The gypsy as ‘other’ in ‘The mill on the floss’ by George Eliot, ‘The scholar gipsy’ by Matthew Arnold, and ‘The virgin and the gipsy’ by D. H. Lawrence

Abstract

This dissertation will analyse the way society places the Gypsy in a position of ‘otherness’, as alien and opposite to itself, with a particular focus on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Britain. After introducing the varied images associated with Gypsies, this study will explore the way these figures seem to offer an escape, an alternate path away from, and in opposition to, the rules that a society imposes on its members. The notion of ‘otherness’ in relation to Gypsies will be analysed through an exploration of the Gypsy figures, as well as their role, in The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot (1860), ‘The Scholar Gipsy’ by Matthew Arnold (1853), and The Virgin and the Gipsy by D. H. Lawrence (1930). The introduction will focus on the notion of the Gypsy as an exotic ‘other’ figure subordinate to civilised society of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Edward Said’s theory of ‘Orientalism’ will be used to analyse this society’s relation to Gypsies. This chapter will also introduce the notion of the Gypsy as representative of the instinctual part of the self of the protagonist which the modern world of industrialisation attempts to suppress. The first chapter will analyse the presentation of Gypsies in Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, giving particular importance to the ‘otherness’ present in Maggie Tulliver which connects her to the Gypsies in the eyes of society. Chapter 2 will focus on Arnold’s ‘The Scholar Gipsy’ and the portrayal of the Scholar Gypsy as a nostalgic, pastoral figure associated with a lost past. The division experienced by the speaker of the poem, which Arnold views as the disease of modern man in an increasingly industrialised world, will also be analysed. In the third chapter Lawrence’s The Virgin and the Gipsy will be analysed with a focus on the opposing forces that claim the protagonist and which are embodied by the Gypsy and the inhabitants of the rectory. Lastly, this dissertation will examine the way the mystery surrounding Gypsies has led to the creation of stereotypes and myths surrounding these figures while maintaining the position of the Gypsy as an ‘other’ figure within British society.