In the Victorian Society, class was heavily emphasized and was strictly sanctioned based on wealth. Because of the Industrial Revolution the proportions of each class were changing. A growing middle class led to a desire to climb the social ladder. Previously, kings and knights were seen as upper class individuals and all of these noblemen held gentile qualities due to the feudal code. This led to the association of the upper class to gentlemen. This association led to the common misattribution that in order to be a gentleman one must be from the upper class. Authors such as Charles Dickens and Samuel Smiles made the claim that this misattribution of class and qualities was leading to the downfall of true gentile qualities. The Victorian Society …show more content…
The feudal past explained how members of the clergy belonging to the Church of England, army officers, and members of Parliament were considered gentlemen within this time period. Because all of these occupations were for men of virtue, those who were fearless and bold yet sympathetic and honorable, these men were considered gentlemen. However, members of society such as John Ruskin argued, “The essence of the gentleman is what the word says, that he comes from a pure gens, or is perfectly bred” (qtd. in Cody). This assumption of gentile qualities in those of the upper class was the result of political or economic power. These two opposites, quality versus heredity, caused the confusion among those in the Victorian Society. Some authors of the time tried to merge the two notions that gentile qualities derived from societal standards as well as defined morals. Lauren Goodland tried to interpret what a gentleman stood for in this age arguing that it was both empirical and based on education yet mystified and relied on one’s genetics (Landow, “The Political Function of the Gentleman”). This skewed perception of what a gentleman was denied people from accepting the fact that poor people could be gentlemen whereas wealthy people could be rude and void of moral principles. It is this same ignorance that leads Pip within Great Expectations to not see that “… violence and refinement, Magwitch and Estella, are not warring opposites but intimately and inextricably bound together” (Gilmour). The two sharp contrasts of what it entailed to be a gentleman therefore led to the confusion of those who tried to pursue
Victorian Morality was completely adamant and strict. It can be best described as the principle that condoned sexual prudery, zero tolerance of criminal actions, and its social ethic, as it changed England. It was all based on behavior and conduct. Lifestyle practices in England were way different until Victorianism, as it correlates with morals and religion.
The Victorian Era had lasted from the years 1837-1901. People in this era were known through their social class and how efficiently they were able to present themselves. Those who were obligated to carry themselves is such a proficient manner, were the women of Victorian Era. Although they had been expected to perform and execute many tasks, they were never recognized just as equal to the men in society. They were never acknowledged to make judgments or decisions, rather were best known for marriage, prostitution, and motherhood. As the men, dominated and took control of every decision possible. They were known for their aggressive and independent attitude. This led an extraordinary women named, Charlotte Brontë to begin a revolution of change and improvement in the social standings. As her living in the Victorian Era, set her upon a journey of many hardships but her well-known classics, Jane Eyre, depicted her strength and courage to step up for women equality and portray who she truly was in society.
Victorian fears of educating women were addressed in Martha Vicinus' novel, Independent Women. However I think that one very important issue not discussed in by Vicinus was the joint and separate fears of men and women of educating women. I also think that these fears were not realized entirely in her book and during the Victorian period. In order to determine if their fears were realized we need to look at the individual fears and also apply whose fears they were. I will examine the three view points that I think had the greatest fears and realizations of educating women; men and women together, then men and women's separate fears.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” With that first line I am captured, thrown back into a world two hundred years old. The scene around me melts into a Regency-style ball room, elegant young ladies in long, ornate gowns waltzing on the arms of dashing gentlemen, sleek black chaises pulling up the cobblestone drive, portly musicians puffing at their instruments in the corner. And I am in the middle of it all, experiencing the lives of my ancestors with the turn of each page. This is my guilty pleasure, the Regency. However, the only way I have been able to learn about this grand era has been through novels and the internet- mediums that, while very depictive and revelatory, cannot provide me with all the information I seek. I want to know about more than just the dances and the social lives of the early nineteenth century aristocracy. I want to know about the lives and cultures of all the people: the peasants, the workers, the farmers, the merchants, the gentry, and the royalty. What did they eat? What were their laws, written and unwritten? How many were religious? What did they learn in school? How did they spend their money? What were their political views? There is only one way I could possibly learn all of this and more- by being taught, in a class.
During the Nineteenth Century, the gender roles were greatly divided. Women were seen to have a completely differently status and nature from men. The stereotypical woman during this time-period was dependent, passive, domestic, and far weaker then a man. Men on the other hand, were far more dominant, dependent, controlling, ambitious and active. Men were the protectors and providers for the family. As if women weren’t already inferior enough to men, when they got married, essentially everything that was theirs was striped from them. What she once owned, was now her husbands, this included her savings, her land, her slaves, her freedom and especially her independence (Steele and Brislen). Women were expected to just do their household duties and be content with their lives and want nothing more. This lead wives to live in the shadows of their spouse. It is Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a feminist writer of the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century who illustrates the discord of the gender roles of this time-period. One of her most famed writings is “The Yellow Wallpaper.” In this short story, we read about a spouse who is totally dominated by her husband John, and we follow her while she is away rejuvenating herself from an illness. Feministic literature of this time, really focuses on the inferiority of women against men.
The Victorian era brought about many changes and the introduction of new things. One issue that stood out was “The Sex.” Many things evolved around this issue like changes in laws all over, it became a topic for literary poets/ writers and also for the woman question. This term means discrimination based on a person’s sex and during the 19th century this was a vast issue toward women. This all Started from the early Victorian era with queen victoria, who was the monarch of the united kingdom of Great Britain from 1837- 1901. Being the queen she played a very substantial role during this time. As a wife she showed a domestic side. She supported Prince Albert, had his children, became very submissive and devoted to her husband a family. This image she portrayed became a trend to the outside world. Most people looked at this as what the ideal woman was during this era.
During the Victorian Age, 1830-1901, society had firm opinions on how they believed women should behave. The opinions, however, changed and varied a great deal over the span of the 71 years that made up the Victorian period. Towards the beginning of that era women were seen as the fairer sex, and the majority of their early lives were spent preparing for marriage. Over the course of the Victorian era, however, society made many different social, political, and economic changes, as well as witnessed the creation of many new gadgets. As society evolved throughout the Victorian era to be more advanced, it also became more aware of the need to treat women as equals in regards to rights, jobs, pastimes, and opinions. An example of inequality that women faced during that time was when men would keep up the appearance of being in a loving family, meanwhile they would be cheating on their wives and betraying their families (Frost 196). As Horrible as husbands cheating on their wives was, that was not what was seen as the issue at that time. The part of cheating during that era that bugged society was that if a woman committed the same trespass and was unfaithful in a marriage she would be publicly shamed (Frost 196). It is because of this injustice to women, and the many other examples of inequality that they faced that during the Victorian era, that the English wished to reform marriage. They felt that the structure of marriage was unfair to the females involved. By the end of the era, there had been a significant amount of ground laid towards female equality. The literary works The Lady of Shalott and The Goblin Market address and respond to the conflicts and roles of women as they changed over the course of the Victorian era. Both p...
How Conan Doyle Perceives a Victorian Gentleman in Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes is a hero, he is also a typical Victorian gentleman. A very important fact about the books is that he was the first detective. This brought him much attention and many people loved this idea. He set the standard and has been copied by others many times. Detectives nowadays are still perceived to be just like Sherlock Holmes.
Domesticity, as defined by The Merriam Webster, is “the state of being domestic; domestic or home life.” When someone mentions domesticity, an immediate association may be drawn to domesticated cats, dogs, or even simply animals people bring into our homes and domesticize. The household trains to be accustomed to home life, rather than life on the streets. We as people, generally, spend half our time in the home and half outside. Thanks to this we are often seen as domesticated creatures. However, as demonstrated clearly by through Dicken’s writing, as well as Cullwick’s, people can also become domesticized. During the Victorian Era, women left home rarely and were not seen as working people. Despite the limited exceptions most working women constrained to work inside homes other than their own. Hannah Cullwick’s relationship to domesticity is a complex one. Despite the fact that she was a working-class woman, who was employed by various different homes, she did not work in each of them for more than a limited amount of time.
During the early 1900s, in the years linking the Victorian and post-World War I eras, female identity and role was drastically shifted and altered by vocal suffragettes. Fighting for women’s rights, these radical women were seen as “naughty children, excited ladies, misguided ladies, wild women, howling fanatics, shrieking sisterhood, masculine women and viragoes” (Carstens, 63). Suffragettes voiced the right for female vote, education, as well as marriage, and encouraged them to take part in masculine activities. These activist women were not only patronized for their bold behavior, but also accused of unsexing the Victorian woman. In other words, their characters contradicted normative feminine behavior. At the time, medicine was evolving in terms of physiology and psychology, and many
One Victorian sentiment was that a civilized individual could be determined by her/his appearance. This notion was readily adopted by the upper classes and, among other things, helped shape their views of the lower classes, who certainly appeared inferior to them. In regards to social mobility, members of the upper classes may have (through personal tragedy or loss) often moved to a lower-class status, but rarely did one see an individual move up from the abysmal lower class. Although poverty could be found almost anywhere in Victorian London (one could walk along a street of an affluent neighborhood, turn the corner, and find oneself in an area of depravity and decay), most upper-class Londoners, who tended to dwell in the West End, associated the East End with the lower class.
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.
Women roles have changed drastically in the last 50 to 80 years, women no longer have to completely conform to society’s gender roles and now enjoy the idea of being individuals. Along with the evolution of women roles in society, women presence and acceptance have drastically grown in modern literature. In early literature it was common to see women roles as simply caretakers, wives or as background; women roles and ideas were nearly non-existent and was rather seen than heard. The belief that women were more involved in the raising of children and taking care of the household was a great theme in many early literatures; women did not get much credit for being apart of the frontier and expansion of many of the nations success until much later.
The Victorian era established strict guidelines and definitions for the ladies and gentleman. Noble birth typically defined one as a "lady" or a "gentleman," but for women in this time period, socioeconomic rank and titles held no prestige or special privileges in a male-dominated society. Commonly, women in this era generally tried to gain more influence and respect but to no avail as their male counterparts controlled the ideals and practices of society. Women were subject to these ideals and practices without any legal or social rights or privileges. In the literary titles by Frances Power Cobbe, Sarah Stickney Ellis, Charlotte Bronte, Anne Bronte, John Henry Cardinal Newman, Sir Henry Newbolt, and Caroline Norton, the positions, opinions, and lifestyles of men and women during the Victorian era were clearly defined. Men in the Victorian era were raised to be intellectually and physically sound in order to be skillful in the workplace and the military while women were typically restricted to fulfilling roles within the home. As the female desire for equal rights and representation under the law mounted, an international vigor for female equality would produce a call for equality.
Social class played a major role in the society depicted in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. Social class determined the manner in which a person was treated and their access to education. Yet, social class did not define the character of the individual.