.”
• Mrs. Daldry: “I thought [love] would be––never wanting for anything. Being surrounded and lifted up. Like resting on water, for eternity.”
  Mrs. Givings: “And is that what you have found in marriage?”
  Mrs. Daldry: “There have been moments of rest. But as it turns out, the earth rests on air, not on water, and the air can feel very––insubstantial––at times. Even though it is holding you up, invisibly.” 
  • Notions of romanticism (based on period literature and consequent idealizations of romance. See the Sex & Intimacy page) 
  • Comparison of love to marriage, and standards of love/marriage
  • Marriage is about sustaining life and community, romantic love is more youthful, insubstantial
• Anatomy of the face that Dr. Givings kisses:

“temporomandibular joint”

“Buccal artery and nerve”

“Depressor anguli oris”

“Zygomatic arch”

“Temporalis fascia”