Validating the world of the imagination in Ayala's Angel
Ellen Moody
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[This document is a note to the author's Trollope's Comfort Romances for Men: Heterosexual Male Heroism in his Work — GPL.]
In this novel Trollope validates the world of the imagination and the need for people to enrich their lives with art, in the context of the demands of daily life, that is to say, the need to earn or have enough money to pay for everything. See Kinkaid, 259-60; Herbert, 194-96, 203-5; Walter Kendrick, "Ayala's Angel," Terry, Oxford Companion to Trollope, 28-30; Thompson, introd to Ayala's Angel, xiv-xix. On the other hand, the older women in the novel serve the men's needs. If there is a conflict, the older woman gives up what is in her interest and her desire. Mrs Dosett cannot control where Ayala visits once Lady Albury, who loves Stubbs, and, recalling Dean Lovelace, vicariously oversees her beloved's sexual pleasures, decides she will obtain Ayala for him (27:250-59; 54:530-32, 535-36). Mrs Dosett sews away lest Mr Dosett not be clothed correctly; he gets the best cuts of the meat, and until Ayala came to live with them, a glass of wine.
The time it took Mr Dosett's to do his daily walk was worked out by some readers of Trollope-l who knew London well; see Ayala's Angel, particularly this paragraph: "We are told that Reginald always walked home, usually taking an hour and a quarter. Since the distance from Somerset House to Notting Hill through the parks is between four and five miles, this indicated brisk walking, which would particularly be needed if it was raining or snowing, and his umbrella 'was never violated by use'. The journey by what is now the Circle Line from Temple station to Notting Hill Gate could hardly have taken more than fifteen minutes, and his financial position must have been particularly bad if he was prepared to risk his 'decent apparel' and shoes for the pleasure of tramping across the parks in bad weather." The point this reader missed is that Mr. Dosett luxuriates in "la belle nature."
Last modified 9 August 2006