New Grubb Street Explication

A Portrait of Marian

An explication of the passage on pages 219- 220

of George Gissing’s, New Grubb Street

By, Tamica Butler

A Portrait of Marian

An explication of the passage on pages 219- 220

In George Gissing’s, New Grubb Street

By, Tamica Butler

Gissing offers the reader an intimate portrait of the depths of Marian Yule’s personality. The passage takes place after Marian has quarreled with her father about his suspicion that Milvain wrote a maliciously harsh review of Yule’s latest work, but before she learns the news of her wealthy uncle’s death and her impending inheritance. Marian is alone in her bed chamber contemplating the possibilities of a marriage, yet un-proposed, to Jasper Milvain. In the selection, Gissing uses metaphors and figurative language to give the reader intimate insight into the complexities of Marian’s pragmatic nature which is in conflict with her animality for romantic love especially, when it comes to Milvain’s ambitious pursuit of wealth.

This passage begins with Marian playfully considering Milvain’s good looks. Throughout the first paragraph Gissing uses nourishment as a theme (which also echoes the overall theme of poverty) to express the desire brewing within Marian. “Alone in her room she sat down only to think of Jasper Milvain, and extract from the memory of his words, his looks, new sustenance for her hungry heart.” And later, “I could love him if he chose to seek my love. Premature, perhaps; why yes, but one who is starving is not want to feel reluctance at the suggestion of food.”

Within her first thoughts of Milvain, Marian’s desire is quickly diminished by the reality that he is not the type of man she would ideally like to marry. “He was as far as possible from representing the lover of her imagination, but . . . the thought of him had supplanted dreams.” Citing her status in society,...