Conclusion

Abstract

My final chapter concludes with an important qualification which problematises Collins’ entire approach and underlines the importance he places on chance as opposed to Providence or Fate. He goes a long way towards illustrating and illuminating how society, supported by the legal system, subordinates women in its own interests. However, the discussion of luck, taken from The Evil Genius (1886), one of his very last novels, tends to diverge from this view. Here I must introduce a final, but important modification to the argument; if so much in life is the result of random sequences of events, benign or otherwise, this, finally, may be seen as a dilution of the view that the organization of society is the result of a particular set of political and economic conditions, since it suggests that the world may not be susceptible to change by human agency. If everything is a matter of chance there is little we can do about it. Collins, I am claiming, goes much further, and is more consistent in his social and political analysis than has generally been recognised; but to see this is not to impose upon him, with retrospective hindsight, a neat form of modern political attitude or an unambivalently urged social programme. Collins’ scepticism is both a political strength and a weakness.