The story "The Duchess and the Jeweler" by Virginia Woolf reflects the moral decadence of the English aristocracy in the late Victorian era. It describes the interactions between Oliver Bacon, a former street boy who became the richest jeweler in England, and the Duchess of Lambourne, a member of the aristocracy. Both characters represent different social classes but also moral failings. The Duchess cleverly tricks Oliver into buying fake pearls by inviting him to her party, preying on his desire to join the aristocracy despite knowing she cheated him. The story highlights the corruption and lack of ethics among both the aristocracy and the nouveau riche at this time in English history.

1. THE DUCHESS AND THE JEWELLER
- BY VIRGINIA WOOLF
Submitted By:
Mohit Rana BTBM/13/213
Zikra Zahid Akhtar BTBM/13/240
Sukriti Singh BTBM/13/242

2. Virginia was an English novelist, essayist, biographer, and feminist. Woolf was
a prolific writer, whose modernist style changed with each new novel. Her
letters and memoirs reveal glimpses of Woolf at the center of English literary
culture during the Bloomsbury era. Woolf represents a historical moment
when art was integrated into society, as T.S. Eliot describes in his obituary for
Virginia. “Without Virginia Woolf at the center of it, it would have remained
formless or marginal…With the death of Virginia Woolf, a whole pattern of
culture is broken.
Virginia Adeline Stephen was the third child of Leslie Stephen, a Victorian
man of letters, and Julia Duckworth.. Virginia was educated by private tutors
and copiously read from her father’s vast library of literary classics. She later
resented the degradation of women in a patriarchal society, rebuking her
own father for automatically sending her brothers to schools and university,
while she was never offered a formal education. Woolf’s Victorian upbringing
would later influence her decision to participate in the Bloomsbury circle,
noted for their original ideas and unorthodox relationships. As biographer
Hermione Lee argues “Woolf was a ‘modern’. But she was also a late
Victorian. The Victorian family past filled her fiction, shaped her political
analyses of society and underlay the behavior of her social group.”
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

3. 1.The Duchess
2.Oliver Bacon – The Jeweller

4. 1. The Duchess
The Duchess is more of a stock figure, entering Bacon's office with "the aroma, the prestige, the
arrogance, the pomp" of any of her kind, explicitly represented as "all the Dukes and Duchesses
swollen in one wave.”
2. Oliver Bacon – The Jeweller
Oliver Bacon is this story's protagonist. Once a poor boy in the streets of London, he has become the
richest jeweler in England. As a young man, he sold stolen dogs to wealthy women and marketed
cheap watches at a higher price. On a wall in his private room hangs a picture of his late mother. He
frequently talks to her and reminisces, once chuckling at his past endeavors.

5. The story “The Duchess and the Jeweler” is narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator.
Once Oliver Bacon was very poor and lived in a filthy, little alley. He worked very hard and used fair
and unfair means to become the richest jeweler of the England. He enjoys his present position. He
is suffering from inferiority complex. There is a great difference between his present and past
condition. He has become so important that each day he receives invitation cards from the
aristocracy of the city. He has become very rich, but he is so greedy that he wants more and more
wealth.
One day the Duchess of Lambourne comes to sell some fake pearls. She induces him into buying
those fake pearls very cleverly. She uses her daughter Diana as bait. She also invites him to the
party where all the aristocracy will be present.
Oliver Bacon buys the fake pearls because he wants to attend the party and spend the weekend
with Diana. He loves Diana very much. Besides, he wants to move among aristocratic circles.
He signs the check for twenty thousand pounds. The Duchess takes the check and leaves. Later, he
asks pardon of the picture of his mother.

6. Ben Wilson explained further about decadence in his book entitled The Making of Victorian Values:
Decency and Dissent in Britain: 1789-1837 that “the term decadence was initially used to describe writers
of the mid-19th century in France, especially Baudelaire and Gautier. By the century’s end, decadence was
in use as an aesthetic term across Europe. The word literally means a process of ‘falling away’ or decline. In
relation to art and literature, it signaled a set of interlinked qualities. These included the notion of intense
refinement; the valuing of artificiality over nature; a position of ennui or boredom rather than of moral
earnestness or the valuing of hard work; an interest in perversity and paradox, and in transgressive modes
of sexuality.”
In short, the act or process of falling into an inferior condition is called decadence. It was a period when
those who argued that a British empire would be a disaster for liberty were eventually squashed by
imperialists, just as those who railed against mindless materialism were in the end rolled over by
industrialists and the promoters of luxury goods. It was an era when people were obsessed with the need
to appear authentic, and yet forever had doubts about who was and who wasn't-concerns familiar to the
"me" age we know so well.

7. The story The Duchess and the Jeweler written in 1938 by Virginia Woolf clearly reflects the
decadence of moral values of the English aristocracy after the Victorian Era. Gambling,
stealing, cheating, greediness and insolence were the prevailing vices among the elite class.
There are two main characters in the story: Oliver Bacon and a Duchess. These characters
fully reflect the moral decadence of the English aristocracy.
No doubt, the writer of the story “The Duchess and the Jeweler” reflects the English society
of her time. It was an age of transition. Woolf introduces characters – the Duchess and the
jeweler. The Duchess represents the high-ups. The jeweler represents the commoners. His
name is Oliver Bacon. At the start of the story, the writer talks about commoners through
Oliver Bacon, the jeweler. She tells the reader how the commoners took lead. Oliver Bacon
was a commoner, used to live in a filthy, little alley but later he became the richest jeweler of
England. Then slowly he took lead and became one of the high-ups of the English society.
Now he lived at Piccadilly. It was the most fashionable and expensive place in London. He
had become so important that each day he received invitation cards from the aristocracy of
the English society. Even the Duchess of Lambourne waited for his pleasure outside his
private office.

8. The jeweler kept the Duchess of Lambourne waiting because of his inferiority complex. He wanted
to enjoy his present position of the richest jeweler of England. When we read the story, we will find
that Oliver Bacon used to live in a filthy, little alley. At that time, his greatest ambition was to sell
stolen dogs to fashionable women and he did sell. Then he became salesperson and sold cheap
watches. Then he did some other jobs to become rich. Therefore, he was a commoner. He did not
anything common with the aristocratic class of that time. Now by working hard, he was the richest
jeweler of England. There was a great difference between his past and present life but he has not
forgotten his past. Therefore, when the Duchess of Lambourne came to see him, he kept her
waiting just to enjoy his present position of the richest jeweler of England. It was a great honor for a
boy of a filthy, little alley. Woolf comments, “The Duchess of Lambourne, the daughter of a hundred
Earls. She would wait for ten minutes on a chair at the counter. She would wait his pleasure. She
would wait till he was ready to see her.” It was as if he was enjoying a very big and desirous feast.
The jeweler who was once a commoner was now keeping a Duchess waiting. What a great
achievement that was.
His character amply reveals the moral decadence of the contemporary upper class. He is a very
greedy man. Even though he has become the richest jeweler in England, yet he is not satisfied.
Moreover, he is a philanderer. He has deceived Mademoiselle who used to stick roses in his button
hole. Now he buys fake pearls from the Duchess in exchange of passing a weekend with her
daughter Diana, his new beloved.

9. Then the writer talks about the high-ups. On the other hand, the Duchess represents inherited
aristocracy. The duchess was the member of the aristocracy by birth. There was a great class
difference between the two. These two classes could never be friends. However, the duchess
was forced to call him an ‘old friend’ because of her moral decadence and financial problems.
That was how they were friends; yet enemies.
The entrance of the Duchess sets up a major contrast between the social positions of the two
characters. The physical description of the Duchess as she enters Bacon’s office illustrates her
overbearing public persona: “Then she loomed up, filling the door, filling the room with the
aroma, the prestige, the arrogance, the pomp, the pride of all the Dukes and Duchesses
swollen in one wave”. She drapes herself in bright colors as her overweight body is held in
check by pink taffeta. The sense of volume that the Duchess creates is typical of the display of
aristocratic clothing. Attire can be a palpable and powerful expression of a social relationship.
Then Woolf adds “He was master, she was mistress.” When we read the story carefully, we
find that Oliver became the richest jeweler of England by using fair and unfair means.
Therefore, he was a master in the sense that he a great cheat. On the other hand, the Duchess
was a mistress. She was a cheat too. She induced the jeweler into buying the fake pearls so
cleverly that she appears to be a mistress in this sense.

10. “Each cheated other the other, each needed the other, and each feared the other.” When
we read the story, we find that each cheated the other. The Duchess cheated the jeweler
and sold the fake pearls. The jeweler cheated the duchess in a sense that he kept her
waiting without any proper reason. Similarly, both needed each other. She needed him for
money and he needed her to go the party and to the woods with her daughter. In spite of
that, both feared each other because each knew the secrets of the other.
Her character also highlights the lax ethics of the nobility of that time. She is a thief. In
order to get money for gambling, she steal the pearls of her husband. She has no respect
for her husband. She calls him villain, sharper and bad'un. She is so bankrupt morally thus
was always in financial difficulties because of her moral decadence. She gambled. To get
her desired twenty-thousand, the Duchess had forgotten all her nobility. To arrange for
the money she sold fake pearls to Oliver twice but this was not all. She stakes the honour
of her daughter for money. She offers her daughter Diana for amour to Oliver Bacon in her
own house. She had so much moral decadence that she used Diana, her daughter, to
entrap Oliver Bacon.

11. The story is interesting as the reader becomes aware of just how vulnerable or insecure Oliver may be. In
the end, he realized that he has been swindled (again) by the Duchess he looks at the portrait of his
mother in his office and asks her to forgive him, Woolf telling the reader that Oliver felt again like ‘he was a
little boy in the alley where they sold dogs on Sunday.’ This line may be important as it suggests that even
though Oliver knows that he has been swindled by the Duchess he is still unable to control his vanity and
his desire to be part of upper class society.

12.  https://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/Virginia_Woolf
 http://sittingbee.com/the-duchess-and-the-jeweller-virginia-woolf/
 http://www.supersummary.com/the-duchess-and-the-jeweller/summary/