“Consumption, I am aware, is a flattering malady.” Charlotte Bronte, 1849. 

    When tuberculosis, commonly known as consumption, swept across Britain in the mid-19th century, the disease brought more than just a medical transformation to Victorian women. The 1840s represented a peak in the tuberculosis epidemic, causing its victims to slowly wither away with pale skin and thin frames as their appetites slowed and the infection of the lungs worsened. The disease became romanticized by upper class women who sought to replicate the thinness of patients with tight corsets set on their lower waists, and to achieve the rosy skin of the infected by applying bright red makeup to enhance the cheeks and the lips. Exposed collar bones and wide eyes, indications of weight loss and a low-grade fever, now represented the aesthetic fashion choice of respectable women. Tuberculosis even demonstrated class status since females of the upper class were more prone to delicate health and fragile beauty, and strong muscles or coarse skin were indicative of a lower-class woman. This “consumptive-chic” or “tubercular chic” appearance shaped Victorian fashion trends, and soon became the ideal of beauty throughout the middle of the century. 

     Not only did consumption shape the fashion trends of the 19th century, the disease also became romanticized within literature as well. Both of Charlotte Bronte’s sisters succumbed to tuberculosis at the end of the 1840s, and the glorification of the sickness plays a vital role towards the end of Jane Eyre’s beginning chapters. To perish from tuberculosis within literature often suggests that the character was a good or godly person, too good to remain a part of the corporeal world. Helen Burns represents an angelic figure in comparison to Jane Eyre’s own angry personality, and her tragic affliction with the disease leaves her saint-like in the reader’s eyes. Helen’s heavenly disposition and trust in God portrays her as a good and devout character even in death, and her withering body at the end of her life suggests a sense of great peace rather than suffering. 

     By romanticizing women even in sickness, the 1840s Victorian Era created a dangerous expectation that placed women on an even higher pedestal than ever before. Not only are they domestic goddesses within the home, they are now saints in death. The explosion of the tuberculosis beauty ideal, as well as its Christian appearance in literature, demonstrates a feminine standard that portrayed women as infallibly good. Consumption flattered its victims physically and launched a nationwide trend for more than a decade, glorifying a malady through class position and gender. 

Bibliography

Meier, Allison. “How Tuberculosis Symptoms Became Ideals of Beauty in the 19th Century.” Hyperallergic, 29 Dec. 2017, hyperallergic.com/415421/consumptive-chic-a-history-of-beaty-fashion-disease/.

Mullin, Emily. “How Tuberculosis Shaped Victorian Fashion.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 10 May 2016, www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-tuberculosis-shaped-victorian-fashion-180959029/.

“Tuberculosis Became the Victorian Standard of Beauty.” HistoryCollection.com, 12 Sept. 2018, historycollection.com/tuberculosis-became-the-victorian-standard-of-beauty/.

Additional Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9sdGVyY1B4