As we saw in the first part, Holman Hunt's The Awakening Conscience, as a text, allows the readers a glimpse into a contemporary moral issue: the Fallen Woman. The action in Hunt's composition is clear; He depicts a young, rather urbane who have been enjoying an afternoon in their villa. When the song that they are singing strikes a moral note with the kept woman, she attempts to renounce her seemingly ill-fated future. It is this moment in the narration Hunt chooses to portray: the act of renunciation. This is shown through both the unravelled embroidery and the convolvulus in the vase suggesting the web in which the girl has entangled herself and the dropped glove, which suggests both the casting away of sin and the foreboding notion of the girl's possible fall into prostitution.23
Hunt's representation of the women remains a decidedly male view and we may perhaps see this complex issue of sexual exploitation being somewhat reduced to a moral pawn of sorts. The role of the women within the narrative is a fairly complex one. She becomes not only the key character and protagonist but it is she whose morality is in question; we as an audience are put in the immediate position to judge the girl whilst the male character remains securely in the background imbedded in passive action of a past moment. The girl is shown as the active character; it is she who is causing the action that will push the narrative further. Compositionally, she remains
firmly within a male context and becomes objectified as such; we see her remaining in physical contact which perhaps underlines the social structure in which she is to remain.
Hunt illustrates the belief that 'women were rendered by nature dependant on man' within a fairly formalist model for we can see the girl remaining physically linked to herlover.24 The female/male dichotomy is paralleled in the The Awakening Conscience in the moral nature of the work through the hypocrisy being represented Hunt chooses to show the girl in the act of a spiritual awakening whilst the male figure is allowed to remain frozen in his folly; Hunt is seemingly placing both the moral obligation and responsibility on the woman, who was ultimately seen to be the defender of morals. We do see, however, Hunt echoing a rather far-sighted comment made in the Cambridge Observer in 1844 'If girls are educated as dolls and glittering playthings for man's leisure moments, what can be expected from them as the future wives andmothers'.25 Admittedly, the writer of these article still holds women within a decidedly male context, he at the very least, attempts to address what could perhaps be seen as conditioning of women, but also attempts to de-objectify them. The writer concludes that the social education of women should include 'useful knowledge' and 'moral training' which, he admits, were often sacrificed to unsubstantial accomplishment'.26
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