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Childhood And Stereotypes

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During the Victorian Period new ideas of “childhood” were infiltrating the homes of the British (Gubar par. 2), many of these perspectives were provoked by religious practice. Two of the most popular perspectives of children were focused on the child as an embodiment of the innocent and an embodiment of the sinful. First they were devilish creatures filled with an inherent sin (Garliz 647) then they became objects of piety where the child resembled something of a prophetic, all knowing creature due to their proximity with a creator. (Garlitz 640) I aim to argue that it is religion that shadows childhood with generalisations of purity and sin. Eliot and Dickens use the supernatural as a contrasting element to expunge stereotypes in order to …show more content…
In the eyes of acquaintances she is epitomised as a true representation of purity and kindness – an assumption that relies heavily on her youth. As Barbara Garlitz explores in The Ode of Immortality: the Cultural Progeny when referring to the Victorian family they often saw the purity and kindness in children as spiritual knowledge handed down directly as a lesson from god (640). We see this when Dickens narrates during the trial of Charles Darnay when Lucies face strikes pity into the hearts of a sea of barbaric onlookers (Dickens 74) due to her expression of “engrossing terror and compassion” (Dickens 74). Even though moments before Charles Darnay was “being mentally hanged, beheaded, and quartered, by everybody there,” (Dickens 73) the empathy of a pure youthful woman implores onlookers to take her perspective into thought. While the youthful expression from Lucie brings empathy, such an earnest expression of faith by Miss Pross towards her brother, Solomon results in a lowered opinion. Mr Lorry does admit to seeing “Miss Pross much nearer to the lower Angels than many ladies” (Dicken 112) but he does not see her as a figure of youth. Rather as “one of those unselfish creatures” (Dickens 111) that “bind themselves willing slaves, to youth.” (Dickens 111) It may be assumed that Mr Lorry has based his lowered opinion on the basis …show more content…
(Garlitz 644) In A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens), Lucie is the purveyor of prophetic foreshadowing. She is the first to comment on the fluctuating state of France, when she hears metaphorical footsteps that overshadow a corner of her home. She says “I have sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I have made echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that are coming by-and-by into our lives.” (Dickens 119) This image creates an illusion simultaneously to soldiers of war and the supernatural which fluctuates the atmosphere of the cheery Manette house on “the quiet street-corner [that] was the sunny part” (Dickens 107) of Mr Lorry’s life. In the same instance the concept of Lucie fluctuates. The footsteps are one of the few internal moments the reader gets into her mind. When Lucy starts to allude to unknown pressures bearing down on the little house (presumably a foreshadowing of France) saying “but even the shade of a foolish fancy makes me shudder to-night, when all is so black and solemn.” (Dickens 119) Lucy begins by explaining “a foolish fancy” (Dickens 119) that she passes time absorbed in but the moment deepens into an intellectual moment that breaks through the idolised angelic mould she has been thrust unto. Removing the religious concepts of the angelic, pure and prophetic from the spiritual and placing them into the realm of the supernatural

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