In my viewing of classmates’ commonplace book entries, the main ideas that stuck out to me were the fears of British expansion into Africa, as well as the role of women and the idea of the “new woman”. First, each of the entries I looked at mentioned the fear of British expansion. There were many articles including quotes from British members of society detailing the fears or ideas they had about British expansion into Africa. Many referred to Africa as “the dark country” or “the country of blacks”, and by seeing these it became easier to understand many of the racial undertones present in Marsh’s work. There were also some accounts from British explorers and missionaries explaining that they were going to these countries in order to help make these people civilized. They believed that they were “savages” of sorts and that they needed religion and instruction on how to act properly. This sounds very familiar to the accounts of the British colonists who ventured to what is now America. These ideas of fear and a need to bring their way of life to other places is what drove many of the ideas in this book. The idea of a “new woman” was also very present in this book, especially in the character of Marjorie Lindon, who seems to go against the wishes of her father and other men in the story, an idea that frightened many of the men and women in society at the time. These “liberated women” still had nowhere near the amount of power that they have in today’s society, but these ideas caused fear for many members of society who already had their own ideas about a woman’s place in society.
Question: Was Richard Marsh also fearful of these things, or was this more of a commentary on the fears of society at the time?
