The horror and bleakness of these lives are highlighted by an inescapable world of labour.
The final one of his slum novels, this novel is an inquiry into the misery of the lowest stratum of the working class to which Gissing belonged. Set in the slums of nineteenth-century London, “The Nether World” focuses on the problems of the sordid lives led by the poor. It’s considered to be Gissing’s most pessimistic work and its based on his struggle to make a career out of writing. The title alludes to the Grub Street in London, present before Gissing’s time, teeming with an array of writers indulging in low-quality, a low-paid genre of work known as “hack literature”. It brings to us how talent can be no guarantee for a successful career in this world. New Grub Street introduces its readers to the debilitating effects that poverty has in the literary world. This acclaimed novel paints us a critical picture through the juxtaposition of the life of an un-commercial and impoverished yet talented writer with that of a commercial and materially successful writer. Gissing introduces to us the revolting character of Rhoda Nunn who falls under the latter category i.e. It tries to see their “odd” lives in a time when marriage is the norm and whether it’s a result of their lack of agency to marry or an informed choice that they make. The novel explores the lives of the Victorian women left without a male partner.
Remarkably ahead of the time it was written in, “The Odd Women” is considered by many to be a work of early feminism. Set in the London of 1887, this particular work of social realism is an acute expression of the social position and frustration of women.
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