Characters and Genre in the Victorian Love Story Malachi's Cove

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Characters and Genre in the Victorian Love Story Malachi’s Cove

By Catalina Clema

A number of stereotypical characters truly reflect their gender in the love story Malachi’s Cove, written by Anthony Trollope in 1864. Trollope’s short story refects the values and expectations of people in Victorian times as represented by, or seen through his characters. Men are typically portrayed as logical, physically and mentally strong with their natural place being in the workforce and the outdoors. Women, on the other hand, are portrayed as hysterical, physically and mentally weak with their natural place being in the home and the domestic setting the home provides. These stereotypes are rigid in the genre of the love story, and it is certainly not typical for a man to be in any way weaker then a woman. Taking this into consideration, Malachi’s Cove is a very unusual love story. The lead character, Mahala (Mally) Trenglos, a complex, animated character, while retaining the basic stereotypes, does defy a number of the constraints set by both the genre and Victorian times.

Mally Trenglos, is a vibrant example of this mixture of defiance and conformity in relation to gender stereotypes and genre conventions within the story or Malachi’s Cove. The first character encountered by the reader is Malachi ‘Old Glos’ Trenglos, a poor crippled old man who is the soul guardian of Mally, his granddaughter. It is through him that the character of Mally is introduced indirectly. And even before the reader is directly introduced to Mally, the very way in which she is referred to shows typical elements of the constraints of genre, as well as gender stereotypes. In the second paragraph of page 86, for example, there is reference to Malachi’s habitation being wisely not built entirely upon a foundation of sand, but on a foundation of rock instead. This being a metaphor that reflects the good values of Malachi, and thusly reflecting the good values that must be bestowed upon Mally, as she is of the same stock.

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The first direct encounter the reader has with Mally paints a different picture, although the basic principle of a pure woman with good values is still invested within her character, much of this encounter shows the way in which Mally indeed does not conform to the expectations of Victorian society. She is portrayed as a “wild looking, almost unearthly creature, with wild-flowing, black, uncombed hair, small in stature with small hands and bright black eyes” (pg.88) an image that does not conform at all to the stereotype of a proper Victorian woman.

It is not only her ...

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