...Payton Diamond English III Honors 03/20/14 Roles of Women in the Victorian Era The idea of being told whether you could marry, have children, an education or a career is not something that many of us in today's society can relate to, but this was the accepted norm for women during the time period leading up to Tess of the D’Urbervilles. The Victorian Era was a time of rigid moral values and beliefs about women's roles. Throughout the book there are signs that society was changing, many of the long held morals were loosening up and women were beginning to question their faith, religion and place in society. Facing a similar evolution of her role, in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Tess reinforces the struggles of women in this time period living a life filled with complications such as having to work to provide for her family, being caught up in a twisted love triangle, and being shunned by her society due to challenges and circumstances she lived with. As many women were doing, Tess left home to work early in the book. Many women during this time broke away from the path many of their female ancestors had followed. Women no longer had to stay at home and follow the stereotypes that had been made, but they could leave home and find work in the cities. Many women during the late 1800s and early 1900s found jobs in factories or worked jobs that men thought they could handle. Tess first left her house to work for the d’Urbervilles on their mansion. She was to take care of the birds. Tess...
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...9). For people in the victorian era, that quote was not true. Victorian people took their clothes very seriously. Victorian Fashion was very important back in that era. You would gain people's respect if you were stylish. Also you had to dress a certain way for certain things. People dressed very over the top . The clothes you wore everyday mattered a lot in that era. The Looks of the clothes were much different from what we wear today. It was always formal and women wore dresses most of the time. Victorian Era clothes were very over the top, prim, and proper. There were also different types of accessories,...
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...century Victorian era, women’s roles and positions were portrayed as dependent, devoted to families, and home-loving (Trueman). As time goes on, the term “New Woman” was introduced (Shmoop). Later, this term was popularized by British-American writer Henry James. This “New Woman” moved away from the stereotypical woman during the Victorian era. The “New Woman” was educated, intelligent, and independent (Melani). One novel that represents these two types of women is Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The two female characters in the novel are Mina Murray Harker and Lucy Westenra. Both Mina and Lucy represent the typical woman in the Victorian era. For example, the Victorian women were portrayed as an innocent person. Lucy appears in...
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...change in medical, scientific and technological fields. Throughout the mid Victorian era, (1850-1870), Britain was in its golden years. While growth in textiles, trade and machinery put twice as much money in British Merchants pockets a new order began to form. The first World’s Fair in 1851 marked the first stepping stone for modern technologies and the middle class. Families began to fall into a cultural norm, the idea that an individual, through hard work, could achieve economic success was in the front of men and women's minds. Gender roles established by a hard scrabble life in the past made a separation between men and women where men were superior to most women, women could work in...
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...Being employed was a necessity in order to survive, prosper, and ultimately defined your social class for Victorians in the 19th century. Employment impacted the lives of Victorian men, women, and children. However, the acceptance of women working commenced a change in Victorian stereotypes and gender roles. Professions initiated a change in society’s view of women in the Victorian Era. There were many types of professions available for Victorian women as time progressed. Employed women were faced with new challenges by society and in the workforce. These new challenges were a result of women becoming more independent and the fact that they were breaking gender role boundaries of Victorian society. Duties were divided by gender ever since...
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...Enc-1102 Week One Assignment Two Part one: Victorianism- A descriptive term for the time when Victoria was queen of England, from 1837 to 1901. The Victorian period in England is known as a time of industrial progress, colonial expansion, and public fastidiousness in morals. The Victorian period in the United States had many of the same characteristics.Within the fields of social history and literature, Victorianism refers to the study of late-Victorian attitudes and culture with a focus on the highly moralistic, straitlaced language and behavior of Victorian morality. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period. The later half of the Victorian age roughly coincided with the first portion of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe. Romanticism- was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical. It was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, and the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education, and the natural sciences. It had a significant...
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...courtship that there were specific rules that you had to follow. In the victorian era courtship and marriage was a popular thing. Queen Victoria and her family were the idols of society and in courtship. The victorian era was also a time of marriage and some other stuff. Marriage was the thing that most victorians wanted. Victorians wanted a lot about marriage and courtship. In the victorian era courtship was a very popular thing. Queen Victoria was a popular person in courtship. The society in the victorian era put down the rules of courtship. Courtship and marriage was a good thing in the victorian era. You had to follow the rules of victorian courtship. Courtship was the plot of fiction in the victorian era. The divorce bill said”(Jennifer Phegley) you had to be an adult to divorce your husband/wife. You had to an adult at the age of 30 to vote for politics. Courtship in the victorian era made the notice act and the divorce law bill....
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...Male Dominance in Tess of the D’urbervilles The Victorian era, as described by Professor of History and Women's & Gender Studies Nancy Reagin in her essay “Victorian Women: the Gender of Oppression”, witnessed the ideology of separate spheres in which society viewed men as independent and reasonable while viewing women as passive, dependent on men, emotional, and submissive. Men were given the governing role in which they would dominate society due to their ability to make rational decisions while women were expected to unquestionably fill the social roles that men decided for them, and those roles usually revolved around a woman’s duties as a mother and a wife. In marriage, a woman was expected to abide by the orders and views of her husband, and man and wife became one in terms of a woman’s rights, property, and identity. In Tess of the D’urbervilles, a book written in the Victorian Era, Hardy conveys this ideology of separate spheres in his portrayal of men and their dominance over women in society, primarily Tess. Their dominance is shown in how the men act as the masters of society, but it is also seen in how the women in Tess unquestionably view the men as the dominant gender. Often, the women are blindly influenced and act passively when interacting with male characters such as Alec and Angel. They are also seen to be very dependent on the men, and the men acknowledge that, for that is expected of a woman in that age to not be able to make a living for herself. The...
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...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...
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...in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although women were not encouraged to pursue a career, Mary enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts at the age of sixteen. She quickly felt frustrated by the male faculty and students who were patronising and resentful of her attendance. Regardless of these obstacles and her father’s disapproval of her career choice, she continued to pursue art and painting. Cassatt, an impressionist painter, did not conform to standard male images of women and therefore her paintings differ from the more general male representations, especially of women readers during the Victorian period. Cassatt expresses her world through women and therefore “…offers a new vision of the unconsidered facts of everyday bourgeois life…” (Yeh, 1976:359). Cassatt’s work is regarded by Yeh (1976:359) as women-centred art as she regards women as complete within themselves. In her work she represents women as independent, pursuing interests which are not necessarily directed toward the need of her family. Reading women, portraying the reader’s inner strength often occur as a theme in her paintings. Femininity in the Victorian era In the latter Victorian period women artists and their work were considered inferior. In an attempt to overcome the stereotypical female image their work became increasingly more vocal and confident and promoted the emerging image of the educated, modern and free women. Femininity in the Victorian era was generally thought to be connected with...
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...Tennyson and Browning’s Tragic Ladies “The curse is come upon me,” the Lady of Shalott says in Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem, “The Lady of Shallot” (Tennyson, 26-27). Tennyson, along with his contemporary, Robert Browning, were Victorian poets whose work romanticized the distant past. Their works “Porphyria’s Lover” and “The Lady of Shalott,” feature female subjects who seem cursed with sudden, tragic deaths. Although their writing styles and subject matter were different, the poems “The Lady of Shallot” and “Porphyria’s Lover” tell us that these poets were concerned with the treatment of women and used the tragic endings to their lives in these poems to challenge the idea that the past was an era of romance and happiness. For example, in “The...
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...In: English and Literature Tess of the D'Urbervilles Male Dominance Male Dominance in Tess of the D’urbervilles The Victorian era, as described by Professor of History and Women's & Gender Studies Nancy Reagin in her essay “Victorian Women: the Gender of Oppression”, witnessed the ideology of separate spheres in which society viewed men as independent and reasonable while viewing women as passive, dependent on men, emotional, and submissive. Men were given the governing role in which they would dominate society due to their ability to make rational decisions while women were expected to unquestionably fill the social roles that men decided for them, and those roles usually revolved around a woman’s duties as a mother and a wife. In marriage, a woman was expected to abide by the orders and views of her husband, and man and wife became one in terms of a woman’s rights, property, and identity. In Tess of the D’urbervilles, a book written in the Victorian Era, Hardy conveys this ideology of separate spheres in his portrayal of men and their dominance over women in society, primarily Tess. Their dominance is shown in how the men act as the masters of society, but it is also seen in how the women in Tess unquestionably view the men as the dominant gender. Often, the women are blindly influenced and act passively when interacting with male characters such as Alec and Angel. They are also seen to be very dependent on the men, and the men acknowledge that, for that is expected of...
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...How do Hardy and Austen use their protagonists to critique the position of women in society? In both novels society is presented as an underlying constraint on both of the protagonists lives. Beth Hanson wrote, “A woman can move only downwards” and that “feminine compliance, through the surrender of self is death of a different sort, for to be selfless is not only to be noble, it is to be dead”. This outlook on societal pressures ultimately leads to Tess’ demise in ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ as she falls from the ideal image of a women in the Victorian era and her “selfless” acts does in fact end in her death. Hardy presents ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ as a bildungsroman where we see Tess’ life unfold from innocence to regret and follow her as she is metaphorically ‘kicked’ down the social ladder. In ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Lizzie, the female protagonist, is represented as a strong and defying character by Austen. However despite her lack of care for societal pressures she and her sisters are chained down and ultimately need a man, the “governing sex” to set them free. Both Hardy and Austen use societal context to shape the female protagonists lives and show the patriarchal influence on women in the Victorian period. In the first phase of the novel, “The Maiden” and the first phase of Tess’ life she is presented as a “girl” naïve and unaware. Hardy separates the novel into sections to represent Tess’ development and also to foreshadow the later events that will change her...
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...character Mina Murray appears in several storylines, including Dracula and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, that take place during and after the Victorian Era. This era contained debates at the time regarding women’s suffrage. Mina’s character signifies the transition and change in women’s roles in society. She has qualities that can relate to multiple controversial ideas at that time regarding women. Those include women’s intellect, their qualities of thought, and the importance of their roles in their families and the community. Throughout her appearances in the stories, she always has character foils alongside her that emphasize her qualities as a leader and a traditional but also modernized woman. Mina’s character is a depiction of the idealized feminine figure, which is subordinate to all men and maintains the identity of a housewife. Simultaneously, she is a figure that foreshadows the women of the twentieth century, when women are independent and active members of the society. These are supported through the actions she takes and the decisions she makes throughout her journey across multiple stories. Mina Murray’s character contains significant attributes that allow her to be contrasted with other characters in her stories and to stand between the definitions of the idealized Victorian women and women of the modern era. Mina’s character qualities in Dracula are highlighted by those around her. Mina and Lucy are placed under similar circumstances early in the novel...
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...The role of women in Canadian society has changed dramatically over the past two centuries. These roles, which had been defined in various cultures for centuries, were based both on natural instinct and on necessity. When Canada was first settled, it was natural for immigrants to maintain traditional roles for men and women. By the eighteenth century, these distinct roles were strongly established in Canadian society. During the nineteenth century, views on women’s role began to change, as urbanization and industrialization progressed. These changes reflected the many social, political, economic and technological changes that were occurring at that time. Aware of the many inequalities in society, some women began to challenge the existing conditions and questioned the definition of a “proper woman”. In “The Cult of True Womanhood”, Barbara Welter explains that the virtues by which a woman judged herself and was judged by society were piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity. These were the standards of True Womanhood in Victorian Canada.1 Fortunately, social reformers eventually challenged the alleged status quo of Canadian women. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Church, the medical profession and the arts all tried desperately to maintain women’s sexual passivity in Canadian society. During the Victorian era, sexual passivity was seen as both natural and necessary for women. In fact, the Canadian society was based on the ideology that it was natural...
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