When Victorian Era, England is brought up in most context’s it is used to exemplify a calm and more refined way of life; however, one may overlook how the children of this era were treated and how social class systems affected them. Samuel Butler’s The Way of All Flesh is a novel written to take a closer look at the life of children growing up in the unfair social hierarchy of Victorian Era England. Butler’s main characters are Theobald and Ernest, who grow up during the time period; Overton, who is Ernest’s godfather, is the narrator of the novel and provides insight into Theobald and Ernest as they mature through the novel. Theobald is the son of a wealthy, strict, and abusive father who treats him with no mercy, but leaves him with a rather significant inheritance from his Christian publishing company, at his death. Ernest is the son of Theobald, who beats him with a stern fits over even the pettiest things in …show more content…
Early into the novel Overton gives an overview of the conditions Theobald is growing up in; along with most boys of the upper class Theobald’s father “thrashed his boys two or three times a week and some weeks a good deal oftener, but in those days fathers were always thrashing their boys.” (Butler, 17). “As a child, (Ernest) believes all that is told: that he is, for example, a wicked, ungrateful boy who deserves Theobald’s frequent beatings,” Deborah Core analyzes Butler’s novel as focusing on how naïve Ernest is as a result of the way his father has treated him (Core). In continuation to Core, Butler points out how the parenting styles of the time period work against their main goal; Ernest ended up in prison and against Christianity entirely after attending Cambridge University at the orders of his
Judith R. Walkowitz is a Professor Emeritus at John Hopkins University, specializing in modern British history and women’s history. In her book City of Dreadful Delight, she explores nineteenth century England’s development of sexual politics and danger by examining the hype of Jack the Ripper and other tales of sensational nature. By investigating social and cultural history she reveals the complexity of sexuality, and its influence on the public sphere and vice versa. Victorian London had upheld traditional notions of class and gender, that is until they were challenged by forces of different institutions.
In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's, The Yellow Wallpaper we are introduced to characters that can be argued to be representational of society in the 19th century. The narrator, wife to a seemingly prominent doctor, gives us a vision into the alienation and loss of reality due to her lack of labor. I also contend however that this alienation can also be attributed to her infantilization by her husband, which she willingly accepts. "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage" (1). The narrator here realizes her place among the order of society and even notes that it is to be expected. She is aware of her understanding that things between she and her husband are not equal not only because he is a doctor but because he is a man, and her husband.
The concerns of Victorian England about the status of faith and manhood have left a deep mark in the literature of the period. The Picture of Dorian Gray and Dracula are good examples of this concern. In both books there is an emphasis in the corruption of the body and of the soul as maladies that haunt the greatness of England. The aristocracy is pointed as the social strata from where this decadence will spread. These books show a population of youth that lacks the guidance of parents and are apparently deprived of fertility as a consequence of the disorientation that reigns among them. This corruption is shown in conjunction with a lack of religious faith and an excess of sin that will result in the transference of England to the forces of evil.
concern to men of the seventeenth century. Out of the oppressive setting of the seventeenth century
Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited is about a relationship between two Oxford boys: Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte. The book takes readers through the progression of their friendship and the introduction of Sebastian’s family: the Marchmains. Throughout the book Charles remains enamored with both Sebastian and his aristocratic family even though Charles and Sebastian grow apart. The novel takes a reflective look back to the golden age before the Second World War and what the author terms the age of Hooper and how it threated to bring down aristocracy. The underlying theme of the book is the changing nature of British society, however, Waugh presents an overly pessimistic representation about what the age of Hooper meant for the future of Britain.
In conclusion to this essay, having examined these 19th century gothic texts, it is fair to say that normative gender behaviour and sexuality pervades them. This element gives the reader a deep insight into the culture context of the time in which these stories are situated. It enables the reader to delve into the darker sides of humanity at that time, that they would not have been able to do otherwise.
The Victorian era was remarkable for its rigid gender roles, which defined societal interactions. The prototypical Victorian woman existed in the domestic sphere, where she acted as a moral compass to guide her husband and children toward traditional morality. This vision was mostly limited to the middle and upper classes, but if her family’s circumstances were good, the Victorian woman might have spread her domestic, moralizing influence outside of her home to help the less fortunate. The Victorian man, on the other hand, occupied the public sphere, where he dealt with business and politics, and the more complex moral codes of the two. His home was a retreat, where he could take comfort in the morally upright space his wife made for him. However, as the period wore on, these strict gender roles proved to be too oppressive, and a “New Woman” emerged. The New Woman, as portrayed by Vivie Warren in Mrs. Warren’s Profession, steps out of the domestic sphere, a move that requires agency, moral complexity, and separation from – sometimes even emulation of – men. Because this stance was so different from the typical Victorian woman, it posed challenges not just for the New Women themselves, but for all members of society they interacted with.
New Grub Street presents the reader with an accurate and comprehensive picture of late Victorian society, despite the fact that it predominantly focuses only on a small group of literary men and women. At first, one may have difficulty locating Gissing's voice within the narrative. The perspective leaps from character to character, without establishing any clear candidates for the reader's sympathies. Jasper Milvain is ambivalently portrayed, despite the fact that his moral and literary values were anathematic to Gissing. This is but one example of ambiguity in a novel that is filled with confusion and inversions of the 'natural order'. The world of New Grub Street is one where the unscrupulous Jasper Milvain triumphs, the mediocre Whelpdale stumbles upon commercial success, while others such as Edwin Reardon, Alfred Yule, and Harold Biffen undisputedly become casualties in the battle of life. What is Gissing trying to say about Victorian England? (Or is literary life his sole intended subject?) Throughout this chaos of view-points are interwoven the themes of money, class, and sex. Yet it is precisely the ubiquity of these themes, and the prevalent disorder of the world that makes the novel reflective of late Victorian society. Whether or not Gissing intended his novel to be purely a study in the changing literary life of the late nineteenth century, New Grub Street is effectively a microcosm of English life in the closing years of Victoria's reign.
During the Victorian Era, society had idealized expectations that all members of their culture were supposedly striving to accomplish. These conditions were partially a result of the development of middle class practices during the “industrial revolution… [which moved] men outside the home… [into] the harsh business and industrial world, [while] women were left in the relatively unvarying and sheltered environments of their homes” (Brannon 161). This division of genders created the ‘Doctrine of Two Spheres’ where men were active in the public Sphere of Influence, and women were limited to the domestic private Sphere of Influence. Both genders endured considerable pressure to conform to the idealized status of becoming either a masculine ‘English Gentleman’ or a feminine ‘True Woman’. The characteristics required women to be “passive, dependent, pure, refined, and delicate; [while] men were active, independent, coarse …strong [and intelligent]” (Brannon 162). Many children's novels utilized these gendere...
Philip Dormer Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield, lived in the era between 1694 and 1773. He was a British statesman who wrote a series of letters to his illegitimate son, Philip Stanhope, that were to serve as guides to good manners and success (Cannon, par. 8). These letters were never meant to be published (Cannon, par. 29). In Letters to His Son: Rules of Conduct in Polite Company, Lord Chesterfield lays out a set of rules to instruct his son on the type of behavior he should have socially. These rules are given with the intent of being a fatherly figure toward his son, yet, in this attempt to be fatherly, he separates himself from his son, Philip, by taking on the character of a teacher whose goal is to educate his son to be as clever, wise, and observant as his father is. Chesterfield takes pride in having experience with the guidance that he gives to his son and he proves himself to be an arrogant man whose tone and language display an attitude that attempts to create intimidation through formal language and authoritative tone. The formal language and authoritative tone serve to provide instruction but do not offer the love and support that is so characteristic of a how a father should behave toward his son. Philip is left with a set of rules without the intimacy needed to provide him the desire to adhere to the instruction. Nevertheless, through Chesterfield’s authoritative, experienced, and didactic tone and language, he endeavors to prove himself as a capable and knowledgeable father to his son.
He placed his own rebellious arrogance into the image of a potential peer. He achieved this by giving a daily appraisal of Charles–induced events, and each day providing more excessive details than the last. On the second Monday, “he shouted as he came up the hill; I was waiting anxiously on the front steps” (346) justifies the pure interest of the mother in her son’s acquaintance’s habits. Moreover, Laurie’s mother contemplated if kindergarten was too thrilling for her son while discussing the circumstances with her husband throughout the majority of the following evenings. She correspondingly addressed Charles’s potential influence on Laurie
In Victorian times, one who came from a wealthy and respectable family was considered to be a gentleman. This is clear in numerous characters in the novel, who are immediately perceived to be gentlemen as they boast a large amount of money and dress in the finest clothes. One example, Compeyson, uses this to get a reduced sentence in court, as Magwitch says ‘one, the younger, well brought up, who will be spoke to as such’. This highlights the importance of social class in the Victorian era and it is clear to see here that the justice system is very much more favourable to the higher social ranks, deciding how they would get treated and addressed, and that the punishment is not dependent on the crime, rather the individual at trial’s background and upbringing. Dickens has shown that the Victorian concept of a gentleman is all about wealth and social ranking, not the characteristics we see in a gentleman today.
In Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Arthur Huntington, Helen’s husband and Arthur’s father, is presented as an alcoholic, disgraceful, narcissistic “gentleman” (Brontë 311). Despite Helen’s efforts to shelter their son, Arthur, from the corrupted masculinity embodied by Huntington and his friends, Huntington encourages Arthur’s “manly accomplishments” that mirror his own character, such as excessive drinking, swearing, and selfishness (297). For fear of Arthur becoming “a curse to others and himself”, like his father, Helen has acquitted herself to prepare for an escape; however, Huntington seizes her journal which reveal her plans (203). In this passage Mr. Huntington is not only devaluing aspect of his corrupted masculinity, like excessive drinking, but he is implying a new quality to his definition, the lack of violence and ability to deal with situations, such as Helen’s planning to escape, with calmness and rationality is gentlemanly; this brings into question the violent men in the novel as lesser because of their irrationality and behavior.
The presentation of childhood is a theme that runs through two generations with the novel beginning to reveal the childhood of Catherine and Hindley Earnshaw, and with the arrival of the young Liverpudlian orphan, Heathcliff. In chapter four, Brontë presents Heathcliff’s bulling and abuse at the hands of Hindley as he grows increasingly jealous of Heathcliff for Mr. Earnshaw, his father, has favoured Heathcliff over his own son, “my arm, which is black to the shoulder” the pejorative modifier ‘black’ portrays dark and gothic associations but also shows the extent of the abuse that Heathcliff as a child suffered from his adopted brother. It is this abuse in childhood that shapes Heathcliff’s attitudes towards Hindley and his sadistic nature, as seen in chapter 17, “in rousing his rage a pitch above his malignity” there is hyperbole and melodrama as the cruelty that stemmed from his abuse in childhood has been passed onto Isabella in adulthood.
The author Jane Austen was writing in the most transformative eras of British history. Austen experienced the beginning of industrialization in England. The movie shows concerns over property, money and status that highlight’s the social scale of the eighteenth and early ninetieth-century England. The film shows the broad social class that included those who owned land as well as the professional classes (Lawyers, doctors, and clergy). Throughout this time there were strict inheritance laws. The law for owning property was that it would go to male children or male relatives rather than breaking it up ...