Providence As A Tool To Suppress Women in Haggard’s She: A History of Adventure
The Victorian novel She: A History of Adventure by H. Rider Haggard was first published serially and gained an extremely large audience. Haggard portrayed the powerful Ayesha, or She, as a woman confined by her love for the Kallikrates, as she awaits his reincarnation in Africa. But *spoiler alert* the invincible Ayesha dies near the novel’s conclusion.
The narrator and titular character, Holly, reflects on the cause of her death, remarking that the “finger of Providence,” (264) or the will of God, had a hand in her demise. Holly considers Ayesha’s state in Africa before his and Leo’s arrival, stating that Ayesha was “locked up in her living tomb waiting from age to age for the coming of her lover worked but a small change in the order of the World,” (264) arguing that Ayesha’s actions as she ruled over the Amahaggers were inconsequential. Ayesha was “locked up in [a] living tomb,” with the words living tomb suggesting that she was alive but not truly living or exerting her power. This refers to Ayesha being stuck waiting on a man, specifically her lover Kallikrates, rather than exploring the world.
By emphasizing Ayesha’s helplessness in her situation, Haggard takes Ayesha’s agency from her, reducing her motivation and drive to the sole goal of capturing the love and attention of a man. She is rendered into a stereotypical damsel in distress as she waits for Kallikrates to save her from the two thousand years of “hateful caves and gloomy-visaged folk,” (231) as she describes them herself.
It is true that Ayesha has the ability to leave at any point, but she does not because Haggard portrays her as dependent on another. This dependency is why Ayesha was only able to exert a “small change in the order of the World” (264) before she was reunited with Leo/Kallikrates. But once Ayesha became “strong and happy in her love, clothed in immortal youth and godlike beauty, and the wisdom of the centuries,” (264) she was far too dangerous.
Holly claims Ayesha would have “revolutionised society, and even perchance have changed the destiny of mankind” (264) if she would have lived. From this quote, we can see Ayesha seemed to have gained it all — brilliant youth and beauty, total power over a kingdom, and the unconditional love of another. But because of her new success and continued self-sufficiency, Ayesha was “against the eternal Law” (264). The idea that Ayesha was opposing eternal law due to her extreme success and recent happiness creates the argument that women cannot and should not have everything they desire because it is not natural and because it is not God’s will. When Ayesha only had her beauty and some small power in one corner of the globe, she was acceptable. But once she found love and renewed her hopes of conquering the world, she became too powerful.
Thus, Holly claims Providence intervened and struck her down before she could have become a threat to society by revolutionizing the world. This moment where Holly ponders Ayesha’s death in She: A History of Adventure suggests that women cannot be allowed to reach their full potential because they will then have the dangerous power to change society.
