Breaking Boundaries: Feminist Themes in Ann Veronica and the Journey of a Rebellious Woman

Ann Veronica by H.G Wells is a feminist novel in a sense that Ann Veronica is not a typical girl of her time. She’s a young, rebellious woman. She wants to study science, for example, which was considered to be a subject for men, back then— because it was thought to be unwomanly.

From the very start, we learn that she wants to go to a party but her father, who’s a symbol of a traditional Victorian father, won’t let her go because he sees her a child. He doesn't want to think of her as a young woman. Even the fact that he calls her “Little Vee” is enough to prove that. He wants to protect her, shelter her from the world which he sees as a dangerous place for women. He also doesn’t want her to study science. 

Ann wants to be seen as a curious human being who wants to learn about things and not be over protected all the time, though— she doesn't want to be protected or treated like a doll. She’s supposed to behave in a certain way, and her father thinks she should be able to find a nice man to marry, but that’s not what she wants.

Bicycles are significant in the novel since it allowed freedom: created a sort of liberty for women.

Ann isn't interested in poetry like Manning, she's interested in politics, science; she's practical. Women were supposed to be interested in poetry but we see that it that's not the case here. There's a gender reversal. When Manning proposes to her, that makes her realize that she cannot marry a man without loving him and she rejects him.

No matter how naïve and innocent Ann might be, she’s determined to go her own way. She has no clue what’s she’s going to do in London, and saying “goodbye” to her sheltered-existence for her dreams without any money is a big risk, but she’s willing to take the risk anyway. We witness how brave she is. She’s tired of relying on men and she wants to do something about that, so she joins to the suffrage but it doesn’t last long.

Another thing that makes this novel a feminist novel is that when Ann falls in love with Capes, she’s the one who pursues him and seduces him. She doesn’t care what other people think, doesn’t care that he’s a divorced man. And Ann is quite direct; “I want you to kiss me,” she says to Capes, for example. She doesn’t act like she doesn’t have any desires— unlike the majority of women back then. She sees sex as something biological, and the fact that Wells shows a woman sexually interested in a man is revolutionary. Capes is under her gaze, not the vice versa. She falls in love with his body, as well as his mind.

Throughout the novel, we witness her exploring her intellectual ideas and witness her to go from being an innocent young woman to being a woman.

The disappointing thing about this book, though, no matter how feminist it is, it has a traditional ending in which she becomes a wife and a mother and more than that; we see that she’s happy to be a slave of her husband. “You’re rather the master,” she even says.