Source identified1
Image design Charcoal
Read & copy
“Independent! Oh, Alice, what a blessed thing is independence!”
Meaning & context
Virginia Madden reacts to even temporary financial independence as a profound relief from dependence on employers, relatives and the marriage market.
Source details
The Odd Women, represented by Project Gutenberg #4313. Virginia speaks to her sister Alice early in the novel; the exclamation sits inside Gissing’s wider treatment of unmarried women, paid work and constrained choices in Victorian England.