No matter how much based on Queen Victoria’s imagery as ‘being steady and proper’, Cranford society at some point faces changes and gives in resistance to them. The gentility rules of everyday life and hierarchy to maintain the peace of the society remain incapable when time changes in the industrialized Britain and newcomers arrive in Cranford town. It is a rural town away from urban area in which the dwellers live in tranquility and in order, by following some rules. These gentility rules are determined by upper-middle class people to maintain the order in daily life and keep a distance to working class. Actually, in 18th century, they mimicked and adopted the legitimacy of aristocratic class as a model of proper behavior according to writer …show more content…
This makes other women feel uncomfortable as they don’t know whom to show support despite secretly supporting Lady Hoggins (formerly Glenmire). Confused society needs an urgent solution to this problem. And appears Peter Jenkyns to bring a solution to this. He is Miss Matty’s long time ago lost-brother. He was beaten by his father when he made a joke which the society took very seriously (Peter likes joking, but society is humorless) and left Cranford. He went to India and wasn’t seen again. When he comes back to Cranford, he wants to cheer his sister –Miss Matty- up and takes her responsibility. To cheer her, first he must find a solution to the tension between Jamiesons and Hoggins. So he plays tricks on Mrs Jamieson to make her think he loves her, so that he charms her thus becoming irresistable. He accomplishes his mission, by telling her his stories, complimenting her, he woos Mrs Jamieson. At the end he brings her and Hoggins together, and problem is solved. Even Miss Jamieson, who is very class conscious women, is defeated against her feelings and welcomes change. While she is supposed to reject Peter due to his disrespectful approach to gentility rules, and his wealth earnt with working, she still accepts him into society. So, gentility gives way to intelligence, kindness and love . On encountering those values, Cranford society revises its views on gentility and strict, illogical rules yields to
The Governess at first seems to be an innocent young woman with hopes. As the Story continues so do the questions. One particular question that is raised is, is the Governess a mad woman? The first particular piece of evidence of her insanity is her unhealthy obsession with the children, especially Flora. Next, The governess throughout the novel gives clues that she is sexually frustrated, this might have caused her to imagine a big bold man atop the battlement who she figures later that it is the “ghost of Peter Quint.” When the Governess arrives, Mrs grose, Flora and The governess have breakfast as they await the arrival of Miles, at the dinner table Mrs. Grose asks what happened back in London with the uncle and if she was carried away,
From the introduction of Jane’s orphan life, she battles between her ire at cousin John’s antics and obedie...
In Elizabethan times, living conditions of an everyday townsman was quite indecent. Elizabethan’s lived in houses that were extremely close to one another, which made it quite easy to disregard such a necessity to keep the streets and living surroundings clean.
There were severe conflicts between the City party and the Country party in 18th century Britain. The Country party, mainly composed of gentry, was based on landed interest and the City party made money through trade and was based on moneyed interest. The Country party passed the Landed Property Qualification Act to maintain their power. However, this act merely encouraged more men of wealth to buy country estate, in many cases displacing old landed families who truly represented the ¡°landed interest.¡±[1][1] We can see this changing of power through these two works, Roxana and Emma. Daniel Defoe was born in London, so he naturally engaged in City party. Roxana¡¯s background is mainly city while that of Emma is the little country society called Highbury. As we can see the difference of the background of two works, we can also find some different attitude toward City and Country in these two works. I will write about these differences in point of the conception of gentleman, rank and different attitude to City lives.
Between World War I and World War II, England was a very different place than it had been in the past. Art and music were changing, and the country was filled with young, modern people, who began to go against the typical rules of society. Thinkers were emerging after the First World War, thinking of ways to keep something that large from ever happening again. Yet, while the country was experiencing so many new things, there were still a number of difficulties that hadn’t gone away. While many people were desperate to get rich, others were barely getting by. Evelyn Waugh, in his novel Vile Bodies, portrays a group of “Bright Young People,” who all place the value of wealth above everything else. On the opposite spectrum, George Orwell, in his book The Road to Wigan Pier, argues the reasons why England must do away with the class system.
Stephen King once stated “We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.” People can be influenced greatly by their society and surrounding environment. Once a common belief is generated, it is usually difficult or others if. In the play, The Crucible, such is shown through the Salem witch trials. In the article, “It’s 2013, and They’re Burning ‘Witches’” the people of Papua New Guinea, also known as PNG, still believe that black magic is used to kill people who have no relation to each other. The general belief that the society influences determine the rash decisions that people take and the fear the unknown results in the blame of the unknown.
In addition to gender roles, social classes were incredibly important in Victorian life. The typical woman’s life was framed mostly by her interactions with men of equal social standing. For Vivie, this means the middle class. Because the prototypical Victorian woman was most common in the middle class, a New Woman like Vivie encountered resistance to her way of life. The resistance was often passive, though, a result of men who are unable to comprehend a more independent woman. Mr. Praed is a f...
Obviously, most regular people in England did not act like the butlers. The behavior of the old butlers represents stereotypes which persist today in our conception of the people of England. After all, “butlers only…exist in England'; (43). Indeed, Farraday judges the worth of Stevens, and Darlington Hall, according to stereotypical ideals of genuine Englishness. In a moment of panic, Farraday dem...
Margaret is an intelligent, articulate, and ambitious woman who desires to rise up in social status by marrying a man of higher social rank. She attends to those above her, in hopes of elevating her status as she becomes closer to the upper-class. As a minor character, she plays a small yet crucial role in advancing Don John’s plot to slander Hero and spoil her wedding. As a lower-class character, Margaret serves as a foil to the rich girls, particularly Hero, who embodies every attitude and mindset Margaret does not. But she also offers an alternative perspective on the upper-class characters in the play. Because Margaret is victimized because of her social ambitions, punished for wanting to rise above her ...
There have always been class divisions in England’s social groups, but it was not until the nineteenth century that they were labeled. The lower class was often uneducated and overlooked and mostly servants and prostitutes, the middle class generally had steady jobs and members of the higher classes were born to old money and did not have to work. The French Lieutenant’s Woman written by John Fowles is a complex “Victorian novel filled with enchanting mysteries and magically erotic possibilities” (Canby) in which, Fowles describes a Victorian society in 1867 that is still largely separated by class, which creates strong restrictions with respect to sex and marriage. Notably, conflict in the novel involves scandals where these restrictions are disregarded. Fowles shows that sex and marriage were still largely dictated by whether a person belonged to the lower, middle or upper class in order to highlight that there were more restrictions for higher-class men and women.
The rural elite of Austen’s novels are members of the upper middle-class. They are not the aristocracy (although Mr Darcy belongs to the aristocracy), but their connections and education give them the right to mix with high society, as well as to marry with people of h...
While venturing through the world of “A Tale of Two Cities” there are many practices seen throughout the book that would be unheard of in society and politics today. The book, written by the famous English author Charles Dickens, explains the story of people from both France and England and what part they took in the French Revolution. Some of these people, the aristocrats, were against the revolution because they wanted to maintain the form of government where they ruled over the people. If the revolutionaries won, the aristocrats would lose both their power and their wealth. This tension between people and clear class definition is a perfect example of how far both society and
During the 19th Century, first impressions were very important. The reader is presented with Meryton, a highly structured class society which judges people on superficial qualities, such as physical appearance, social status, clothes, possessions, behaviour, dialogue. The message Austen positions the reader to understand, is that a society which makes its judgements based on first impressions is immoral and unjust. (-She uses ‘humour’ to help convey this in a less-serious tone.)
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 ...
Catherine, nicknamed Kitty, is the fourth daughter in the Bennet family. She is “weak-spirited, irritable, and completely under Lydia’s guidance” (206). Like her younger sister, she is carefree and shows little remorse for her behavior. Lydia is the youngest daughter of the Bennet family and the tallest. As the favorite of Mrs. Bennet, she is “self-willed and careless” (206) and, like Catherine, she is “ignorant, idle, and vain” (207). Little concerns her more than potential husbands and officers of the militia. Each daughter of the Bennet family is vital to the complexity of Pride and Prejudice as each of their temperaments contradicts and complements those of the others.