As its title would suggest, George Gissing’s The Odd Women features many female characters, all of whom come with their own set of characteristics which set them apart from the others. Even in the late nineteenth century, women were funny that way, beginning to form their own personalities and almost – almost – becoming close to human. Mrs. Luke Widdowson, sister-in-law of Monica’s Mr. Widdowson, is one such female character, and a peculiar one at that, with a large and independent presence that is entirely fitting of her, but entirely unfitting of the woman of that time period.

Immediately upon her (late) arrival to Herne Hill in Chapter 12, Mrs. Luke becomes the strongest force in the drawing room, in which wait Mr. Widdowson, Monica, and Virginia. The room, which only moments before her appearance seemed empty even with the other three very much present, is “filled and illumined” by Mrs. Luke “in her sole person.” If the reader learned nothing else of the woman, this one sentence alone would suffice in delivering her characterization clearly and unmistakably. Mrs. Luke is a grand, calm, cool lady. Gissing reports her to be “imposing,” describes her garb, despite it being mourning garb, as that which “inspired awe” in women around her, and portrays her act of bowing as being grand even from a distance. Mrs. Luke is something else, and she knows it.

If such adjectives were not enough, another single sentence concerning the act of her tardiness, and her response to it, communicates the depth to which Mrs. Luke is so different from the other female characters: she “had no thought of apologizing for the lateness of her arrival.” The importance of such a statement cannot be stressed enough. In a time period when women are governed by social norms, when their every move is influenced in some way by good mannerisms and proper femininity, a woman who not only is tardy to a get-together, but who also has no thought of making an apology is just odd. It is rude, yes, and befitting of her condescending nature, but still odd. To be fair, though, her wealth undoubtedly has something to do with her near-dismissal of good manners, but now, perhaps because of said wealth, those characteristics are concrete. They are who she is.

Mrs. Luke fills the drawing room at Herne Hill, and the hole she leaves behind following her departure is one of relief; everyone else can breathe again. Monica and Virgie agree that Mrs. Luke is “personally detestable” and even the next day, Mr. Widdowson tells Monica that he does not necessarily like her, but what follows is where I will conclude. Widdowson tells Monica that Mrs. Luke “is a very difficult person to understand.” Notice, he does not say she is a difficult woman to understand, perhaps in part because women should not be difficult to understand. Mrs. Luke is her own larger-than-life person, and she thrives in being so.

Please note: I did not continue on to characterize Lady Horrocks, a) because 500 words is not enough to do her persona and Mrs. Luke’s persona justice, and b) because they are almost two completely different characters despite technically being one and the same.

When we start our story with Doctor Madden, he talks a lot about his daughters (naturally). There’s a little 15 year old girl who’s visiting at the moment – she makes him a bit uncomfortable with her “radical notions” (Chapter 1), so he doesn’t really invite conversation with her, but she’s a friend of his daughters, and that warrants invitations to dinner. His oldest daughter occupies his thoughts more, because she’s his confidant to his hopes and dreams for the family. Quite clearly, in Doctor Madden’s view, Rhoda Nunn is the periphery character, while Alice Madden will have center (or slightly off-center) stage. Then he dies, and our narrator switches – or, perhaps more accurately, our narrator changes focus, and our narration shifts. By the end of the novel, we know that Rhoda is the star, and Alice is a background character (who spends most of the novel not there). But is that true? Can there be a protagonist in a novel where overlapping narrations and changing perspectives muddle things up to the point where we have to figure things out for ourselves?

Our narrator doesn’t have much of a personality – he flits from character to character, and sometimes to outside-of-character, such as our awareness of Rhoda’s witnessing Everard’s confidence with Monica, without glimpsing her thoughts (but oh, we can guess them) (Chapter 18). We are often introduced to a character several times, sometimes before we come to them ourselves. For example, we see Monica the five-year-old from her father’s eyes (Chapter 1), Monica the twenty-year-old from her sisters’ comments (Chapter 2), and Monica herself from her own views of her life and of others’ (Chapter 4). We don’t stop there, however. We get her from Miss Barfoot (Chapter 6), Rhoda (Chapter 7), and Everard, who is the first to introduce us to her as “Mrs. Widdowson” (Chapter 14). Monica has to reintroduce herself to us as Mrs. Widdowson, too (Chapter 16). So many different views of a character, and not all can agree. She’s merely on the periphery of Everard’s story – a sad creature, with a sad story, who he decides to trust. Rhoda doesn’t think of her at all, or thinks very little of her (at least until the end). Her sisters think her lucky, then stubborn; her husband thinks her both perfect and confounding, then a liar. We know her better, but only because we’ve heard her narration, which we know we can trust in relation to her own thoughts and actions (at least, when she’s honest with herself). In relation to other characters, though, how much does she really know?

She and Rhoda often share the spotlight, as side-characters in each other’s stories, and these narration shifts emphasize, I think, the realism of this novel. Little worlds are contained to their star player, and outside of themselves they are smaller, and their problems smaller (if they exist at all). We have so many big characters, whose perspectives shape so much of the narrative, but our narrator also gives us smaller characters, like Virginia, who’s unnamed drinking problem exists from almost the beginning, and is obvious to us in the background of other narrations. She is very much a realist element, too, because she’s so, so small in the narratives we’re given to focus on, but still very much there, with her own problems, which go unnoticed for so long. And we know this problem before so many of the ‘main’ characters do, just as we know about Rhoda’s misunderstanding and Everard and Monica’s innocence.

We are left in the dark about some things, however. Miss Barfoot’s feelings for her cousin she was very good to never show us until it was most convenient (and maybe most shocking) (Chapter 21). Rhoda, evidently, was also aware, because she knew Miss Barfoot so well as to read her manner. This just shows us that, while in some ways we’re more knowledgeable about both characters and situation than the characters in the book, we actually don’t know everything. We think we’re learning all about them, but still they manage to hide themselves from us.

I think Gissing uses his narrators to comment on society, with all its limitations. The multiple introductions to a character, seen through so many eyes; the differing narrations, that are limited to the one person at their center; the lack of character understanding, on both our behalf and on theirs. We can’t know each other, not wholly and perfectly. Maybe not even at all. Misunderstandings will abound, and we can see why, but we also can’t stop it. We have characters we focus more on than others in this story, but we also have characters that all matter in their own narrations. I don’t think there can be a protagonist, anymore than there can be one in life, because there’s no single narration, and no narration agrees with another on the main problem, and the main character with it.

Perhaps one of the most passionate conversations in Gissing’s social-problem novel, The Odd Women, was Everard Barfoot’s confession of love for Rhoda Nunn. This conversation, which may be said to go on for two separate meetings and a letter, show Barfoot’s love towards Rhoda; a love that transcends traditional gender boundaries in favor of an intellectual pairing of individual personalities. These conversations also display Rhoda’s commitment to her lifestyle of helping the “odd women” in British society.

Rhoda Nunn is established in The Odd Women as the epitome of the proud and independent woman in English society. Rhoda is described of as “full of practical expediments. The most wonderful person! She is quite like a man in energy and resources” (57). This explanation of Rhoda illustrates her as the quintessentially independent woman. Additionally, Virginia describes Rhoda Nunn as “the first woman [she had seen] daring enough to think and act for herself” (52). Rhoda don’t need no man…until she meets Everard Barfoot.

Everard Barfoot initially presents himself as quite opposite to Rhoda Nunn. Everard is remembered as having committed an immoral act with a young woman in his youth, and is regarded as a rascal by his cousin and Rhoda’s mentor, Miss Barfoot.

Considering the initial characterization of these two important characters, the conversation in which Everard Barfoot explains his love for Rhoda becomes one of the most important scenes in the novel. In these three stretched-out scenes, Barfoot attempts to explain to Rhoda the serious and untraditional nature of his love. One very early example of the untraditional nature in which Barfoot courts Rhoda is in asking her for flowers very early in their relationship. Women at this time, and in our time, would typically be presented with the flowers, but Everard flips this tradition to show Rhoda that he is not the average man. Everard Barfoot also explains his openness in allowing his potential wife (Rhoda) absolute freedom in marriage. Barfoot says: “If my wife should declare that she must be released…I should admit that the suffering couldn’t be helped” (161). In this, Everard attempts to show Rhoda how serious he is about expanding upon traditional gender stereotypes of love, to allow her the freedom any woman of her disposition would desire in a relationship.

Of course, Rhoda denies Everard’s affection in these preliminary conversations, although the narrator describes her lip quivering and her cheeks blushing (163). Despite her coy smiles and hints at interest, Rhoda denies Barfoot in his offer of love and marriage, and, in doing so, fulfils her role as the example of the “odd woman,” oddly unhappy. Everard, on the other hand, appears to grow out of the younger self his reputation supposes him to be, and in these conversations with Rhoda, he opens up to new possibilities of marriage.