The Victorian era was the age of Queen Victoria. She was the daughter of Edward duke of Kent and inherited the throne when her uncle, William IV passed away. She reigned from 1837 until her death in 1901. Her first years as queen was tainted with social and economic chaos mainly because of the industrial development. During the midst of her reign England possessed a long period of harmony, wealth, sophistication and national confidence as a united nation. Queen Victoria gradually became more popular as a moral leader and model of family values. She established high principles for the Victorian society including the roles of the women. As the women’s suffrage movement began and the focus of women’s rights surfaced the queen was against the One important author of the Victorian era was Alfred, Lord Tennyson, his work reflected his views of society and the world around him. He composed a poem that focuses of a Lady’s isolation in a tower Called “The Lady of Shalott”. The Lady of Shalott is secretively isolated and confined on a distant island in the center of a river. She understands she will be cursed if she does not fulfill the task that she has been required to do which is to weave a magic web and disregard the world outside, she is expected to view it in shadows. She aches for something that is genuine and comes to be impatient of the shadows. Saying, “I am half-sick of shadows.” she yearns for relationships, predominantly love, and then she notices Sir Lancelot within her mirror. The Lady makes the choice and risk being cursed to experience love and it results in her She wrote “The Other Side of a Mirror” which uses dark emotions of envy and vengeance. This poem describes a women looking into a mirror and notices the image in the mirror is isolated and depressed and is not the same image she once saw. She was stripped of her external splendor, she used to be happy and strong-willed. The women accepts who she has become by saying “I am she” she is the one in the mirror, she is the one that is unhappy, mad, envious and vengeful. Coleridge uses the mirror to symbolize the other characteristics of women in society—the hideousness women felt within. The mirror portrays as a window into these women’s identities the beast in the women that rest behind the disguise of the “angel” women that are portrayed in Victorian society. The woman in the poem was once beautiful was now repulsive and she is trying to find her voice while accepting what she has become. This poem represents the two sides to every women who is oppressed and
Mirrors are first introduced in part one of the novel where Clarisse is describes as a mirror by Montag. Also presented by Granger towards the end of the novel, the mirror is a symbol of the lacking self-reflection but also it cure. Mirrors reflect a perfect image of a person back at them – an image that is neither tarnished nor beautified. Mirror here are a symbol of seeing within one’s soul in pursuit of rebirth, and are a tool to be used in the search what has gone terribly wrong in such an empty society. In a society that lives without living, thinking or feeling like Montag’s looking into a mirror ma spark a thought, and a thought may spark that internal rebellion. Furthermore, metaphorical mirrors are of equal significance when understanding this symbol. Clarisse is Montag’s inner mirror; she reflects the personality and life of Montag back at him, allowing him to learn and question what he sees. Montag is also Faber’s mirror – he reflects Faber’s recent emptiness and his cowardice at not attempting release society from its suffering. Mirrors are a great symbol of self-actualization that leads to rebirth in the novel Fahrenheit
“Victorian poets illustrated the changeable nature of attitudes and values within their world and explored the experiences of humanity through these shifts.”
The Victorian era was a period of time in England spanning from 1837 to 1901, named after Queen Victoria who reigned in this time period. Women were a suppressed gender in the Victorian era. Unmarried women that were 21 years old or older had the right to own their own property and earn their own money; however as soon as they got married they lost all of their rights. Their husband was now entitled to all wealth and property. Most people accepted the suppression however certain people started fighting for women’s rights. One of the protestors was Barbara Bodichon who wrote the pamphlet “Laws Concerning Women”, which is about the laws that women were obligated to follow.
The poem starts out with a mirror being personified “I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. / Whatever I see, I swallow immediately. / Just as it is unmisted by love or dislike.” The mirror changes itself based upon what it sees regardless of what it is. Ironically the same can be said about humans that their environments also change them. Humans reflect diet through physique, smoking through tarred lungs, or self-esteem from social ranking. The poem then says, “It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long / I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.” This poem is reflecting patterns of which emotional states also transform the person. When a man spends enough time in a given area, he or she develops an emotional attachment to it. Another transformation “Now I am a lake.” This direct shift from a mirror that gives an exact copy transforms into a lake in which gives a reflection that’s murky and hard to make out. It goes on “A woman bends over me, / Searching my reaches for what she really is. / Then turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.” This section calls into question the objectivity of the previous reflections. The mirror that is now transformed into the lake and is suspicious to those that give light, which also reveals the actual object. It also could reflect that mirror is only as accurate as the observer and perception distort reality. A
The poetry written by Thomas Stearns Eliot, Portrait of a Lady has a strong connection with the novel by Henry James. Both deal with almost the same issues. In the poem Eliot talks about how a person will live his or her life during the 19th century. How they would always do exactly what was considered right during that era in society.
Mirrors, traditionally used for seeing a reflection, usually of someone’s true outer self. In Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Speak, Melinda Sordino does not want to see herself. After Melinda was raped at a high school party by Andy Evans, she becomes severely depressed and unable to speak. In this novel, mirrors symbolize how Melinda despises her appearance, and show how she is unable to accept her own reflection after she was raped.
Women were getting tired of not having the same rights as men, so they wanted to make a move to change this. Women got so tired of staying at home while the men worked. Women wanted to get an education. So they fought for their freedom. Abigail Adams said to her husband, “in the new code of laws, remember the ladies and do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.” John’s reply was, “I cannot but laugh. Depend upon it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systems.” These were said in 1776. The women’s suffrage actually began in 1848, which was the first women’s rights convention which was held in Seneca Falls, New York. Prominent leaders began campaigning for the right to vote at State and federal levels. Susan B. Anthony was the leader for getting women their rights in the United States. Susan B. Anthony voted in Rochester, NY for the presidential election. This occurred in 1872. She was, “arrested, tried, convicted, and fined $100.” She refused to pay the fine. Supporters of The Equal Rights Amendment would march, rally, petition, and go on hunger strikes.
The poem mirror is about a mirror and a woman who is obsessed with the
During the mid-nineteenth century through 1914, women did not have the right to suffrage. According to the article "Why We are Militant," the author state that women groups became more militant from the refusal of the government officials to act. (Sherman, Dennis. Why We Are Militant. Michael Ryan, Western Civilizations: Sources, images, and Interpretations (pp.138). McGraw-Hill, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2011) Women began to form unions,
“At one time looking at her was like looking at a mirror” (pg.2) This simile shows how insecure Alice is with herself and finds comfort looking at her sister remembering that they used to look identical. She finds Jenny’s body more familiar than her own. The mirror symbolizes the way she interacts with everyone throughout the course of the story for the way she views herself. She can 't come to a conclusion of who she is on her own so she looks to others to tell her, until she finds Mr. Jarred. He reassures her self doubts and she evolves with satisfaction and
The author applies sight and personification to accentuate the mirror’s roles. The declaimer of the poem says “I am silver and exact [and] whatever I see I swallow” (1, 20). The purpose of these devices is to convey the position of the mirror in the poem. As an inanimate object, the mirror is incapable of consuming anything but the appearances of entities. Furthermore, the glass’ role accentuates an inner mirror, the human mirror which does not forget instances of misery and contentment. According to Freedman, the mimicking image emulated by the mirror elicits “… a look for oneself inside” as observed from the life of the elderly woman in the sonnet (153). Moreover, as the woman looks into the lake, she commemorates her appealing and attractive and pleasant figure as a young girl. As time passes, the inevitability of old age knocks on the door of the woman, readily waiting to change the sterling rapturous lady perceived by many. One’s appearance can change; it is up to an individual to embrace it or reject it.
This, in fact, is an example of “dynamic decomposition” of which the speaker claims she understands nothing. The ironic contradiction of form and content underlines the contradiction between the women’s presentation of her outer self and that of her inner self. The poem concludes with the line “’Let us go home she is tired and wants to go to bed.’” which is a statement made by the man. Hence, it “appears to give the last word to the men” but, in reality, it mirrors the poem’s opening lines and emphasises the role the woman assumes on the outside as well as her inner awareness and criticism. This echoes Loy’s proclamation in her “Feminist Manifesto” in which she states that women should “[l]eave off looking to men to find out what [they] are not [but] seek within [themselves] to find out what [they] are”. Therefore, the poem presents a “new woman” confined in the traditional social order but resisting it as she is aware and critical of
Published in 1842, The Lady of Shalott, is one of the most notable poems by Mr. Lord Tennyson. Born in Somersby, England, Alfred Tennyson was one of the most popular British poets and still remains known today. The Lady of Shalott is the main character in the poem and acts as the main focus. The poem is divided into four numbered parts with stanza of nearly the same length. Each of the four parts ends at the moment when a speech is spoken: the speech first takes the form of the reaper’s whispering identification, the second form of the Lady’s half-sick lament, the third of the Lady’s pronouncement of her doom, and finally, of Lancelot’s blessing. Lord Tennyson’s, “The Lady of Shalott”, uses structure, form and theme to help show the audience the conflict between art and life.
In T.S Eliot's poem, Portrait of a Lady, he gives a glimpse into the upper class of post war society- something rather dispirited and forlorn. It is filled with people from the higher social standings and they are as soulless and empty as the lady in the poem. The upper class was also represented by the main character himself, who is truly unable to connect as a whole to his surroundings. He initially describes the world in the poem as dark, covered in smoke and haze – the scene that is in and of itself a mere half life, the individuality of the characters already swallowed by the abyss of ritual that has devoid of meaning. The truly shocking part that links this poem to the author’s previous poems is the underlying brokenness and the soullessness that the characters seem to inhabit. The main character of t...
The Victorian era was the time period after the Romantic era, it went from poems, plays