Trollope enjoyed using his stories as little Clinics in the Lessons of Life, injecting himself as an observer, critic and instructor in other everyday matters. In Ralph the Heir he explains how the beauty of Mary Bonner afforded her the Priority of Service that is the due primarily of beauty, but also of money, political position, and noble birth. A diligent worker himself, he extolled the virtues of hard work in Castle Richmond: "It is my opinion that nothing seasons the mind for endurance like hard work. Port wine should perhaps be added."
Victorians wrote letters, and they mailed them by post, and Trollope as a veteran of the postal service used letters and the service of mail delivery to advantage, again often with editorial asides as to how something may have been better phrased. In another little lesson of life in The Bertrams, he offered another too-frequently-neglected lesson: "Sit down and write your letter; write it with all the venom in your power … and, as a matter of course, burn it before breakfast the next morning." He goes on to extol pleasant letters, concluding his advice for letter writing: "But, above all things, see that it be good-humored."
The development of character is generally one of Trollope's strengths. His observations were probing and acute; these are transformed into portrayals of certain characters who are so life-like that the reader comes to know them and their foibles as well as he knows his own friends and neighbors. Certain character traits must have particularly fascinated Trollope because they recur in several of his novels. Among these is the trait that might be referred to as terminal stubbornness, most obviously shown in Louis Trevelyan and Emily Rowley, who becomes Trevelyan's wife in He Knew He Was Right. Emily receives frequent visits from an older family friend, Colonel Osborne. Her husband Louis considers these to be inappropriate and an affront to his honor, whether they represent any misbehavior by his wife or not. She has been raised to be an independent spirit and refuses to follow his command. This difference is pursued to the end, literally, with Trevelyan finally succumbing to his madness.
Other couples demonstrating a reluctance or refusal to come to terms with each other appear in The Bertrams (Caroline Waddington and Arthur Wilkinson), Kept in the Dark (Cecilia Holt and George Western), and Cousin Henry (Isabel Brodrick and Reverend William Owen).
Several plots rely on a woman's determination to remain true, no matter what, to a man whom she once agreed to marry—most notoriously in the case of Lily Dale, in The Small House at Allington. Forsaken by a handsome rake who subsequently makes a more advantageous marriage, Lily considers herself consigned to spinsterhood, refusing to consider any other suitor, particularly the devoted Johnny Eames. Occasionally these self-sacrificing women can be persuaded to get a life for themselves, but it's never easy and often impossible. Some of these steadfast heroines are Florence Mountjoy in Mr. Scarborough's Family and Lady Anna, Linda Tressel, Rachel Ray, and Nina Balatka in the novels bearing their names. Of these, Linda fails to survive. Emily Hotspur also succumbs after being forbidden to marry her worthless cousin George Hotspur, a somewhat ordinary rake, in Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite.
The Victorian woman suffered a number of disadvantages that no longer apply to today's woman, and Trollope explored these features of the world of his day, illustrating them so that today's reader cries out at such injustices. Trollope himself never acknowledged any sympathy for the feminist movement, and indeed he sometimes parodied some of its more ardent advocates, but a number of his works can be read as feminist texts for exposing the problems that women faced. Lady Laura Standish, in Phineas Finn, refuses Phineas's gallant offer of marriage, even though she loves him, because neither of them has enough money to support his political ambitions. However, she devotes herself to furthering his political career, hoping to use him as a mouthpiece for her own political interests. Caroline Waddington in The Bertrams suffers the powerless state of a married woman before the appearance in England of rather modest reforms.
Trollope's insight and skill in presenting women was such that the faithful reader is tempted to sort them into bins—not an unfair analysis of a writer who was so workmanlike in his approach to his craft that he wrote regularly and prolifically. Some of his women appear as rather one-dimensional role players, even though they may be designated as "heroines"; others are developed in such depth that the reader feels that he knows them as long-time friends. Individuals, even fictional creations, defy classification, but the all-too-conscientious reader cannot resist creating a few tentative file folders:
The Faithful Woman, exemplified by Lily Dale, has already been mentioned.
There are a few Women Who Can't Make Up Their Mind, among whom Alice Vavasor of Can You Forgive Her? is the prototype. Others include Lady Clara Desmond in Castle Richmond and Clara Amedroz of The Belton Estate.
The Husband Hunter (one is tempted to refer to her as the Gold Digger) is the woman who sets out to marry well; Arabella Trefoil of The American Senator stands out among these. Another is Lizzie Greystock of The Eustace Diamonds, who does not become Lady Eustace for love of the sickly Florian Eustace.