With parallel plots in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Possession includes social concerns common to both eras. The use of the two plots highlights similarities as well as differences between the two periods.

The role of women is one of the major social concerns in the novel.

Very few options are available to the Victorian characters in conventional society; some of the female characters chose to live outside of those restrictions. Not one of the Victorian women is ultimately happy or self-fulfilled, however, suggesting some of the inadequacies of Victorian society. The Victorian characters are pressured less by outer than by inner restrictions, so completely have they accepted and absorbed their society's standards. The modern female characters, on the other hand, generally have far more choices than their Victorian counterparts, but some of them still tend to fall into Victorian roles such as "the woman behind...