53 pages • 1 hour read
India HoltonThe Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Subversion of Gender Roles
Female empowerment and the subversion of traditional gender roles is a crucial theme throughout The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels. In India Holton’s fantasy version of Victorian England, women have more agency and power, enabling them to have various adventures and to even occasionally dominate men.
The Wisteria Society is a woman-led group of pirates that use magical incantations to fly their houses. This flight allows them to practice piracy and pull off bank robberies and heists of all kinds. The Wisteria Society was founded by Black Beryl, the wife of a doomed explorer. She and her husband crashed their ship on an island, and Black Beryl found the flying incantation written on a piece of parchment inside a bottle. When she realized that reciting it could make things fly, she flew a beach hut back to England and shared the incantation with her ladies’ book club, which then turned to piracy and became the Wisteria Society. This was a marked shift for the ladies, who instead of being relegated to sewing circles and literary discussion were then permitted to take up piracy “with remarkable ease” (25), showcasing the innate desire for adventure and aptitude for cleverness and cunning within the women.
The fantastic nature of the Wisteria Society and the magic the women use allow Holton to toy with the structures and expectations of Victorian England. Instead of women being kept in the home, or their “private sphere” of influence, the women take their homes into the sky to practice piracy and make economic gains for themselves and their families. The “public sphere” may remain somewhat closed to the women, as they rarely abandon their battlehouses except to shop and take tea at the teahouse, but they maximize the power of the private sphere of influence to steal money and jewels that enrich them and allow them to gain social capital through the accumulation of wealth. The women empower themselves to raise their stations in society and make their own decisions for their futures in piracy.
The role of men within the context of the society is also a subversion of the Victorian norm. While women were typically considered the property of their husbands during the real Victorian era of England, Holton demonstrates that the women of the Wisteria Society view their husbands that way instead. For example, Anne Brown says to Miss Darlington, “I’ve quite lost count of all my heists and husbands” (52). Anne clearly views her husbands the way she views her heists: Too numerous and unimportant to think of individually. Outside of the Wisteria Society meeting, Cecilia also notes, “The several houses surrounding her were lit here and there as husbands or servants went about their gentle evening occupations” (60). Here, instead of women and servants being responsible for the bulk of the domestic work, the husbands fill that role, showing further how Holton’s universe inverts the expected gender roles placed upon men and women.
Romance and Partnership Between Equals
The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels explores two different types of relationship dynamics through the romances of Ned and Cecilia and Constantinopla and Tom. While Ned and Cecilia forge a partnership based on equality and understanding, Constantinopla and Tom engage in a power struggle whereby each hopes to have the upper hand over the other.
The novel depicts Ned and Cecilia as equally matched in terms of cunning and daring. When Ned first sees Cecilia, he notes not only her beauty but an “implacability [that is] so terrifying in such a young woman” (3). He is attracted by how unfazed she is by his attempts to swindle or assassinate her. This demonstrates that a key factor in their attraction is how they are both successful pirates. Cecilia regards Ned’s ability to pay the toll on the bridge without her noticing as proof of him being “a dangerous man” (33). Cecilia’s unflappability makes her a dangerous pirate, while Ned’s charm makes him just as dangerous. These abilities complement each other, as Cecilia can be at times immune to Ned’s charm, while sometimes Ned’s charm can break through Cecilia’s cool and collected facade. They work together to defeat Morvath, developing their emotional intimacy while matching their skills.
Constantinopla and Tom’s relationship, by contrast, is one of tension and power struggles. Tom wants a traditional relationship, reminding Constantinopla, “You are too young, Oply, to understand the consequences of your actions” and using his “authority as her fiance” to demand they listen to Ned and return to Ottery St. Mary instead of helping with the fight against Morvath (168-69). The inequality in Constantinopla and Tom’s relationship stems both from the gender and age disparities between them. Tom is older and male, and therefore thinks he ought to be in charge. Constantinopla is more educated and has more hands-on pirate experience, so she thinks she ought to be in charge. She regards Tom as uneducated and resents him for it. Unlike Ned and Cecilia, who are alike in skill, knowledge, and ability, Tom and Constantinopla have a mismatch in these categories.
Tom and Constantinopla also share a clear disagreement on gender equality too. Whereas Ned views Cecilia as an equal, Tom sees himself as having authority over Constantinopla because of their upcoming marriage, which is in clear defiance of the typical Wisteria Society marital structure in which the women are in charge and the men stay home and do domestic work. In presenting these two rival visions of relationship dynamics, the novel suggests that Ned and Cecilia’s egalitarian dynamics lead to harmony and cooperation, while Tom and Constantinopla will forever be rivals against one another.
The Quest for Independence against Societal Constraints
The quest for independence against societal constraints is another important theme in The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels. While some female characters accept certain social and gender norms, others seek to defy such norms to forge their own path.
The female characters must navigate various codes of behavior about what it means to be “ladylike.” Jane Fairweather, for example, states “that a girl shouldn’t fly until she’s putting her hair up and lowering her skirt hems—or actually wearing skirts like a proper lady ought” (58, emphasis added). Jane thus believes in the Victorian norms for women when it comes to dress and behavior, taking special umbrage at Constantinopla’s loose hair and pants. Constantinopla, by contrast, defies the traditional gender standards in numerous ways besides her appearance: She has sex with Tom Eanes before marriage and defies his attempts at controlling her, and she helps recruit the Queen’s troops into battle against Morvath. These actions fall outside the Victorian ideal of the gentle, demure woman who stays home and does not experience sexual desire.
Cecilia attempts to fit herself into the mold of the perfect Victorian woman and the perfect Wisteria pirate at once. For example, she freely fights with Ned in the field, which is not behavior befitting a “proper” lady, and even plots to murder her father to avenge her mother’s death. However, she also feels obliged to behave according to other dictates of social propriety, as illustrated in her dutiful behavior toward her aunt. She is also troubled by conflicted feelings toward sexual desire and agency: While she feels a growing physical attraction to Ned over the course of the novel, she at first hesitates to act on her feelings, feeling embarrassed and confused by her own desire. While Victorian modesty would dictate that Cecilia bury her sexual desires for Ned, the pirate code offers an alternative: As Miss Darlington says, pirates can “live in sin” (312) and express their wants freely.
In the end, Cecilia manages to push back against both constraints at the same time. She marries Ned, fitting into the heteronormative mold of family that was popular among Victorians, while continuing to be a pirate living in a stolen house, a practice popular among the ladies of the Wisteria Society. She thus finds a balance that brings her joy, which suggests that Cecilia can choose for herself what speaks most to her personal tastes and values.
