The American Senator is a novel written in 1875 by Anthony Trollope. Although not one of Trollope's better-known works, it is notable for its depictions of rural English life and for its many detailed fox hunting scenes. In its anti-heroine, Arabella Trefoil, it presents a scathing but ultimately sympathetic portrayal of a woman who has abandoned virtually all scruples in her quest for a husband. Through the eponymous Senator, Trollope offers comments on the irrational aspects of English life.
The novel is largely set in and near the town of Dillsborough, in the fictional county of Rufford. The two principal subplots centre on the courtship behaviour of two young women.
The heroine, Mary Masters, is the daughter of an attorney, and has been raised as a gentlewoman. Her stepmother is from a lower social order; believing it best for Mary, she pressures her strongly to accept a proposal from Lawrence Twentyman, a prosperous young yeoman farmer with aspirations to gentility. While Mary respects Twentyman for his excellent qualities, she feels that she cannot love him as a wife should a husband. She admires Reginald Morton, whose cousin is the squire of Bragton and thus one of the two major landowners of Rufford. Reginald admires Mary as well; but for most of the novel, each is ignorant of the other's feelings: Mary, as a gentlewoman, cannot take the initiative in such a matter; and Reginald, misinformed that Mary loves another, is unwilling to make an offer and have it rejected.
The anti-heroine of the novel is Arabella Trefoil. Her father is cousin to the Duke of Mayfair; her mother was a banker's daughter. Her parents are unofficially separated, and living in straitened circumstances. Arabella and her mother, Lady Augustus Trefoil, have no fixed abode; they wander from place to place, visiting people who cannot refuse them without creating social awkwardness. At Lady Augustus's direction, Arabella has spent many years struggling to secure a rich husband who will give her and her mother high social standing, an assured income, and a house of their own. She has lately become provisionally engaged to John Morton, the squire of Bragton and a rising figure in the Foreign Office. He would be an adequate but not outstanding husband by her standards; and when the opportunity presents itself, she attempts to entrap the wealthy and titled young Lord Rufford, concealing these attempts from Morton so that she can accept his proposal should they fail.
John Morton falls ill and dies. Arabella, who is not altogether wicked, visits him at his deathbed despite the fact that this will assist Lord Rufford in escaping her toils. After Morton's death, she accepts an offer of marriage from Mounser Green, a Foreign Office clerk who is taking Morton's place as ambassador-designate to Patagonia. Like Morton, Green is not a brilliant match for her, but an acceptable one. John Morton's death makes Reginald Morton the squire of Bragton; at this point, when Mary Masters fears that he has moved too far above her in status, he confesses his love to her. A proposal ensues and is eagerly accepted.
The American senator of the title is Elias Gotobed, who sits in the US Senate for the fictional state of Mikewa. The guest of John Morton, Senator Gotobed is trying to learn about England and the English. Through his often-tactless remarks in conversation, through his letters to a friend in America, and through a lecture in London titled "The Irrationality of Englishmen", he comments on British justice and government, the Church of England, the custom of primogeniture, and other aspects of English life.
Major themes
England, America, and utilitarianism
In Senator Gotobed, Trollope employs a device similar to that used by Montesquieu in the Lettres Persanes and by Goldsmith in The Citizen of the World.[1]:173–4 As an outsider, he comments on the absurd or irrational aspects of English society. Gotobed finds much at fault with his host country: the sale of livings in the Church of England, the sale of commissions in the British army, the custom of primogeniture, the unelected hereditary House of Lords and the lack of proportional representation in the House of Commons, and a system that defers to the wealthy and titled at the expense of justice to those of lower social standing.
It is difficult to know the extent to which Gotobed's views reflected Trollope's own. On the one hand, the Senator's denunciations of clerical livings were very similar to criticisms that Trollope had levelled at Bishop Wilberforce. On the other, some of Gotobed's strongest strictures were directed at fox-hunting, to which Trollope was devoted.[2]:64
Late in 1876, Trollope wrote: "[Gotobed] is a thoroughly honest man wishing to do good, and is not himself half so absurd as the things which he criticises."[3] The novel was written and set during the scandals of Ulysses S. Grant's administration. The dishonest politician was a stock figure in American novels of the time; and Trollope himself had noted the ubiquity of corruption on his postal mission to Washington in 1868.[4]:227–8 Yet Gotobed is an honourable man, and Trollope apparently tried to avoid making a caricature of him, notwithstanding a few quaint Americanisms and episodes of tobacco-chewing.
The key is a character's telling the Senator that his views are "utilitarian rather than picturesque"[5] and his lecture's title: "The Irrationality of Englishmen". To Trollope, the English system was strong precisely because it was picturesque rather than logical, and should not be criticised or adjusted according to utilitarian theories.[4]:232 Fox-hunting was one of the strongest illustrations of this. In Ruth apRoberts' words, "The Senator is too much the rationalist ever to enjoy something he could not think he understood; and Trollope is too much the empiricist to deny the existence of his joy or his sure sense of its beneficence. But he very well knew the absurd aspects of hunting."[1]:178
English social order
To Trollope, one of the pillars of the English system was a traditional social order in which everyone played his appropriate role. The place of the squire was to occupy his land. Dillsborough is portrayed as slowly declining, a decline that is associated with the long absence of its squire, John Morton. When Reginald Morton, as the new squire, takes up residence at Bragton, the long decline shows signs of coming to an end.[4]:210–12 The new squire also promises to accept the traditional role and responsibilities: although educated in Germany and given more to study than to the traditional pursuits of a country gentleman, at the novel's end he deprecates the philanthropists who attack fox-hunting, and vows to take up the pursuit himself.[6]
Women, courtship, and marriage
Much of The American Senator is taken up with the parallel courtships of Mary Masters and Arabella Trefoil. There is a physical and moral contrast between them: Mary is dark, honest, and sincere; Arabella is blonde, embellished with pearl powder, paint, and false hair, and insincere.[4]:220 Each is urged to give her heart falsely for the sake of a prosperous marriage: Arabella by her mother, Mary by her stepmother.[4]:218 Arabella obeys her mother, in the process coming to despise her; Mary refuses to obey her stepmother, and the two are reconciled at the novel's end.
The parallels extend to the mother figures. Both Mrs. Masters and Lady Augustus married men who were above them socially, and both brought money to the marriage. Mrs. Masters was the daughter of an ironmonger who married an attorney; her dowry of £1000 "had been very useful" to her new husband.[7] Lady Augustus was the daughter of a banker who married the impecunious younger son of a duke;[8] to further the parallel, malicious gossip makes her the daughter of an ironmonger as well.[9]
It may have been Trollope's intention to make Mary good and Arabella evil. "I wished to express the depth of my scorn for women who run down [pursue] husbands,"[3] he wrote to Mary Holmes. Arabella has been described as a feminine counterpart to Augustus Melmotte of The Way We Live Now or Ferdinand Lopez of The Prime Minister: she engages in courtship as those two engaged in financial speculation.[10]
However, Trollope's native sympathy intruded. A few months later, he wrote: "I have known the woman... all the traits, all the cleverness, all the patience, all the courage, all the self-abnegation,—and all the failure... Will such a one as Arabella Trefoil be damned, and if so why? Think of her virtues; how she works, how true she is to her vocation, how little there is of self indulgence, or of idleness. I think that she will go to a kind of third class heaven in which she will always be getting third class husbands."[11]
Far from an object of contempt, Arabella becomes a tragic figure. Her rank demands that she marry well; her financial situation makes such a marriage virtually impossible. In this position, she cannot afford love or sincerity.[4]:220–1 Hers is "the tragedy of a young woman who recognises decency, but who feels herself trapped into a life that excludes decent behaviour."[12]
Arabella has been badly schooled by her mother; Mary was more fortunate in having been raised by Lady Ushant of the Morton family, who taught her principles that allowed her to resist her stepmother's mercenary urgings. Yet Lady Augustus is no more pure villain than her daughter. With no mother to take care of her,[13] she found herself married to a man who squandered her dowry.[14] She is working to achieve for her daughter the security of which she was robbed in her own marriage.[15] Her own reward for this long arduous struggle is a scant one: after Arabella's wedding, "[s]he knew she was an old woman, without money, without blood, and without attraction, whom nobody would ever desire to see."[16]
Development history
From 1827–1831, Trollope's mother Frances Trollope lived the United States, attempting to repair the family's fortunes and observing all aspects of the nation. Upon her return to England, she published Domestic Manners of the Americans in 1832.[17]:10–18 Mrs. Trollope strongly criticised the country and its customs: "I do not like them. I do not like their principles, I do not like their manners, I do not like their opinions."[18] The American press responded with strongly negative reviews of Domestic Manners.[2]:64
Trollope fils visited the United States from September 1861[17]:136 to March 1862[17]:143 He published the two-volume North America in May 1862.[17]:143 The book was critical of the country; but unlike Domestic Manners, was written with an evident desire to please, and never patronised. The American reaction was generally positive.[2]:414
Gotobed, told that it might not have been wise to tell the English nation of its collective faults, replies "You English tell us of ours pretty often."[19] Trollope was evidently referring to his and his mother's criticisms of the United States, as well as those of Charles Dickens in American Notes and Martin Chuzzlewit;[20]:424 and he may have thought it only just to present criticism of English institutions from an American standpoint.
Indeed, there is much of Trollope in Gotobed's questioning, quarrelsome, and often tactless character.[20]:423Richard Henry Dana Jr. later became a good friend of the author; but after their first meeting, he recorded in his diary: "...intolerable, no manners, but means well, & would do a good deal to serve you, but says the most offensive things—not a gentleman."[21]
The origins of Arabella Trefoil are more obscure. In early 1877, Trollope wrote: "I have been, and still am very much afraid of Arabella Trefoil. The critics have to come, and they will tell me that she is unwomanly, unnatural, turgid,—the creation of a morbid imagination, striving after effect by laboured abominations. But I swear I have known the woman..." Not a particular woman, he continues; but all of the traits, good and evil.[11]
Although there was no resemblance in character, Arabella Trefoil's houseless wanderings might be based on those of Trollope's beloved niece Beatrice "Bice" Trollope. Lacking a secure home with her father and stepmother, she was forced to resort to a "sterile round of English visits" and endured several "abortive engagements".[22] More fortunate in matrimony than Arabella, Bice Trollope found a wealthy and well-connected husband in Charles Stuart-Wortley, whom she married in 1880 at the age of 27.[23]
Trollope began writing the novel on 4 June 1875,[24] while visiting his son Fred Trollope's sheep station at Mortray in New South Wales.[17]:344 He completed it on 24 September 1875,[24] while en route from Australia to the United States.[17]:345
Publication history
The American Senator was serialised in Temple Bar May 1876 – July 1877. A three-volume book version was released by Chapman & Hall (London) in 1877. In that same year, the novel was also published in New York, Detroit, Toronto, Leipzig, and Copenhagen. A one-volume edition was issued by Chatto & Windus (London) in 1878; this edition was re-issued in 1879 and in 1886. Later editions were published in 1931 (reprinted in 1951 and 1962), in 1940, in 1979, and in 1981.[24]
Contemporary reviews of The American Senator were mixed. British reviewers, even those who regarded the book favourably, almost universally felt that Senator Gotobed and his criticisms would have been better left out of the novel.[20]:424–5[26] Some reviewers felt that Trollope was growing embittered: a notice in The Examiner suggested that the author was suffering an "attack of misanthropy" and accused him of maintaining a "special inkstand supplied with gall, for use when describing fashionable society, against which his rancour appears to be unbounded."[27] Others were more favourable: a review in The Times stated that Dillsborough society was rendered in Trollope's "most entertaining manner".[28]
Later critics took a more favourable view of the portrayal of Arabella Trefoil. In 1927, Michael Sadleir wrote: "The American Senator will be read for the sake of its opening chapters, which set before the reader in a few pages the whole geographical and social pattern of an English county; for the sake of its hunting episodes, which are among the best not only in Trollope, but in the whole of English fiction; and for the sake of Arabella Trefoil, a masterly study of a girl without a heart."[29] More recent critics have found more sympathy for her plight: James Pope-Hennessy calls her "the finest, most fearless and the most tragic of all [Trollope's] doomed and desperate anti-heroines".[30]
In chapter 70 of The Duke's Children, Senator Gotobed is the American minister in London.
Larry Twentyman and Lord Rufford both reappear, alongside more minor appearances from a few other characters, in Ayala's Angel.
There is no indication that Arabella Trefoil is related to the Dean Trefoil of Barchester Towers.
Adaptations
A three-part adaptation of The American Senator was broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Classic Serial programme in 2011.[31]
Related Research Articles
Anthony Trollope was an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era. Among his best-known works is a series of novels collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, which revolves around the imaginary county of Barsetshire. He also wrote novels on political, social, and gender issues, and other topical matters.
Barchester Towers is a novel by English author Anthony Trollope published by Longmans in 1857. It is the second book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series, preceded by The Warden and followed by Doctor Thorne. Among other things it satirises the antipathy in the Church of England between High Church and Evangelical adherents. Trollope began writing this book in 1855. He wrote constantly and made himself a writing-desk so he could continue writing while travelling by train. "Pray know that when a man begins writing a book he never gives over", he wrote in a letter during this period. "The evil with which he is beset is as inveterate as drinking – as exciting as gambling".
Framley Parsonage is a novel by English author Anthony Trollope. It was first published in serial form in the Cornhill Magazine in 1860, then in book form in April 1861. It is the fourth book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series, preceded by Doctor Thorne and followed by The Small House at Allington.
The Vicar of Wakefield, subtitled A Tale, Supposed to be written by Himself, is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774). It was written from 1761 to 1762 and published in 1766. It was one of the most popular and widely read 18th-century novels among Victorians.
The Chronicles of Barsetshire is a series of six novels by English author Anthony Trollope, published between 1855 and 1867. They are set in the fictional English county of Barsetshire and its cathedral town of Barchester. The novels concern the dealings of the clergy and the gentry, and the political, amatory, and social manoeuvrings that go on among them.
The Last Chronicle of Barset is a novel by English author Anthony Trollope, published in 1867. It is the sixth and final book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series, preceded by The Small House at Allington. The novel is set in the county of Barsetshire and deploys characters from the earlier novels, whilst concentrating on the personnel associated with the cathedral. The main narrative thread is catalyzed by the loss of a cheque which had been in the possession of the Reverend Josiah Crawley, and the subsequent reactions of his friends and enemies. Trollope drew inspiration from his father and mother in the creation of the Rev. and Mrs. Crawley. In his autobiography, Trollope regards this novel as "the best novel I have written.", though later commentators do not agree with this judgement. The serialization was illustrated by G H Thomas who was selected by the publisher, though Trollope had wished for Millais who had illustrated The Small House.
Orley Farm is a novel written in the realist mode by Anthony Trollope (1815–82), and illustrated by the Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais (1829–96). It was first published in monthly shilling parts by the London publisher Chapman and Hall. Although this novel appeared to have undersold, Orley Farm became Trollope's personal favourite. George Orwell said the book contained "one of the most brilliant descriptions of a lawsuit in English fiction."
Frances Milton Trollope, also known as Fanny Trollope, was an English novelist who wrote as Mrs. Trollope or Mrs. Frances Trollope. Her book, Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832), observations from a trip to the United States, is the best known.
The Way We Live Now is a satirical novel by Anthony Trollope, published in London in 1875 after first appearing in serialised form. It is one of the last significant Victorian novels to have been published in monthly parts.
Doctor Thorne is the third novel written by Anthony Trollope in his Chronicles of Barsetshire series, between Barchester Towers and Framley Parsonage. It was published by Chapman and Hall in London in 1858. The idea of the plot was suggested to Trollope by his brother Thomas. Though set in Barsetshire, Barchester and its familiar residents have little part in the proceedings. The novel is mainly concerned with money and position.
The Palliser novels are novels written in series by Anthony Trollope. They were more commonly known as the Parliamentary novels prior to their 1974 television dramatisation by the BBC broadcast as The Pallisers. Marketed as "polite literature" during their initial publication, the novels encompass several literary genres including: family saga, bildungsroman, picaresque, as well as satire and parody of Victorian life, and criticism of the English government's predilection for attracting corrupt and corruptible people to power.
He Knew He Was Right is an 1869 novel written by Anthony Trollope which describes the failure of a marriage caused by the unreasonable jealousy of a husband exacerbated by the stubbornness of a wilful wife. As is common with Trollope's works, there are also several substantial subplots. Trollope makes constant allusions to Shakespeare's Othello throughout the novel. Trollope considered this work to be a failure; he viewed the main character as unsympathetic, and the secondary characters and plots as much more lively and interesting, but it is one of his best known novels. It was adapted for BBC One in 2004 by Andrew Davies.
Ralph the Heir is a novel by Anthony Trollope, originally published in 1871. Although Trollope described it as "one of the worst novels I have written", it was well received by contemporary critics. More recently, readers have found it noteworthy for its account of a corrupt Parliamentary election, an account based closely on Trollope's own experience as a candidate.
The Belton Estate is a novel by Anthony Trollope, written in 1865. The novel concerns itself with a young woman who has accepted one of two suitors, then discovered that he was unworthy of her love. It was the first novel published in the Fortnightly Review.
The Claverings is a novel by Anthony Trollope, written in 1864 and published in 1866–67. It is the story of a young man starting out in life, who must find himself a profession and a wife; and of a young woman who makes a marriage of convenience and must accept the consequences of her decision.
Rachel Ray is an 1863 novel by Anthony Trollope. It recounts the story of a young woman who is forced to give up her fiancé because of baseless suspicions directed toward him by the members of her community, including her sister and the pastors of the two churches attended by her sister and mother.
The Vicar of Bullhampton is an 1870 novel by Anthony Trollope. It is made up of three intertwining subplots: the courtship of a young woman by two suitors; a feud between the titular Broad church vicar and a Low church nobleman, abetted by a Methodist minister; and the vicar's attempt to rehabilitate a young woman who has gone astray.
Frances Eleanor Trollope was an English novelist. She was best known for her biography on her mother-in-law, Frances Milton Trollope, who was famous for her book, Domestic Manners of the Americans, as well as her Regency romance novels.
Hobomok, A Tale of Early Times. is a novel by the nineteenth-century American author and human rights campaigner Lydia Maria Child. Her first novel, published in 1824 under the pseudonym "An American," was inspired by John G. Palfrey's article in the North American Review. It is set during the late 1620s and 1630s. Among other themes, it relates the marriage of a recently immigrated white American woman, Mary Conant, to the eponymous Native American and her attempt to raise their son in white society.
Arabella is a female given name, possibly of Greek, Latin, or Celtic origin.
References
1 2 apRoberts, Ruth. The Moral Trollope. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. 1971.
1 2 3 Mullen, Richard. Anthony Trollope: A Victorian in his World. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., Ltd. 1990.
1 2 Letter to Mary Holmes, 27 December 1876. The Letters of Anthony Trollope. N. John Hall, ed. Stanford University Press. 1983. Vol. II, p. 701.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Tracy, Robert. Trollope's Later Novels. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1978.
↑ Polhemus, Robert M. The Changing World of Anthony Trollope. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1968. p. 209.
1 2 Letter to Mrs. Anna Steele, 17 February 1877. The Letters of Anthony Trollope. N. John Hall, ed. Stanford University Press. 1983. vol. II, pp. 710–11.
↑ Markwick, Margaret. Trollope and Women. London: Hambledon Press. 1997. p. 122.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
