More handpicked essays just for you.
views of women in the victorian era
the english novel in the 19th century
views of women in the victorian era
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: views of women in the victorian era
Elizabeth Gaskell writing style was type cast as early Victorian style, which concern characteristics of women in society, gentle, domestic, tactful, low IQ, supersensitive, and melodramatic. With societies limitations and boundaries for women, Gaskell gracefully accepted tranquil satisfaction and portrayed these stereotypes of women in her writing.
Some critics have labeled Gaskell’s writings as a mere feminine style, but this would be a worthwile angle for her to approach social problems more wisely Christian perspective. In the novel, Cranford, she validates why she is a good story teller with an insightful talent for detailing particular incidents that she describes. She loves to account for incidents or events in her writings whether it’s a letter or novel and this could be a symbol of a Victorian story teller. But Kate Flint suggested that this could be a bold move in narrative techniques.
When Gaskell wrote North and South, and Mary Barton, she used the typical Victorian romance novel form, but with an unusual format. She used this platform to curtain important social issu...
In Stephen Dunn’s 2003 poem, “Charlotte Bronte in Leeds Point”, the famous author of Jane Eyre is placed into a modern setting of New Jersey. Although Charlotte Bronte lived in the early middle 1800’s, we find her alive and well in the present day in this poem. The poem connects itself to Bronte’s most popular novel, Jane Eyre in characters analysis and setting while speaking of common themes in the novel. Dunn also uses his poem to give Bronte’s writing purpose in modern day.
Giddings, Paula J. The Romance of Two Black Victorian Writers. 18 August 2002. 28 October 2004.
Munro, Alice. “Prue”. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2002. 467-469. Print.
Based on society during the 1820s, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre gives an accurate depiction of how women’s communication styles were viewed by men. The protagonist of the story,
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is a novel about a woman, Jane, moving from place to place on a path to find her own feeling of independence. Throughout her journey, Jane encounters many obstacles to her intelligence. Male dominance proves to be the biggest obstruction at each stop of Jane's journey. As Jane progressed through the novel her emotional growth was primarily supported by the people and the places she was around. This examination will look for textual support from different sections of Jane Eyre to review how Jane had grown emotionally and intellectually as she moved from location to location, as well as looking at critical analysis from Bronte critics as to how each location plays a role in Jane’s progression.
Jane Eyre has been acclaimed as one of the best gothic novels in the Victorian Era. With Bronte’s ability to make the pages come alive with mystery, tension, excitement, and a variety of other emotions. Readers are left with rich insight into the life of a strong female lead, Jane, who is obedient, impatient, and passionate as a child, but because of the emotional and physical abuse she endures, becomes brave, patient, and forgiving as an adult. She is a complex character overall but it is only because of the emotional and physical abuse she went through as a child that allowed her to become a dynamic character.
Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton belongs to a small, short-lived form of Victorian literature called the industrial novel. The primary authors of this genre—Charles Kingsley, Frances Trollope, Charlotte Brontë, Benjamin Disraeli, Charles Dickens, and Elizabeth Gaskell—all were, what Herbert Sussman describes, as primarily middle-class authors writing for middle class readers in a rapidly changing world, where both author and reader struggled to comprehend their transforming society. The English people new not whether to accept this newly industrialized world as a necessary result of capitalism, or reject it for its inherent inhumanity. Writers like Gaskell portrayed the victims of this new world with sympathy, but expressed fear that the working-class would someday rise to overthrow the economic system that had treated them with such cruelty. As working conditions improved, and people became tempered to this new world, the industrial novel, with few exceptions, ceased to exist, but we can use this genre to look back on how the industrialized world—the world in which we now live comfortably—came into being.
In the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries, the idea of patriarchy ruled the many societies all over the world. Particularly in Britain, its “overarching patriarchal model” (Marsh) had “reserved power and privilege for men” (Marsh). Also during this time period feminist literature began to arise and was invaded by, “the complex social, ethical, and economic roots of sexual politics… as testimony to gender bias and the double standard” (“Sexual Politics and Feminist Literature”). In Jane Austen’s writing, readers have been aware of her constant themes of female independence and gender equality. However, many have criticized the author for the fact that many of her “individualistic” female characters have ended up
Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre embraces many feminist views in opposition to the Victorian feminine ideal. Charlotte Bronte herself was among the first feminist writers of her time, and wrote this book in order to send the message of feminism to a Victorian-Age Society in which women were looked upon as inferior and repressed by the society in which they lived. This novel embodies the ideology of equality between a man and woman in marriage, as well as in society at large. As a feminist writer, Charlotte Bronte created this novel to support and spread the idea of an independent woman who works for herself, thinks for herself, and acts of her own accord.
Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre, is not a book that can easily be viewed through one critical theory. However, by knowing the historical background of when Bronte developed her novel, readers are able to understand Jane Eyre on a deeper level. The Victorian era was a time of change, and what authors like Charlotte Bronte did was help increase the change by shedding light into problems in Victorian society. Jane Eyre touches on many of the issues in Victorian society like feminist issues, class struggles, and the relationship between Britain and its colonies. Not only can readers see how much society has changed, but also the similarities. By understanding the novel at a historical level, readers can understand the novel through the lense
The biographies about Jane Austen describe the facts of her life in a step-by-step manner. They tend to be repetitive since she did not leave behind a rich fabric of day-to-day life. Yet Jane Austen is known not because of the factual details of her life; she is not remembered two hundred years after her death because she had six siblings and was a wonderful aunt to her nieces and nephews. Rather, Jane Austen is remembered because of what she wrote, her "ouvre." Only through reading her literature does one get a taste of the real Jane Austen, the Jane Austen who dreamed and made plans for the future that failed to materialize. Therefore, I have attempted to describe the life of Jane Austen by interpreting her novels and picking three main characters who I feel most closely serve as her alter ego. A writer writes from his or her own experiences; only by analyzing Jane Austen's characters do we get an understanding of the true author.
This novel was written in the Victorian Era, a time when society faces many social difficulties such as industrialization, prostitu...
Reidhead, Julia, ed. Norton Anthology of English Literature vol. 7, 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000.
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...
Reidhead, Julia, ed. Norton Anthology of English Literature vol. 7, 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000.