The Two Identities of a Fallen Woman

In The Home for Homeless Women, the residents are trained to adapt to the way of life of the proper Victorian woman, abandoning the unacceptable behavior they practiced while living on the streets, in order to live new lives without malice from society. To avoid constantly shifting from prostitution to prison, these women are taught to do household tasks which will ultimately prepare them for their new lives abroad: "The distinctive feature of the home established by Miss Coutts and Dickens, Urania Cottage in Shepard's Bush, was that it prepared the girls for emigration, and a new life. This solution to the twin problems of social stigma and the pulling power of known ways and old companions appealed strongly to Dickens" (Homes for Homeless Women, 124). Although these girls would learn proper etiquette and how to tend to a family, their education at the home would be useless in their own country because English society would never accept these fallen women regardless of how far they have come. In order to obtain fulfilling lives without the fear of social stigma, these women must immigrate to a foreign land, erasing their pasts. They must project images of proper, well-behaved women while disguising the identities that have shaped them into the women they are.

Similarly, Lady Dedlock, a woman with an illegitimate child from a man who is not her husband, chooses to continue sheilding her sin from the world even after she confesses to her daughter, Esther, that they are in fact mother and daughter: "I must travel my dark road alone, and it will lead me where it will. From day to day, sometimes from hour to hour, I do not see the way before my guilty feet. This is the earthly punishment I have brought upon myself. I bear it, and I hide it" (450). Instead of accepting that she, like every other human being, makes mistakes and taking responsibility for her actions, Lady Dedlock must conceal her misdeed and continue to punish herself with guilt. Likewise, the women in the home for homeless women do not demonstrate to society, after having changed their ways, that they have learned from their immoral actions. Rather, they immigrate to a foreign land and pretend to be someone else. Fallen women are forced to deny the fact they have ever fallen and consequently, they are inclined to live double lives--inwardly, as the women that have brought them where they are and outwardly, as the women society expects them to be. Through his establishment of the home for homeless women and Lady Dedlock, a fictionalized example of a fallen woman, Dickens does not encourage society to accept women who are or have been in such situations. Instead, fallen women are expected to adapt to the guidelines that have been set for females all along.