...Payton Diamond English III Honors 03/20/14 Roles of Women in the Victorian Era The idea of being told whether you could marry, have children, an education or a career is not something that many of us in today's society can relate to, but this was the accepted norm for women during the time period leading up to Tess of the D’Urbervilles. The Victorian Era was a time of rigid moral values and beliefs about women's roles. Throughout the book there are signs that society was changing, many of the long held morals were loosening up and women were beginning to question their faith, religion and place in society. Facing a similar evolution of her role, in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Tess reinforces the struggles of women in this time period living a life filled with complications such as having to work to provide for her family, being caught up in a twisted love triangle, and being shunned by her society due to challenges and circumstances she lived with. As many women were doing, Tess left home to work early in the book. Many women during this time broke away from the path many of their female ancestors had followed. Women no longer had to stay at home and follow the stereotypes that had been made, but they could leave home and find work in the cities. Many women during the late 1800s and early 1900s found jobs in factories or worked jobs that men thought they could handle. Tess first left her house to work for the d’Urbervilles on their mansion. She was to take care of the birds. Tess...
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...In earlier centuries, it had been usual for women to work alongside husbands and brothers in the family business. As the 19th century progressed, men increasingly commuted to their factory, shop or office jobs. Wives, daughters, and sisters were left at home all day to oversee the domestic duties in the reign of Queen Victoria. A woman's place was in the home, as domesticity and motherhood were considered by society at large to be a sufficient emotional and economic fulfillment for females. These constructs kept women far away from the public sphere in most ways, but during the 19th century charitable missions did begin to extend the female role of service, and Victorian feminism emerged as a potent political force. The transformation of Britain into an industrial nation due to the industrialization had profoundly influenced the ways in which women were to be believed ideally in Victoria times. Newly emerged urban jobs formed an urban living style that no one had lived before, it prompted a change in the ways in which appropriate male and female roles were perceived. In particular, the notion of separate spheres, which woman was in the private sphere of the home and hearth, man was in the public sphere of business, politics and sociability - came to influence the choices and experiences of all women. The Victorian era from 1837 to 1901 is characterized as the domestic age, idealized by Queen Victoria, who came to represent a sort of femininity that was centered on the family...
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...in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although women were not encouraged to pursue a career, Mary enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts at the age of sixteen. She quickly felt frustrated by the male faculty and students who were patronising and resentful of her attendance. Regardless of these obstacles and her father’s disapproval of her career choice, she continued to pursue art and painting. Cassatt, an impressionist painter, did not conform to standard male images of women and therefore her paintings differ from the more general male representations, especially of women readers during the Victorian period. Cassatt expresses her world through women and therefore “…offers a new vision of the unconsidered facts of everyday bourgeois life…” (Yeh, 1976:359). Cassatt’s work is regarded by Yeh (1976:359) as women-centred art as she regards women as complete within themselves. In her work she represents women as independent, pursuing interests which are not necessarily directed toward the need of her family. Reading women, portraying the reader’s inner strength often occur as a theme in her paintings. Femininity in the Victorian era In the latter Victorian period women artists and their work were considered inferior. In an attempt to overcome the stereotypical female image their work became increasingly more vocal and confident and promoted the emerging image of the educated, modern and free women. Femininity in the Victorian era was generally thought to be connected with...
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...19th century English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray said, “It is to the middle-class we must look for the safety of England”. What he meant by this is that during Victorian times, while every other class was fluctuating in power and influence, one could count on the middle class to be somewhat of a constant and sign of hope, as well as an example for what normalcy and a hopeful future could offer. During the Victorian Era, the success of the diverse middle-classes in the Victorian period was truly in their ability to, through various economic, political and social means, universalize a set of principles based on individuality and progress and establish themselves as an emerging powerhouse. All of these changes transformed both the aspirations and the value that the emerging Victorian Middle Class represented. Not only was there a split between the ‘big three’ classes of the Victorian Era, but in the midst of the Middle Class as well there were different variations of societies. As the author R.H. Gretton phrases it, the middle class was simply “in all probability, intentional and desirable, an admission of successful upward striving.” And the Middle Class strived to reach that ultimate point of success through various social, economic, and political aspects. The economic boundary of the Victorian Middle Class still has not been defined to its accuracy, as the diversity between the class itself was immense. Due to the Industrial Revolution, there were many more opportunities...
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...Dickens was born in the year 1817, Victorian Era Mid 19th century till to beginning of 20th century, Hard Times published on 1854, Schools become mandatory in 1889. _____________________________________________________________________ OUR TALK WILL BE DIVIDED INTO 4 PARTS: INTRODUCTION OF VICTORIAN ERA The Victorian era of British history: was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death, on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence for Britain, where during that time, the British Empire has existed for centuries and was able to maintain a world order which rarely threatened Britain’s wider strategic interests. By the end of Queen Victoria’s reign, The British empire extended over about one-fifth of the earth’s surface and at least a quarter of the world’s population. One of the ways they achieved such a thing is through the Industrial Revolution. What is the Industrial Revolution exactly? Prior to the Industrial Revolution, a working person would be lucky to have 1 or 2 shirts. To make fabric, these people had to spend their whole lives weaving this shirt and as demand for british goods increased, they needed a way to speed up things in a way without affecting it economically. As a result, they came up with the idea of factories where workers would repeat the same thing over and over again. So I want you to think like a business man in the victorian era right now. What would make sense...
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...pictures of Victorian England: a Charles Dickens Christmas with a large, happy family surrounding a table crammed with food; the dark and terrifying slums in other Dickens novels; Sherlock Holmes in London by gaslight; timeless country estates where laborers nodded in deference to the squire while ladies paid social calls and talked about marriage.” Mitchell, Helen. Daily Life in Victorian England. In the Victorian Era of England there were many different things that were regarded as important. Such as social stats, which was probably the most important. The role of men and woman were to keep their social status up. Also their child’s role was to get a good education and to grow rich to...
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...Male Dominance in Tess of the D’urbervilles The Victorian era, as described by Professor of History and Women's & Gender Studies Nancy Reagin in her essay “Victorian Women: the Gender of Oppression”, witnessed the ideology of separate spheres in which society viewed men as independent and reasonable while viewing women as passive, dependent on men, emotional, and submissive. Men were given the governing role in which they would dominate society due to their ability to make rational decisions while women were expected to unquestionably fill the social roles that men decided for them, and those roles usually revolved around a woman’s duties as a mother and a wife. In marriage, a woman was expected to abide by the orders and views of her husband, and man and wife became one in terms of a woman’s rights, property, and identity. In Tess of the D’urbervilles, a book written in the Victorian Era, Hardy conveys this ideology of separate spheres in his portrayal of men and their dominance over women in society, primarily Tess. Their dominance is shown in how the men act as the masters of society, but it is also seen in how the women in Tess unquestionably view the men as the dominant gender. Often, the women are blindly influenced and act passively when interacting with male characters such as Alec and Angel. They are also seen to be very dependent on the men, and the men acknowledge that, for that is expected of a woman in that age to not be able to make a living for herself. The...
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...Woman' as a Familiar Feature of Victorian Writing Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton may be characterised as a 'social problem' novel. Basch (1974: 263) states, 'Mrs Gaskell's impure women came from ... the work and exploitation which she knew, relatively speaking, better than other novelists.' Gaskell was the wife of a Unitarian clergyman in Manchester. She devoted her time to setting up homes for fallen women, and after Mary Barton women became her central characters, her novels primarily seen through women's eyes. Thomas Hardy, since his career began, has been notably associated with his portrayal of female characters. Erving Howe even writes about 'Hardy's gift for creeping intuitively into the emotional life of women.' (Boumelha 1982: 3) From this point of view, I intend this essay to establish a comparison between Gaskell's 'fallen woman' in Mary Barton and the way in which Thomas Hardy frames his central female character in Tess of the D'Urbervilles.In the context of the nineteenth century, there emerged an increasingly ideological 'rethinking' of sexuality, particularly of the female. Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859 and The Descent of Man later in 1871 argued that men and women were somehow mentally different. Darwinian sociology led to sexual stereotypes such as Clement Scott's 'men are born "animals" and women "angels" so it is in effect only natural for men to indulge their sexual appetites and, hence, perverse, "unnatural" for women to act in the same way.' (Quotation...
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...Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” are both texts written in the Victorian period. They both carry similar themes of the evils of patriarchy and the importance of empowering women to assert their identity in this time period. Both Jane Eyre and Laura are characters that are affected by the issues that mainly affected women in the male-dominated Victorian society. This is clearly portrayed when the men in both texts try to confine women physically and emotionally through deception and force. The different portrayal of both male and female characters also plays a very important role in communicating these issues. Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” can be read as a criticism of Victorian arrangement of marriage. She stresses the importance of women’s friendship as the main agent that can help in fighting against or changing society’s exploitation of women. The two sisters represent two different kinds of women; Lizzie, the submissive ones and Laura, those that fought against patriarchy, and the goblins represent the patriarchal system. It shows that women can control their destinies, gain some level of independence, and avoid society’s oppressive rules and work towards their liberation and happiness. In the Victorians society men where more educated, powerful and rich hence they dominated women. Women were subjugated to the home as housewives whilst their husbands earned money for the family. This gave the men even more power over women, both before and after marriage. Therefore, this led to the...
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...‘fallen woman’ against the backdrop of Victorian society. This portrayal by the authors of their heroines and the contrasting ways in which each character deals with their own situation leads us to empathise with their burdens and gain a deeper insight into their thoughts and emotions. As we witness the deepening punishments and tragedies unfolding for each character, both authors also succeed in eliciting our sympathy for these women as they enable us to experience the unfairness and injustice of the world as it was then. Wilde demonstrates the sheer devastation for a woman, of becoming ‘ruined’ through his character Mrs Arbuthnot as she expresses her demoralising thoughts and deep feelings that she has not spoken of before. We witness the destruction foisted upon her state of mind by the label of ‘fallen woman’ that was bestowed upon Mrs Arbuthnot, through the way that she scrutinises herself and expresses that she is a “tainted thing”. This metaphor implies that she believes her actions are so horrendous that she has been de-humanised and should be regarded as something impure. When describing her emotional burdens she states “I will bear them alone”. This simple declarative suggests that she has command over her own feelings and is deciding upon her own punishment. However she continues to affirm that she “must bear them alone”, where through the addition of the modal verb “must” we are brought back to the sad truth that, in Victorian society, a fallen woman would have had...
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...large skirts was a style to boost women's shape even before the nineteenth century. However, before the Victorian era, women's gowns were influenced by neoclassicism and thus were simple and straight. But by 1810, there was a desire to widen gowns again, like paniers. However, there was desire to create more of a cone shape in skirts. With the crowning of Queen Victoria in 1837, all eyes were on her for fashion trends. This was when crinoline became popular. And unlike paniers, women of all social classes wore crinoline. The first crinolines were petticoats made of crinoline fabric but made stiffer. Ruffles were often used to make the dress look wider. However, the coats often collapsed, so people started to put cord through the hem. By the 1830s, crinolines were held up with whalebone or cane. But, in order to keep the ridges from showing, women had to wear as many as six petticoats. In 1858, an American W.S. Thomson developed the cage crinoline. He created a fastener that could attach the cage crinoline to a band around the woman's waist. This created a dome shape, significantly larger than the previous cone shape and it was lighter than the earlier crinoline. Because the cage was synthetic, women did not have to wear as many petticoats to cover the ridges. This invention was so popular the city of Sheffield could produce half a million hoops in a week with factory women buying cheaper versions of it. By 1860, the size of the crinoline reached its maximum, which...
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...change in medical, scientific and technological fields. Throughout the mid Victorian era, (1850-1870), Britain was in its golden years. While growth in textiles, trade and machinery put twice as much money in British Merchants pockets a new order began to form. The first World’s Fair in 1851 marked the first stepping stone for modern technologies and the middle class. Families began to fall into a cultural norm, the idea that an individual, through hard work, could achieve economic success was in the front of men and women's minds. Gender roles established by a hard scrabble life in the past made a separation between men and women where men were superior to most women, women could work in...
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...Enc-1102 Week One Assignment Two Part one: Victorianism- A descriptive term for the time when Victoria was queen of England, from 1837 to 1901. The Victorian period in England is known as a time of industrial progress, colonial expansion, and public fastidiousness in morals. The Victorian period in the United States had many of the same characteristics.Within the fields of social history and literature, Victorianism refers to the study of late-Victorian attitudes and culture with a focus on the highly moralistic, straitlaced language and behavior of Victorian morality. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period. The later half of the Victorian age roughly coincided with the first portion of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe. Romanticism- was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical. It was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, and the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education, and the natural sciences. It had a significant...
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...To what extent do male and female literary characters accurately reflect the role of men and women in society? A lasting piece of literature is a work that accurately reflects the role of the people during certain time period eloquently. This is best perpetuated in the short novel Kitchen written by Banana Yoshimoto and the play The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde. While the main characters Mikage in the novella and Gwendolyn in the play reflect the shifting role of women in the Japanese society and Victorian era respectively, Yuichi and Algernon, on the other hand, however reflects the role of men through unconventional means. Through subtle use of symbolism, Banana Yoshimoto and Oscar Wilde highlights to what extent these two characters accurately reflect the role of men and women in Japan during the 1980s. Mikage in the novella and Gwendolyn in the plays both follow the philosophy of women in the Japanese society in 1980s and British upper class in Victorian era respectively. The main character in Kitchen, Mikage, a young student living in Tokyo, is trapped between the traditional role of women in the Japanese culture and her desire for independence. To comprehend the context of the literature and the character portrayed, one should possess a thorough knowledge of the author, Banana Yoshimoto. The novel is written in 1988, in which Japan was in the midst of the longest economic boom it experienced since the World War II. Yoshimoto, who was in her early twenties...
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...true meaning of life and what values are most important. Dickens uses a range of characters to show Pip learning this lesson and to provide insights into various aspects of the Victorian era culture. Characters such as Joe and Magwitch provide an insight into the education and the crime and justice systems of Victorian England, along the importance of social class and wealth. Whilst, Estella and Miss Havisham provide an insight into the position of women and the inequality of power between the genders. Throughout the novel Pip encounters a range of people and undergoes various experiences. It is through these people and experiences that Pip learns numerous lessons in life. Pips main learning-catalysts are Magwitch, Joe, Miss Havisham and Estella. Education was an important cultural aspect of the Victorian era. Education allowed wider access to employment, and respect; for one could not become a gentleman and part of the upper-class without an education. Yet access to education was greatly determined to one’s position in society. Those in the upper class were given a higher priority to receive education than those in the lower class. Therefore it was very difficult for one to advance within society. This provides Dickens with the opportunity to gently satirize the class system of this era and to provide a Marxist view on the inequality of wealth and power. Dickens presents numerous characters, all from different social classes with different levels of education...
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