Swenson, Kristine. Medical Women and Victorian
Fiction. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2005.
In this work Swenson examines the complex cultural intersections between
women and medicine in Victorian fiction and wider society. She considers the
roles of Grace Harvey and Valencia St. Just, two Eng-ish Crimean War nurses,
in the novel Two Years Ago. Kingsley stresses that the nurse’s role
is as much moral as medical. Moreover, despite the wartime bravery displayed
by his nurses, Kingsley insists that they must ultimately bend to the conventionality
of the Victorian marriage. Though Grace was a medical and religious heroine
she must be redefined domestically as wife, the proper role of a Victorian
woman. Swenson also highlights Kingsley’s forceful social criticism in Two
Years Ago where he lays the blame for pervasive disease and unsanitary
problems across all classes.
Two Years
Ago; Sanitation;
Nurses;
Crimean War.
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