Ann Veronica Essay

Herbert George Wells feminist novel relates the rebellion of the eponymous protagonist Ann
Veronica, a biology student at Tredgegold Womens College, who persists defiantly on
attending a dress ball in London against her fathers wishes, which compels the latter to
resort to force to thwart her intentions. The injustice of the scuffle prompts Ann Veronica to
abscond Morningside Park for London, taking refuge in an apartment, a decision she reckons
a stepping stone towards independence.

After failing to acquire employment, Ann Veronica turns to Mr. Ramage who politely refuses
her a position but offers to lend her forty pounds. Furnished with this sum, she enrolls in the
Biological Laboratory of Central Imperial College, wherein she falls head over heels in love
with Capes, the laboratory demonstrator.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ramage, who conducts himself as an ostensible friend to Ann Veronica,
capitulates to his latent carnal desires for the latter and attempts to force himself on her,
during the course of a dinner encounter at a hotel. Scandalized at the animalistic turn
affairs have taken, Ann Veronica determines to pay Mr. Ramage every last penny she
borrowed from him, and devotes herself to Womens Suffrage, suspending her studies
momentarily. It is her vigorous support of that noble cause that incurs her arrest for thirty
one days.

The incarceration brings many a thing into focus for Ann Veronica and sobers her into
returning home, where she engages herself to Mr. Manning only to withdraw from marrying
him, and renounce the engagement. Ann Veronica runs back to London, professes her love to
Capes who deems it most prudent that should remain mere friends, on account of his
marred reputation and fissured marital situation.

Notwithstanding, this resolution of his soon buckles when he gives up his position in order to
live with his beloved Ann Veronica, and spend a honeymoon in the Alps. Flash-forward to
the last chapter where Capes becomes a successful playwright and pregnant Ann Veronica
reconciles with her family.

Themes:

Womens Suffrage: Wells exhorts the populace to enfranchise women, deeming them the
reigning portion of society

Exploitation and Deceit: the limning of Ann Veronicas exploitative pseudo-friendship with
Mr. Ramage propounds that such thing as a heterosexual platonic attachment.

Oppression and Tyranny: personified by Mr. Stanely , who encompasses the traits of a male-
driven community even on such a small a scale as a household.
Marriage: an institution that exiles a woman and clips her wing, but which the protagonist
willfully subscribes to by the end of the novel. Reticence turns into consent.