Round and flat characters in Trollope, and his portrayal of women

Though he doesn't go as far in this regard as his contemporary Dickens, Trollope includes many characters in his novels who are two-dimensional and intentionally so. That is to say, they exhibit only one trait and they do so to an extreme, usually a comic extreme, and they often bear a name that sticks on them like a label. The best example from Framley Parsonage would be the extremely wealthy aristocrat of limited intelligence, Lord Dumbello (my only quibble: Wouldn't it have been funnier and less heavy-handed had Trollope named him Lord D'Umbello?). That said, his lead characters tend to be "rounded," that is, exhibiting multiple personality traits, facing obstacles that test the moral strength, evolving over the course of the novel. To his credit, his "rounded" heroes do not always act heroically, and his rounded villains sometimes surprise us w/ a moment of reflection or introspection. In one of Trollope's many passages in which the narrator engages in direct address with the reader, he notes that his protagonist, Lord Lufton, may not always be acting wisely in regard to his courtship of Lucy Robarts, but the narrator asks if anyone, really, is true only to one person over the course of one's life (not talking about infidelity here but about having several romances before meeting and connecting w/ future spouse). Trollope's major female characters are somewhat less rounded, but none the less sympathetic for all that. Lucy Robarts, for example, is somewhat of a blank space - but when Lord Lufton proposes to her she shows a rare, shrewd intelligence - though she loves him and she believes he loves her, Lucy also recognizes that the marriage cannot endure w/out the blessing of Lady Lufton (Lord Lufton's mother), leading her to make a complex decision and proposition. Fanny Robarts, another lead character, is pretty much in full and slavish devotion to her husband, but she is remarkably practical and shows her devotion to their marriage even in the face of her husband's horrible decisions and behavior (by the way, does anyone understand these "bills" he keeps signing and why that puts him in debt? Are we even meant to understand that?). Also, Lady Dunstable - who inherited her fortune from her father's pharmacy and the sales of his Oil of Lebanon - though a minor character is one of the best - thumbing her nose at all of society's biases and expectations and turning down a proposal from the spendthrift Lord Sowerby, recognizing that the marriage would be preposterous, but still extending a hand to him in friendship: She doesn't need a man, or a title, to find her place in the world.



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