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Victorian education system
Victorian education system
The influence of the British empire
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Colonialism Changed the Role of the Victorian Male
One of the most famous slogans of the age of global colonization was: "The sun never sets on the British Empire." As recently as 1940, world maps showed large areas colored pink, representing regions dominated by the British. Much of Africa was pink, along with India, Malaya, Hong Kong, and other scattered territories in Asia and the Americas. The existence of an empire on which the sun never set helped instill in the individual British citizen tremendous pride, and the need to become personally a devoted imperialist.
For more than 100 years, the fact that Britain was an empire had changed the British man’s life, and had instilled in him the fact that he was superior to most other peoples especially those of other colors and backgrounds. This was also the period when it was felt that it was the "white man’s burden" to take care of all those countries whose inhabitants were less worthy than the white Anglo-Saxon. This way of thinking was called Social Darwinism. This was an age when even though England, in some respects, tried to act "fatherly" towards some of the countries it had seized, it still felt a strong amount of racism towards the people of those countries.
In 1849, General Wolsely wrote from the Gold Coast, "The Africans are like monkeys. They are a good-for-nothing race." In 1849 Thomas Carlyle pronounced Europeans wiser than Africans and said inferior races must obey the superior. It was an idea that by 1900 most English men and women held, one that fit the paternalism of the governing classes and the prejudice of the lower classes. The Empire had created a nation of imperialists.
The commercial spirit has always existed in human society. What was peculi...
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...ed better sanitation, light, water, and power. More jobs opened up in the pursuit of these needs. As the century ended, national loyalty reached fever pitch in Britain as it did in France and Germany, and its favorite mode of expression was imperialism. It touched all classes, every religious faith, all political parties.
This aggressive stance was motivated by many things; racism, greed, and the belief that it was up to the white man to rule the world. My essay has tried to prove that the colonization process within Great Britain, during the Victorian age (1815-1914), greatly changed the roles of men, as well as everyone else within that country’s walls. By changing the way people were educated, how they lived, what their dreams and aspirations were, government policy, and job openings in Britain and abroad, all helped to change the role of the Victorian male.
...usion that race is deployed "in the construction of power relations."* Indeed a "metalanguage" of race, to use Higginbotham's term, was employed by colonial powers to define black women as separate from English women, and that process is deconstructed in Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, Anxious Patriarchs. However, Brown's analysis rests mainly on the shifting English concepts of gender and race imposed on colonial society by the white elite, becoming at times a metalanguage of colonial gender. Nonetheless, Brown's analysis of overlapping social constructions is instructive for understanding the ways gender and race can be manipulated to buttress dominant hierarchies.
A Leon Higginbotham Jr.’s argument in The Ancestry of Inferiority (1619-1662), is that the people of Virginia had already began to think of black people, be it they were free or indentured servants, as inferior to themselves before slavery was institutionalized. The Colonist’s had already begun to strategize legalities in regards on how black people were to be disciplined. Higginbotham has two reasons why Africans were not afforded the same liberties as that of the white indentured servants in Virginia. The first reason he states is that the majority of white indentured servants came to Virginia on their own free will. Once they had completed their five or seven-year contract with their master, they were free to buy land and begin working for themselves. Unlike the African’s that he claims were brought here against their will or for desperation. The second reasoning is that the English thought that the black represented evil or danger and because African’s skin coloring was black, they must be evil. Higginbotham offers a couple of examples representing just how the English prior to the actual term of slavery being used, were already creating a racial difference in the judicial system. From court cases that he has reviewed, he states one must find what the case is not saying verses what it is. When the English identified people with names the only time skin color was not used in context is when that person was a white person. Another case he made use of is a good example of black inferiority to white superiority in the early 17th century is in the case In Re Graweere, 1641. The court made certain that a particular African father had no value in society when attempting to get his child back. However, because his son was...
Male supremacy was a hallmark of western society during the late nineteenth and twentieth century. For much of the Victorian Era, intellectual progress was dedicated towards the justification of the white man’s supremacy. Evolution, imperialism, and social hierarchy were all examined under the lens of already existing societal norms. While revolutionary in its concept, Charles Darwin’s explanation of evolution and the dichotomy of the sexes fit within the overarching notions on man in British Empire. With his scientific justifications in Descent of Man, Charles Darwin seeks to reinforce the dogma of male superiority. With the dawn of the twentieth century, boundaries weakened and women began to gain influence among intellectual circles. This
One country that had imperialism was India. By the mid-1880s, the British East India Company controlled three fifths of India. The cause of British domination was that the land was very diverse and the people could not unite and that the British either paid local princes or used weapons to get control. Positive effects of imperialistic rule in India were that the British set up a stronger economy and more powerful industries. They built roads and railroads. British rule brought peace and order to the countryside. They revised the legal system to promote justice for the Indians regardless of class. Indian landowners and princes, who still owned territory grew rich from exporting cash crops such as cotton and jute. The British introduced the telegraph and the postal system as a means of communication. These improvements and benefits from British rule eventually lead to Indian nationalism. The exposure to European ideas caused an Indian nationalist movement, the people dreamed of ending Imperial ...
The colonial woman has often been imagined as a demure person, dressed in long skirt,apron and bonnet, toiling away at the spinning wheel, while tending to the stew at the hearth. In reality, the women of the early settlements of the United States were much more influential, strong and vital to the existence of the colonies. Her role,however, has shifted as the needs of the times dictated.
Since imperial expansion was driving on commercial intersts, the territorial powers invested heavily in roads, bridges, utilities, ports, railroads, and dams. They also brought technological advancements such as electricity, telegraph, telephones to the colonies thus making it mor interconnected world markets.However, this also spreaded virulent diseases, destroyed environment and ecology, traditions and cultures.
In their opinion, white means positive, pure, beautiful, sincere, virtue, wisdom, and courage. When people of England stole for slavery with the African American people on the west coast of the continent, and immediately realized that exists between their racial and cultural contrast has produces a certain resistance. Under the scale of self-identity, colonies of England people was actually self-centered. On the basis of color, religion, or nationality to arrange other ethnic. For black people image, it is actually white people look at themselves, to defend their own behavior, stress on the conservation of their own "civilized way" as a reflection. In a word, the existence of black people inspired the white people’s
Jordan and Baker begin to show the Englishmen dislike for the African choice of dress and complexion. Baker includes that African people skin tone embodies their souls, having negativity in them by nature of being black, adds having neither wit nor honesty. “Englishmen actually described Negroes as black-an exaggerated term which in itself suggest that the Negro’s complexion had powerful impact upon their perceptions (Jordan, 1).” Black- deeply stained with dirt, soiled, dirty, foul…Having dark or deadly purposes, malignant; pertaining to or involving death, deadly; baneful, disastrous, sinister…Foul, iniquitous, atrocious, horrible, wicked… Indicating disgrace, censu...
Buzard, James, Linda K. Hughes. "The Victorian Nation and its Others" and "1870." A Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture. Ed. Herbert F. Tucker. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. 35-50, 438-455.
The epoch of imperialism cannot be defined simply as proliferation of inflated egos tied to the hardened opinions of nationalists, but also a multi-faceted global rivalry with roots of philosophies tainted with racism and Social Darwinism. The technique of each imperialist was specific to the motivations and desires of each combative, predominantly Western power and subsequently impacted the success of each imperialist and its colonies. Driven by industrialization, Europeans were aware of the urgent need for raw materials and new markets to maintain a constant rate of expansion and wealth. Imperialism became a competition; in general, the European countries led with fervor while the non-Western regions deemed likely to be stepped on. Britain was endowed with geographic and political advantages that allowed the country to become the first to unwittingly stumble onto industrialization. Britain was an island, therefore had developed a unique naval strength which subsequently gave Britain leverage when globalization blossomed from expanding maritime trade. Meanwhile, the rest of Europe, including Belgium, trailed behind. Presently, colonized regions still bear the traits and scars from the subjugators of their past.
First of all, imperialism improved the lives of the colonized people by aiding economic growth. The imperial powers prompted industrialization in the colonies, which is the development of advanced technology, leading to modernization in the colony. This is the change to a more modern, a more advanced country with new technology and better standards of living. These improvements then led to an increase in self-sufficiency, being able to maintain the colony’s economy by itself. In addition, industrialism
The glorious British Empire, at its height the most powerful régime in the world. Just a small island off the western coast of Europe, Britain grew to the span across the entire globe, effectively creating am Empire where the sun never set. Colonization, industrialization and a sense of nationalistic destiny drove the once expansive Empire. We still see effects of British imperialism today, which our global economy, as well as national tensions that germinated as a result of decolonization. Moreover, industrial revolution and push for independence manifested as a result of British influence. The same features that defined the British Empire, nationalism and commerce, lead to its demise.
...seem surprising that the men of the early twentieth century were devoid of identity. In fact, it may have been necessary to become identity-less, to recede back into something less than human. Or maybe to recede back into the very epitome human living. After all, the British Empire was on top of the world during both the Romantic and Victorian eras; therefore, it would make sense that English writers were idealistic at these times. But the Modernist era was the time of post-colonialism, where the English were no longer dominators but equals with the rest of the world – where they had once ruled, they now had to fend for themselves. So, is it possible that the modern era was not really a dehumanizing era, but a humanizing time period for the British? One cannot rightfully answer. Which, as the beginning of this paper states, is befitting of Modernism: it is unclear.
The concept of imperialism is one that has pervaded nearly every major society or empire throughout human history. It seems to be a natural consequence of societies growing in size, power, and knowledge. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries vast changes occurred in Western Europe (and soon spread elsewhere) that spurred a new round of imperialism the likes of which had not been seen before. The changes were the industrial revolution that was taking place. Countries were rapidly advancing to industrial societies producing much greater quantities of goods at much lower costs. The goods produced ranged everywhere from cotton textiles to military machinery, all of which would play important roles in rounds of imperialistic expansion that would follow. The imperialistic displays by Western European nations also brought about several other industrial revolutions in other regions including the Ottoman Empire, Russia, and Japan. I will take a look at how the industrial revolution encouraged imperialistic expansion, as well as some of the results of that expansion in other regions.
The Victorian Era in English history was a period of rapid change. One would be hard-pressed to find an aspect of English life in the 19th century that wasn’t subject to some turmoil. Industrialization was transforming the citizens into a working class population and as a result, it was creating new urban societies centered on the factories. Great Britain enjoyed a time of peace and prosperity at home and thus was extending its global reach in an era of New Imperialism. Even in the home, the long held beliefs were coming into conflict.