A novel of social realism, The Odd Women reflects the major sexual and cultural issues of the

late nineteenth century. Unlike the "New Woman" novels of the era which challenged the idea
that the unmarried woman was superfluous, Gissing satirizes that image and portrays women
as "odd" and marginal in relation to an ideal. Set in a grimy, fog-ridden London, Gissing's "odd"
women range from the idealistic, financially self-sufficient Mary Barfoot to the Madden sisters
who struggle to subsist in low paying jobs and little chance for joy. With narrative detachment,
Gissing portrays contemporary society's blatant ambivalence towards its own period of
transition. Judged by contemporary critics to be as provocative as Zola and Ibsen, Gissing
produced an "intensely modern" work as the issues it raises remain the subject of contemporary
debate. (less)
Odd women are those women who are left after all other eligible men and women have been
paired in marriage. These women are not outcasts per se but definitely live a much different life
than those who have a husband.
Some of the women in this novel embrace the distinction while others are so afraid of becoming
one that they make poor choices which resonate over their lifetime. One example is that of
Monica Madden, alone in the world, she must support herself as a shop-girl. This profession is
harsh and with a limitless supply of desparate workers; there is little to advance any worker's
condition for the better. As soon as one worker is depleted there are many others ready to fill a
position.
When an opportunity to marry a man of distinction and means presents itself, Monica is so
afraid of losing this singular opportunity that she makes a decision in haste. This decision later
becomes a central point in the story and leads to numerous bad decisions and complications.
At the same time, there are other women in the novel who embrace their freedom and control;
these are odd women who have found a purpose. The pioneers who create the tide of liberation
for women.
Rhoda Nunn, a peer and friend to Monica, is a perfect example of the type of woman that laid a
path for future women to benefit from. Although she presents as a judgemental character at
times, Rhoda is able to stand strong in her beliefs and desires and not become, as so many
others do, beholden to any one man.
I loved this novel and there is much too much to describe. I can see a book club embracing this
for a wonderful discussion. So many themes to explore: love, class, economic oppression,
capitalism, feminism, desire, morals, just to name a few.
The Odd Women is an 1893 novel by the English novelist George Gissing. Its themes are the
role of women in society, marriage, morals and the early feminist movement
Summary

The novel begins with the Madden sisters and their childhood friend in Clevedon. After various
travails, the adult Alice and Virginia Madden move to London and renew their friendship with
Rhoda, an unmarried bluestocking. She is living with the also unmarried Mary Barfoot, and
together they run an establishment teaching secretarial skills to young middle-class women
remaindered in the marriage equation.
Monica Madden, the youngest and prettiest sister, is living-in above a shop in London. She is, in
modern parlance, "stalked" by a middle-aged bachelor Edmund Widdowson, and he eventually
brow-beats her into marriage. His ardent love turns into jealous obsession suffocating Monica's
life.
Meanwhile Mary Barfoot's rakish cousin Everard decides to court Rhoda initially as a challenge
to her avowed dislike of love and marriage, but he later falls in love with her for her intellectual
independence, which he finds preferable to the average uneducated woman's inanity. Despite
being virulently anti-marriage, she decides to indulge him with a view to turning down any
marriage proposal to show her solidarity with her "odd women". Ironically, she in turn falls for
him.
Married Monica meets Bevis, a young, middle-class man who pursues her and represents for
her the romantic ideal from popular novels. Crucially, Bevis lives in the same building as
Everard Barfoot. Monica, determined to elope with Bevis, goes there. Unbeknownst to her, her
husband has hired a detective to follow her. She hears someone follow her up the stairs and, to
appear innocent, she knocks on Barfoot's door. This is reported back to Widdowson, and he
feels his suspicion has been justified and informs Mary Barfoot of her cousin's blackguardly
ways.
Rhoda, on the other hand, is on a holiday in Northumberland, and Everard goes to see her
there. He woos her and at first suggests they enter a free-union (i.e. live together out of
wedlock), which would appear to be consistent with her principles. However, she gives him a
conventional "womanly" response and agrees to be with him only in a legal union; Barfoot,
somewhat disappointed in her surprising conventionality, proposes marriage, which she
accepts. She then receives a letter from Mary telling of Everard's supposed affair with Monica.
Rhoda then breaks off the engagement, after Everard proudly refuses to give an explanation but
insists he is innocent. After Widdowson confronts Monica over her infidelity, she leaves him but
lives at his expense and even moves, together with her sisters, to his rented house in Clevedon.
Virginia has become an alcoholic (her way of dealing with being an 'odd woman'). Monica is
pregnant by her husband, but her pride will not let her reunite with him. To salve her conscience,
she visits Rhoda and shows her a love letter from Beavis and also exonerates Everard over the
alleged affair. Then, months after they last saw each other, Everard visits Rhoda, asks her if she

still believes him to be guilty, and repeats his offer of marriage. Even though Rhoda assures him
that she believes him innocent, she refuses his proposal, intimating that in his professions of
love he was "not quite serious," but was partially testing her principles. It is too late for them to
reunite. Barfoot soon gets married to a conventionally educated young woman. Monica gives
birth to a girl, then dies soon after. The novel ends with Rhoda holding the baby, crying and
murmuring, "Poor little child!"
The Odd Women is an 1893 novel by the English novelist George Gissing. Its themes are the
role of women in society, marriage, morals and the early feminist movement. Wikipedia
Originally published: 1893
Author: George Gissing
ISBN: 0-14-043379-1
Country: England
Virginia and Alice Madden are 'odd women', growing old alone in Victorian England with no
prospect of finding love. Forced into poverty by the sudden death of their father, they lead lives
of quiet desperation in a genteel boarding house in London. Meanwhile, their younger sister
Monica, struggles to endure a loveless marriage she agreed to as her only escape from
spinsterhood. But when the Maddens meet an old friend, Rhoda Nunn, they are soon made
aware of the depth of their oppression. Astonishingly ahead of its time, The Odd Women is a
pioneering work of early feminism. Gissing's depiction of the daring feminist Rhoda Nunn, it is
an unflinching portrayal of one woman's struggle to reconcile her own desires with her deepest
principles.
the economic circumstances of the Madden sisters, focal characters of The Odd Women,
constitute severe challenges to their survival, [] Gissing perceives that the most desperate
element of their plight is the loneliness and barrenness of lives in which an invitation to tea or a
slice of roast beef are events of supreme importance (188). The sisters long for activities
appropriate to their claim to membership in the genteel middle class. Nonetheless, it is the
Maddens poverty that accounts for the social sterility Korg so correctly identifies. Their desire to
eat competes with their desire for class inclusion. Consequently, although the book focuses on
issues such as marriage, friendship, and kinship, these affiliations are brokered in an economic
system in which everything has, quite literally, a price. George Gissings The Odd Women, a
novel so often seen in terms of its feministic depiction of the woman problem,(1) reduces
virtually every human relationship to the level of an economic transaction of some sort.
Certainly, Gissing does not render every relationship in exclusively economic terms, nor does he
stipulate that women or men are economic entities and nothing else. However, the deprived
condition endured by the characters regulates many of the decisions, conversations, and
commentary in the novel, resulting in discussions which often suggest, explicitly or implicitly, a
business deal of some kind. Because of this reality, Gissing frequently injects the terminology of
capitalist exchange into the narrative. Capital and class are not identical, but in this novel,
capital does affect ones ability to participate in class-appropriate roles. The Odd Women does
not stand alone, of course, in demonstrating Gissings technique of implanting suggestive
economic language in the text. Although somewhat less obviously, The Unclassed, Gissings
second published novel, also utilizes this method to underscore Gissings obsession with issues

of the devaluation of labor, the treatment of the poor, and the nearly inescapable nature of
economic necessity for both genders. In some ways, this novel conveys even more poignantly
the iron grip of imprisonment to dependence upon money than does The Odd Women, since the
sympathetic characters of The Unclassed, irrespective of gender and class, try deliberately to
live apart from that constraint. Ida Starr, Osmund Waymark, and others struggle valiantly to
order their lives according to ideals other than those dictated by monetary compulsion. Unless
they obtain money, and regardless of the class to which they belong or aspire to belong, they
fail. On the other hand, the detestable or equivocal characters, such as Harriet Smales,
Abraham Woodstock, and Slimey, see life exclusively in economic, and hence degraded, terms.
For each character, issues pertaining to money facilitate the diminution of experience and
existence. This diminishment finds expression in deeds, but perhaps even more pointedly, in
words. Embedded, then, in the very language utilized by the characters and even in the
authorial vocabulary of The Odd Women and The Unclassed, deliberations about capital,
interest, labor conditions, salary, and the like dominate nearly every personal, emotional, and
social situation and conversation, particularly, though not exclusively, as these conditions pertain
to women. Gender and class distinctions sometimes temper the effect of this ubiquitous state of
affairs. More often, however, money determines class standing and enables or prevents class
mobility. In effect, no one escapes from the continual pressure of the requirements of life under
the primary forces of economic necessity that dictate the actions and utterances, those
statements which reveal the preoccupations of the characters conscious and unconscious
lives.