Arabella of Mars

I don’t know much about steampunk culture, but I really loved this novel. I feel that this book captures the unique heart and spirit of the Victorian age, “imaginative” science, while simultaneously being a somewhat critical commentary on the gender norms of the Victorian age.

I believe that such a book would have never been published during the Victorian age itself because Arabella of Mars is even more widely imaginative than space novels from the Victorian age itself. In Verne’s From Earth to the Moon people are projected into space inside of a “giant metal bullet” which interestingly enough, is more similar to our spaceships of today than the aerial ships in the novel. (More on this here https://www.google.com/amp/s/victorianachronists.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/victorian-space-travel/amp/)

Victorians were more practical when imagining space travel and their future discoveries while the intention of Levine seems to be to create a fantasy world rather than accurately depicting realistic Victorian technologies and aspirations of space travel.

The giant linen sails of the Mars Company would’ve never survived the merciless atmospheric temperature changes of space.

I feel that steampunk in general takes Victorian, antiquated technology and gives it the capabilities of modern technology. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

In Arabella of Mars, ships that sail through the atmosphere are an example of Victorian technology being placed into our modern space-traveling time.

There is so much to touch upon with the automata etc. I hope that one of you writes on this so that we can engage in a dialogue!

Arabella and Micheal’s childhoods directly mirror the experiences of children growing up in English colonies.

Ayahs in India were much like Itkhalyas, in the book. This article from Oxford University describes how Indian, female caretakers raised English children in the colonies.

The children often learned the local language from their foreign nanny, and their Ayah often spent more time with them than their own mother.

Children in the colonies, much like Arabella, were commonly sent back to England for schooling due to the pervading sentiment that the colonies were not refined enough of a place for a child to complete their schooling or to step into adulthood.

” British families who could afford to sent their children to boarding school in Britain sometime before they were 7. Some of these children had never been to Britain before, and others had only visited a few times. Many years afterwards, these children wrote about how much they had loved their ayah, and how much they missed her (and India) once they were sent to Britain. These childhood bonds appear to have been very strong, but most children never saw their ayahs again.
Shipping improved during the nineteenth century. It used to take four to six months to travel from India to Britain but
by the end of Victoria’s reign this had dropped to about 3 weeks thanks to the shortened journey through the Suez canal (1869) and technological advances in shipbuilding. This encouraged British people living in (or sent to) India to visit England more often. British families would often travel back to England to visit relatives or to take their children to boarding school. Some families took their own ayahs with them; others hired specialised ayahs just for the ship journeys. They needed to have good sea legs, be trustworthy and good with children; for that they were paid high wages compared to those who stayed in India, and given some extra money to buy warm clothes. On board the ship, British servants (such as lady’s maids, or governesses) stayed in cabins with their employers, but ayahs were expected to sleep ‘on deck’ – either among the ‘natives’ or sleeping on rolled up mattresses in the corridors outside their employers’ cabins.
Once they docked in Britain, some ayahs accompanied their families on their visit, and others were sent to a home where they would wait to be taken back again. The image at (https:reveriesunderthesignofausten.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/allinghamayahchildrenbeach.jpg) was painted in the early 20th century of a memsahib, children and an ayah at the seaside on the Isle of Wight. Although an uncommon sight outside London, this was likely not the only trip this ayah had made to Britain. Many of these women made the trip many times in their lifetimes, sometimes twice a year, and sometimes took charge of children on their own.”

(Ayahs, memsahibs, and their children: European Migrants, Olivia Robinsonhttps://www.history.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/history/documents/media/teaching_resource_-_ayahs.pdf)

Colonialist rhetoric is prevalent throughout the book, as several characters approach Mars with great ethnocentrism, not understanding Martians customs and thinking of the Martians as inferior. Let’s examine Arabella’s conversation with Simon.

‘Oh, yes. I was practically raised by Martians! My nanny, or itkhalya as we call them, was a Martian named Khema.’ Simon frowned even more deeply. ‘A great crab as a nanny? Surely it would rouse up nightmares in the child.’ ‘It is an insult to compare a Martian to a crab,’ Arabella snapped. But when she saw the shocked expression on Beatrice’s face at her outburst, she realized that once again she had committed a faux pas. English manners were so very easily bruised! ‘However,’ she continued in an attempt at conciliation, ‘now that I have seen a crab, I must agree that there is some slight resemblance around the eyes and mouth-parts, and like the crab Martians are covered in a hard carapace. But Martians do not scuttle about in such a lowly fashion as the Earth crab; they stand tall, as we do, and like us they have but two arms and two legs. And they are as possessed of intellect, morals, and judgement as we.’ She stared out the window at the clear blue sky, remembering. ‘What adventures we had together!’’’.

Simon is much like individuals we have read about in Gange’s novel. Simon has a judgemental, racist, and uniformed point of view.

The fact that Arabella has to dress up as a man to be respected and to gain passage working on a ship directly relates to Victorian gender norms.

“As she watched her old messmates struggle with the envelope’s luffing fabric while topmen scrambled hither and yon and other men shoveled charcoal, Arabella felt herself nothing more than a pretty bauble, a decoration strapped safely to the deck at the captain’s side.’’ ( Levine, Arabella of Mars, 257). Women in the Victorian were seen as the more fragile and and frail sex and were expected to be decorative, especially upper-middle class women. There are countless and countless examples and commentary on Victorian gender norms throughout the book. Arabella’s mother tries to push her into marriage and scolds her for not observing social conventions.

I happen to really like Arabella’s character. There is a moment in the book where she discusses how she doesn’t view Martians differently than men; she just sees people as people, beings and beings.

I find one moment really interesting and want to discuss it with you. What do we think about Arabella’s forgiveness for Simon’s wife? I find that Arabella really empathizes with Victorian women and their plight. Does Arabella understand how difficult circumstances were for Victorian women, that she can relate to why Simon’s wife had to give in to Simon’s plan in order to protect herself and her son? I think so.

The colonialist elements of novel seem to be very real and plausible in our current age. If there was life on Mars, and we were to travel there today, I think our dynamics with the local Martians would play out the same– as history so often repeats itself. Stories would be twisted and information would change as it was relayed across space, and this would reinforce stereotypes.

I think elements in the book that don’t seem believable are airships traveling in space. Space is a vacuum, and this is not possible. The atmospheric conditions would kill anybody floating around in space without oxygen and a space suit.