Splendors and Glooms

Splendors and Glooms incorporates many of the strictures and customs of 19th-century London, relying on historically accurate depictions of Victorian London to inform the plot and characters. Victorian culture depended on separations of class and gender, elements Schlitz shows through the differences in how society treats Lizzie Rose versus Parsefall as well as through the differences between Clara’s home and Grisini’s residence. Women of Victorian England were expected to remain in the home and not mingle in society. By contrast, men belonged in the workplace and in social settings. These differences emerge in how Dr. Wintermute continues to work while Mrs. Wintermute spends her days alone in mourning. This gender divide was most evident in the upper class, which was often marked by a home’s ability to survive on a single income; in the lower classes, in contrast, women often worked, as Lizzie Rose does after Grisini’s accident. In addition to sexism, Victorian England also exercised intolerance, particularly toward foreigners. As an Italian man, Grisini is shunned by the upper class, who assume him to be a charlatan. Though such accusations were typically untrue in 19th-century London, Schlitz builds on this