The Woman Question
Gertrude, Lucy, and Phyllis Lorimer all portray aspects the "New Woman" of the late nineteenth century in their urban self-sufficiency, independent thought, and readiness to challenge accepted rules. One contemporary reviewer remarked that Gerty and Lucy both possess "the independence which is characteristic of the times."[b] However, Fanny's traditional nature serves as a comical foil to that of the progressive, younger Lorimers. In consequence, Fan is often dismissed as irritating or hapless by Gertrude.
The urban environment
Nearly all of The Romance of a Shop is set in urban London and revolves around specific neighborhoods and London establishments, with references to venues like the Grosvenor Gallery and the Reading Room of the British Museum. The urban environment is a source of both opportunity and danger for the Lorimers and the New Woman. While the city is an ideal place for the Lorimers' studio, they are also subject to the gossip which spreads surrounding their business and personal lives. The city streets offer a stage for the young women to move about freely and independently, especially on the recently introduced omnibuses, but can also facilitate danger for the girls, such as when Phyllis runs away with Mr. Darrell.
Gaze
The Lorimers' photographic lens highlights their ability to turn the gaze of society around them upon their photographic subjects. Levy's "women in business" are the producers of spectacles rather than the subject of them.[7] As young women working for their livelihood and living independently in late-Victorian London, the sisters are subjected to a social stigma against women who work at all. "Through her characters' position as women in business and in their excursions in London, Levy employs discourses about the shopgirl to expose the difficulty women have in escaping the spectacle of their gender even as they articulate a space for themselves in the public spaces of the city." (Evans) The gendered dynamic of gaze is represented in The Romance of a Shop through Levy's references to others' judgmental gaze turned upon the Lorimers, such as Mr. Darrell's critical gaze cast over Gerty as she photographs his artwork, as well as inverted by Levy's emphasis on the Lorimers' "intensely modern young eyes" and the photographic lens they employ.
Commercial accommodation
The need for artists to adapt their craft to the commercial art market is present throughout The Romance of a Shop.[c] Frank Jermyn originally aspires to be a painter, but switches to work as an engraver for The Illustrated News instead. At the onset of the novel, Gerty is in the process of writing an ambitious verse-drama about Charlotte Corday, but abandons it to pursue commercial photography. Later, when one of her poems is published in a popular magazine alongside one of Frank's engravings, Gerty plaintively muses "It is rather a come down after Charlotte Corday, isn't it?" to which Frank responds "We all have to get off our high horse, Miss Lorimer, if we want to live." As Linda Beckman points out, in targeting a popular audience with The Romance of a Shop, Levy accepts, like Gerty, the commodification of fiction and sets an example to show that a commercially viable work and artistic merit need not be mutually exclusive. [8]
