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Charles Dickens and the Industrial Revolution
Industrialization victorian era
Victorian era social change
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Recommended: Charles Dickens and the Industrial Revolution
Viktor E. Frankl, the Austrian psychologist, once stated that “When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves”. A Victorian society condemned to a period of forced adjustment into a life of despotism, as a result of radical change and revolution, dictatorial upper-class tyranny and a life absent of pleasure and happiness, serves as an example of the great psychologist’s words. The industrialisation and development of Britain acted as a major catalyst for the way society would respond, reforming the lives of many. Not only did the British industrial revolution of the nineteenth century enforce drastic social reforms, it also shaped Victorian literature. Great literary authors exposed the injustices and the gruelling living conditions that mainly the working-class faced, exploring their meaning and purpose as individuals forced to conform to controversial changes , as the industrial world around them, was becoming increasingly uncertain. Charles Dickens, Alfred Tennyson and Robert Louis Stevenson, were amongst the authors at the forefront of Victorian literature who aimed to uncover the injustices faced by the majority of Victorian society.
In Dickens’s industrial novel Hard Times, the writer highlights the struggles and hardships in an unpredictable and uncertain Victorian world, socially and economically. Dickens sets the novel in mid-nineteenth century Britain, where the progression of technology decreased the value of humans, giving them little to no sense of worth, particularly in the workplace. The labourers of the factories were referred to as “hands” in the novel by their wealthier superiors, considered just as physical beings devoid of emotion or complexity. The metonym is used by...
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...into what was socially acceptable. In actuality, Victorian individuals were desperate to escape from the shackles of social rigidity and depression, to seek a happier and more leisurely lifestyle, where they could express their withdrawn emotions.
Works Cited
1. Dickens, Charles (1854) Hard Times. England: Bradbury and Evans
2. Stevenson, Robert Louis (1885) The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Bournemouth, England: Longmans, Green & co
3. Tennyson, Lord Alfred (1891) The Complete Works. England: New York, Frederick A. Stokes Company
4. Victorian Web. URL: < http://www.victorianweb.org/ >. Web. [Accessed November 2013]
5. Schmoop. URL: < http://www.shmoop.com/>. Web. [Accessed November 2013]
6. SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” SparkNotes LLC. 2003.
URL : Web. [Accessed November 2013]
Cox, Jacob D. . Dayton, OH: Morningside Bookshop, 1983. . First published 1897 by Charles Scribner's Sons.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories.
Thomas, Deborah. ""Don't let the bastards grind you down": Echoes of hard times in the Handmaid's Tale." Dickens Quarterly. (2008): 90-96. Print.
Gates, Barbara. "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Victorianweb.com n. pag. Web. 3 Apr 2011.
This paper highlights several problems that emerge during the Victorian age, a time of many changes and difficulties in England. During the Industrial Revolution, living conditions changed dramatically; as a result the economy to change from agricultural to industrial. The Victorian Era was also marked by immense progress and tremendous achievement. New values were placed on religion and faith in a society that was unrealistic for women. Robert Stevenson’s novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is being told through a third party, Mr. Utterson, who is the lawyer for Dr. Jekyll. There are no major female characters in this story. While women struggled for liberation from a male dominated society, Victorian men felt threatened by the feminist who sought personal liberties. Stevenson’s novel was influenced by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Stevenson pays homage to her at various points in his novel. Mr. Hyde’s rebellious nature threatened the balance of equality in English society. The escalation of horror in The Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Mr. Hyde depends on the oppression of women. The more oppressed women became, the more horror the characters experienced. In Robert Stevenson’s novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he channels Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, by leaving the voice of a woman character absent which alienates femininity, showing hypocrisy through the male characters and the influence of purity and sinful.
Robert, Stevenson L. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. New York: Dover Publications, 2013. Print.
Stevenson, Robert Louis, and Richard Dury. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Edinburgh:
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde London: Longmans, Green & co. 1886 Print
Stevenson, Robert Louis, and Katherine Linehan. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: an
Stevenson Robert L., Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales. (USA: oxford university press, 2008)
In an essay on feminist criticism, Linda Peterson of Yale University explains how literature can "reflect and shape the attitudes that have held women back" (330). From the viewpoint of a feminist critic, "The Lady of Shalott" provides its reader with an analysis of the Victorian woman's conflict between her place in the interior, domestic role of society and her desire to break into the exterior, public sphere which generally had been the domain of men. Read as a commentary on women's roles in Victorian society, "The Lady of Shalott" may be interpreted in different ways. Thus, the speaker's commentary is ambiguous: Does he seek to reinforce the institution of patriarchal society as he "punishes" the Lady with her death for her venture into the public world of men, or does he sympathize with her yearnings for a more colorful, active life? Close reading reveals more than one possible answer to this question, but the overriding theme seems sympathetic to the Lady. By applying "the feminist critique" (Peterson 333-334) to Tennyson's famous poem, one may begin to understand how "The Lady of Shalott" not only analyzes, but actually critiques the attitudes that held women back and, in the end, makes a hopeful, less patriarchal statement about the place of women in Victorian society.
This novel was written in the Victorian Era, a time when society faces many social difficulties such as industrialization, prostitu...
The Early Victorian period was a stage of social convulsions and deep transformations because the Industrial Revolution in England. The rural way of life in the villages and countryside was changed into an urban life in the big industrial cities. An economy based on industry and commerce was settled in England.
“On every page Hard Times manifests its identity as a polemical work, a critique of Mid-Victorian
The Victorian Literary Movement that took place in England during the reign of Queen Victoria is what lead to the prominent factors that can be seen across the era of writing. From 1837 to 1901 Victorian Literature evolved from a heavy focus on proper behaviors, to a high level of rebellious acts against the proper Englishman. The code of conducts and push towards social advancements that once moved literature forward soon fell victim to change. This era started out in poetry and moved towards novels as being the dominate form of writing. The Victorian era, being so large in and of itself, has always been thought of as the time when Queen Victoria ruled. Through the years however, there are three major ideas that have been seen in writing that can really help to break this era down. As the audience for writers changed, the stigma of reading only for pleasure began to dissipate. People began to see how social advancement could be a positive thing, and from there aspired to be proper Englishmen. Authors such as Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Charlotte and Emily B...