...The British Victorian Era, 1837 to 1901, can be classified as being the era of sharp criticisms of Victorian class structure, social hypocrisy, and marginalization of women. Throughout many novels, some particularly based on World War I, postcolonial times, the morality of the Victorians, etc., there is quite an elaborations for these allocations. During this time period, social class systems and the apportionments pre-defined a specific class “ladder” that many people had been either born into and stayed in that specific class or tried to work into a harder class. Some of the connotations of this era were seen to be “prudish”, “suppressed”, and “primitive”. First in the novel Regeneration, the author, Pat Barker, demonstrates the stubborn class divides of English society through the interactions of the officer ranks (typically upper class/ nobles) and private soldiers (almost entirely working class or poor) in its military during WWI. This is the best illustrated through the character of Billy Prior, a working class man who achieves the rank of captain and often reflects upon the tensions in the British army that result from class prejudice. For example, class distinctions were exhibited through English society, especially in the military. The military is "structured” around class and have many ways recreated the British class system in: aristocratic generals, middle-class officers, and a working class rank. This particular structure made the military more augmented...
Words: 1477 - Pages: 6
...many respects. Increase of wealth, the general prosperity of England as a whole an account of its colonial hold over other countries, immense growth in scientific and industrial development, are some of the clearly noticeable characteristics of this age. Lord Tennyson, the poet laureate of Victorian era glorifies the reign of Queen Victorian through his ode On the Jubilee of Queen Victoria. On the other side of this picture of commercial and scientific expansion we see the appalling social condition of new industrial cities, the squalid slums, and the exploitation of cheap labour ,the painful fight by the enlightened to introduce social legislation and Victorians were caught between materialism and spiritualism, between realism and romanticism, peace and unrest, science and religion, mechanism and humanism .They could not give up the conventional morality or religious practices so, they try to reconcile religious dogma and scientific truth. Thus Victorian age is often known as an age of compromise. The Victorian age was not only the longest, but also the greatest age in the history of English Fiction. The Novel was the most appealing form of literature during the Victorian age. It was partially because of the steady increase of reading public with...
Words: 1857 - Pages: 8
...insights into various aspects of the Victorian era culture. Characters such as Joe and Magwitch provide an insight into the education and the crime and justice systems of Victorian England, along the importance of social class and wealth. Whilst, Estella and Miss Havisham provide an insight into the position of women and the inequality of power between the genders. Throughout the novel Pip encounters a range of people and undergoes various experiences. It is through these people and experiences that Pip learns numerous lessons in life. Pips main learning-catalysts are Magwitch, Joe, Miss Havisham and Estella. Education was an important cultural aspect of the Victorian era. Education allowed wider access to employment, and respect; for one could not become a gentleman and part of the upper-class without an education. Yet access to education was greatly determined to one’s position in society. Those in the upper class were given a higher priority to receive education than those in the lower class. Therefore it was very difficult for one to advance within society. This provides Dickens with the opportunity to gently satirize the class system of this era and to provide a Marxist view on the inequality of wealth and power. Dickens presents numerous characters, all from different social classes with different levels of education. Through the characters Joe and Drummle, Dickens is able to compare their levels of education and their social classes to convey the unequal...
Words: 1110 - Pages: 5
...A story read and reread by many, talked about and still written about today, what is this all consuming attraction to this novel of a by gone era? Callum White explores this question in his thought provoking article, as he delves into Bronte’s novel unravelling the weave of symbols of cultural conflict within her tale. Journeying back to the height of the Victorian bourgeois capitalistic imperialistic society a time when great change was afoot and the emergence of socialism was alluring to many. Victorian literature for the most part has been the product of the middle class or as commonly put by Karl Marx the petit bourgeois. The bourgeois was comprised of small-scale capitalists such as shop-keepers and government employees and in the case of Wuthering Heights it is no different. Written in 1846, Emily Bronte’s novel contains a turbulent ideological storm, demonstrating an apparent crisis of the Victorian era petit bourgeois class to which Bronte was born. Throughout the novel the various crises surrounding the estate and the family are all explored, but more importantly, Wuthering Heights examines the crisis of individuality versus custom, since the contradiction between the social expectations of class privilege and the selfhood advocated by the materialistic pursuit of the capitalist system is the very essence of Victorian consciousness. Bronte appears from the onset of her story more interested in showing the reader a realistic world that is not shackled by fantastical...
Words: 1752 - Pages: 8
...the second half of the nineteenth century Britain was a mature industrial society and was able to experience many of the benefits of the industrial revolution. Discuss. By the end of the nineteenth century, Britain experienced enormous industrial expansion, thereby creating an improvement in the lives of most of its people. The middle classes fare well by the opening of new opportunities in employment, residing, for the most part, in the new suburbs of the industrial cities and towns. They surrounded themselves with the clutter of possessions associated with a new consumer age. There were modest improvements in the working and living conditions of working class people, many of whom were drawn to the cities from rural areas in the hope of a better life. This essay will examine the conditions of life in late Victorian Britain in order to establish the extent of the benefits brought about by industrial transformation, insofar as they affected the lives of the different classes. In 1800, twenty five per cent of the population of England lived in the cities and towns. Within a period of eighty years this position was reversed. In 1850, the year of the Great Exhibition, which was a celebration of British industrial achievement, the ‘number of urban dwellers exceeded those who dwelt in the countryside’. The cities of Birmingham and Manchester more than doubled their populations between 1801 and 1831. The industrial revolution was synonymous with the cotton industry in the...
Words: 3192 - Pages: 13
...Victorian morality is a distillation of the moral views of people living at the time of Queen Victoria's reign (1837–1901) and of the moral climate of the United Kingdom throughout the 19th century in general, which contrasted greatly with the morality of the previous Georgian period. Victorian morality can describe any set of values that espouse sexual restraint, low tolerance of crime and a strict social code of conduct. Due to the prominence of the British Empire, many of these values were spread across the world. The term "Victorian" was first used during The Great Exhibition in London (1851), where Victorian inventions and morals were shown to the world. The Victorian Age was a complex era characterized by stability, progress and social reforms, and, in the meantime, by great problems such as poverty, injustice and social unrest; that’s why the Victorians felt obliged to promote and invent a rigid code of values that reflected the world as they wanted it to be, based on: * duty and hard work; * respectability: a mixture of both morality and hypocrisy, severity and conformity to social standards (possessions of good manners, ownership of a comfortable house, regular attendance at church and charitable activity); it distinguished the middle from the lower classes; * charity and philanthropy: an activity that involved many people, especially women. The family was strictly patriarchal: the husband represented the authority and respectability, consequently a single...
Words: 587 - Pages: 3
...with the city is also influenced by the early Victorian perception of the city and the crimes that occurred in the city. Irene Adler the primary antagonist and villain, in the Arthur Conon Doyle’s “Scandal in Bohemia” (1891), outwits Sherlock Holmes – One of the greatest detectives and brilliant minds in literature to date. The nature in which if she operates, is helped by the nature of the city which encourages, promotes and even hide the criminality and violence....
Words: 1283 - Pages: 6
...a sufficient emotional and economic fulfillment for females. These constructs kept women far away from the public sphere in most ways, but during the 19th century charitable missions did begin to extend the female role of service, and Victorian feminism emerged as a potent political force. The transformation of Britain into an industrial nation due to the industrialization had profoundly influenced the ways in which women were to be believed ideally in Victoria times. Newly emerged urban jobs formed an urban living style that no one had lived before, it prompted a change in the ways in which appropriate male and female roles were perceived. In particular, the notion of separate spheres, which woman was in the private sphere of the home and hearth, man was in the public sphere of business, politics and sociability - came to influence the choices and experiences of all women. The Victorian era from 1837 to 1901 is characterized as the domestic age, idealized by Queen Victoria, who came to represent a sort of femininity that was centered on the family, motherhood, and respectability. Accompanied by Albert, Prince Consort, her beloved husband, and by her many children in Balmoral Castle, Victoria became an icon of late 19th-century middle-class femininity and domesticity. In fact, Queen Victoria came to be seen as the very model of marital stability and domestic virtue. Her marriage to Albert represented the ideal of marital harmony. She...
Words: 2027 - Pages: 9
..."The Victorian elements in Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontё" The Victorian Era, in which Brontё composed Wuthering Heights, receives its name from the reign of Queen Victoria of England. The era was a great age of the English novel, which was the ideal form to descibe contemporary life and to entertain the middle class. Emily, born in 1818, lived in a household in the countryside in Yorkshire, locates her fiction in the worlds she knows personally. In addition, she makes the novel even more personal by reflecting her own life and experiences in both characters and action of Wuthering Heights. In fact, many characters in the novel grow up motherless, reflecting Emily’s own childhood, as her mother died when Emily was three years old. Similarly, the vast majority of the novel takes place in two households, which probably is a reflection of author’s own comfort at home as whenever she was away from home she grew homesick. Emily Brontё’s single novel is a unique masterpiece propelled by a vision of elemental passions but controlled by an uncompromising artistic sense. However, despite the relative invisibility of Victorian influence in the plot and content, the attitudes of the Victorian Era make some impact on the story, and the novel is considered not only a form of entertainment but also a means of analyzing and offering solutions to social and political problems. Brontё may not highlight the social aspects in the novel, nevertheless the indications of Victorian society’s...
Words: 3665 - Pages: 15
...Conflict between the Ideal and the Social in Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure A Dissertation Submitted in a Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Master Degree in British and American Studies Supervised by: Pr. Brahim Harouni Mr. Hamoudi Boughenout By: Mr. Boussaad Ihaddadene June 2010 Acknowledgement I would like to thank God for His guidance and help. I would also like to thank my supervisors Pr. Harouni and Mr. Boughenout for their help and discussion of my topic. I would like to thank all the teachers of the department of English of Mentoury University. I Dedication To the memory of my mother To my father, to my brothers and my sisters and to all my friends and classmates. II Abstract The purpose of my study is to show the conflict between idealism and society in Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure. In this novel, Hardy portrays the strife of the two individuals Jude and Sue to make their own ways in society by seeking to realise their ideals. He also reveals the difficulties met by the two idealists in front of society’s attempts to thwart their ideals and to force them to surrender to its norms. This study allows the reader to have a deep understanding of the origin of the conflict, the climax of the confrontation between the two opposing sides and the result of the conflict. In this respect, the present study helps the reader to acquire a thorough knowledge of Hardy’s thought and the values of the Victorian society to which he belongs. ...
Words: 16996 - Pages: 68
...Summary of “The Importance of Being Earnest” In Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” Jack Worthing, the play’s protagonist, is a young man who shoulders many responsibilities as a respectable citizen of Victorian society. In Hertfordshire, he is appointed the role of guardian to Miss Cecily Cardew, by the deceased Mr. Thomas Cardew, who adopted Jack when he was found abandoned as a baby. He also carries the title of Justice of the Peace and controls a large country estate. As such, he invents an alter ego for himself whom he calls Earnest. Earnest possesses all the qualities Jack pretends to disapprove of; he is exciting and irresponsible. Whenever Jack seeks freedom from his responsibilities he goes into London and tells Cecily he must take care of his brother Earnest who is always getting into trouble. In truth, Jack is posing as Earnest in London and Jack in the country. In Act I, Jack goes into London to tell Algernon Moncrieff, his friend, that he intends to propose to Gwendolen Fairfax, Algernon’s cousin. Algernon, who has begun to suspect Jack’s alter ego, asks Jack why he has a cigarette case addressed to “Uncle Jack” with the inscription, “From little Cecily with her fondest love.” Jack explains that his true name is Jack Worthing and that he takes the name Earnest in London whenever he wants to indulge in certain pleasures. Algernon confesses that he too tries to escape the boundaries put on him by pretending he has a fictitious...
Words: 1874 - Pages: 8
...Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist was written and published during the Victorian era, 1838. Dickens’ use of language successfully denotes contextual issues and narrative concepts, an important social commentator who used fiction effectively to highlight the contextual issues of society and class and criminality. The narrative techniques Dickens uses, unified with the context in which he wrote the novel, exemplify his ideas throughout the text. The use of good literature adds to an audience’s understanding of life during those times. It embodies thought and feeling on matters of human importance. Dickens uses the characters and situations in the novel to make a deliberate statement of his personal views of society and class about the poor laws and the criminal system. Society in Oliver Twist is hugely divided. While the upper classes live in their comfortable large houses, the lower class are seen to lead wretched lives, driven to crime by hunger and deprivation. At times Dickens steps out of the novel and addresses the reader directly using indirect speech. The opening of the book, the detached narrator impresses upon the reader that Oliver was only seen as a burden upon the parish, and also highlights the injustice of falling into a predestined social class. “The parish authorities resolved that Oliver should be ‘farmed’... be despatched to a branch workhouse where juvenile offenders against the poor-laws… ‘. He uses shifting narrative voice throughout Oliver Twist to provoke...
Words: 475 - Pages: 2
...Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: How does it represent Feminism in the Victorian Culture? "Gender issues play a part in every aspect of human production and experience, including the production and experience of literature, whether we are consciously aware of these issues or not"(Feminist). The book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was written by Lewis Carroll in 1865, otherwise known as the Victorian Era. Feminism at the time was not something that was spoken about, nor was that a phrase at that time. Women were expected to serve their roles in the home. Victorian feminism was subtle, but it slowly became the potent political force it is today. In the book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the novel discusses some of the gender issues at...
Words: 1501 - Pages: 7
...Dickens was born in the year 1817, Victorian Era Mid 19th century till to beginning of 20th century, Hard Times published on 1854, Schools become mandatory in 1889. _____________________________________________________________________ OUR TALK WILL BE DIVIDED INTO 4 PARTS: INTRODUCTION OF VICTORIAN ERA The Victorian era of British history: was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death, on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence for Britain, where during that time, the British Empire has existed for centuries and was able to maintain a world order which rarely threatened Britain’s wider strategic interests. By the end of Queen Victoria’s reign, The British empire extended over about one-fifth of the earth’s surface and at least a quarter of the world’s population. One of the ways they achieved such a thing is through the Industrial Revolution. What is the Industrial Revolution exactly? Prior to the Industrial Revolution, a working person would be lucky to have 1 or 2 shirts. To make fabric, these people had to spend their whole lives weaving this shirt and as demand for british goods increased, they needed a way to speed up things in a way without affecting it economically. As a result, they came up with the idea of factories where workers would repeat the same thing over and over again. So I want you to think like a business man in the victorian era right now. What would make sense...
Words: 2426 - Pages: 10
...Charles Dickens and Jamaica Kincaid’s ‘Lucy’, both authors seem to present women intentionally to relate to the idea of patriarchy (a system or society governed by men) and how independence or obedience links to their social class’s expectations. Dickens does this by upholding the Victorian ideology of gender, which in ‘Great Expectations’ addressed women as either an angel in the house- the ideal wife, obedient, devoted and submissive to their husband or alternatively, the whore. Independent with the desire for more power than their social class expectations allows, very anti-men. Being an angel in the house was expected of all women in the Victorian era, they had a limited amount of power, enough to be the ideal wife who would be generally rewarded, represented by Biddy. However those women whom abused their power and went against all expectations of social class, the whores, were physically punished by Dickens but given a chance of redemption, evidence of this is shown by Estella and Miss Havisham. Kincaid follows the same idea as Dickens to a certain degree in ‘Lucy’. She focuses on the character of Lucy and her journey to independence, constantly trying to prove her power to break free from her homeland and mother, she manages to achieve freedom but in doing so she also ends up isolated. As Lucy does have so many traits of being the typical Victorian whore the title is questioned by readers. She only acts out this way to allow her to figure out where she belongs in the world but...
Words: 1917 - Pages: 8
