ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the critical attention to the Victorian notion of the fallen woman has shown, there was tremendous discussion between the 1840s and the 1880s about the problem of the Great Social Evil and the fallen woman. It shows the Adelaide Ann Procter's fallen woman poem, A Legend of Provence, challenges key elements of the traditional fallen woman narrative by describing the figure in terms of the complex interaction of internal and external forces acting upon her. Specifically, Procter complicates traditional notions of clear moral categories by resisting distinctions between the secular and the religious, thereby complicating reductive, traditional notions of the fallen woman's morality. Procter's representation of the fallen woman's restoration posits a radical argument: the fallen woman is not merely forgiven and granted re-entry into the community she has abandoned; she is redeemed both socially and spiritually, and experiences no social punishment for her fall.
