...Well, this is new, thought Stan as he rounded the corner, accidentally bumping into someone. “Sorry!” he shouted over his shoulder. He had escaped from many kinds of situations, but never this. He was running from three men who had tried to blame him for a debt. Apparently, there was someone named Sam that had a debt to pay to a man on the streets of late-victorian London, and Stan had been confused with him. His thoughts were distracted an alarm went off in his mind. He instinctively dodged, and saw a large rock sail over his head. That’s when it got weird. Time slowed down and Stan electrocuted the rock with a bolt of lightning from his hand. He ran into a shop to hide, and as he looked at his reflection in a mirror, he saw just how filthy...
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...Discuss the 'Fallen 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...
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...[p. 272] 10. Fiction Overview The super-productive Dickens is the dominant figure of the Victorian novel, combiningelements of the Gothic - a genre made serious by the Brontë sisters - with a remarkablyimagined account of the social institutions of Victorian London. The mode of his novelsowes much to popular stage and melodrama, though language and character-creation arehis own. His rival, Thackeray, is represented here by Vanity Fair. A less theatricalrealism comes in with Mrs Gaskell and Trollope, and with the historian of imperfectlives in their fullest social settings, George Eliot. The triumph of the novel Modern images of 19th-century English life owe much to novels, and versions of novels.By 1850, fiction had shouldered aside the theatre, its old rival as the main form of literary entertainment. As with the drama at the Renaissance, it took intellectuals sometime to realize that a popular form might be rather significant. Human beings havealways told stories, but not always read the long prose narratives of the kind known asnovels. The reign of the novel has now lasted solong as to appear natural. There had been crazesfor the Gothic novel and for Scott’s fiction, yet itwas only in the 1840s, with Charles Dickens, thatthe novel again reached the popularity it hadenjoyed in the 1740s. Between 1847 and 1850appeared Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, VanityFair and David Copperfield. In 1860, Dickens wasstill at his peak, Mrs Gaskell and Trollope were going strong...
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...complicated character who searches for independence in exchange for social acceptance. Lucy’s search for identity that is independent of society is very difficult to establish and express due to its existence in the sphere of ‘expected female social conduct.’ In the novel one of the characters, Ginevra, curiously inquires “Who are you, Miss Snowe”...”Who am I indeed? Perhaps a personage in disguise.” Since most women during that era were conditioned at an early age about social standing and gender roles, Ginevra has a very difficult time labeling Lucy as a traditional female. Bronte craftily created Lucy as this untraditional female protagonist in order to challenge Victorian ethics through her silence over her narrative. Throughout the novel, Lucy reveals her dissatisfaction with the Victorian values, however at the same time she represses information and keeps her identity concealed. This personality trait gives her great power over the reader, who longs to get more information about this mysterious character. The novel begins with Lucy saying, “When I was a girl I went to Bretton about twice a year, and well I liked the visit.” This line from the first chapter is clearly vague and does not give any incite to why Lucy Snowe is staying at Bretton. Instead, she then jumps right into introducing her God-mother to the readers. “I was staying at Bretton; my godmother having come in person to claim me of the kinsfolk with whom was at that time fixed my permanent...
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...Summary Published in 1891, The Picture of Dorian Gray is Oscar Wilde’s only novel. An immediate and popular success, it has never been out of print. The story is set in London towards the end of the 19th century. Basil Hallward has painted a portrait of a handsome young man, Dorian Gray. Thrilled by the beauty of the painting, Dorian Gray wishes that he could always stay as young as his image in the picture. He gives up his soul to achieve this wish. Dorian sets out on a life of self-indulgence and evil. His behaviour seems to be reflected in the portrait and he realises that his wish has come true – the portrait is beginning to show a corrupted man while he remains unchanged physically. Frightened of what is happening, Dorian hides the picture in a locked room. The years pass and Dorian leads an increasingly depraved life, but the years have no effect on him; he looks as young and beautiful as ever. Then one evening he meets the artist once more and, after he has shown him the evil-looking portrait, Dorian kills him in a fit of hatred. Dorian tries to carry on with his immoral life but he is tormented by feelings of guilt and decides that the only way he can make up for what he has done is to destroy the painting. In the climax of the story Dorian tries to kill the man in the portrait, but kills himself in the process. Aestheticism was inspired by the principle of 'art for art's sake (art for the love for art) ...it had to simply create beauty. The Aesthete believed that...
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...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. !Note the same structure for the next paragraph: a broad display of reference and knowledge, with a strong final sentence. 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...
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..."The Victorian elements in Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontё" The Victorian Era, in which Brontё composed Wuthering Heights, receives its name from the reign of Queen Victoria of England. The era was a great age of the English novel, which was the ideal form to descibe contemporary life and to entertain the middle class. Emily, born in 1818, lived in a household in the countryside in Yorkshire, locates her fiction in the worlds she knows personally. In addition, she makes the novel even more personal by reflecting her own life and experiences in both characters and action of Wuthering Heights. In fact, many characters in the novel grow up motherless, reflecting Emily’s own childhood, as her mother died when Emily was three years old. Similarly, the vast majority of the novel takes place in two households, which probably is a reflection of author’s own comfort at home as whenever she was away from home she grew homesick. Emily Brontё’s single novel is a unique masterpiece propelled by a vision of elemental passions but controlled by an uncompromising artistic sense. However, despite the relative invisibility of Victorian influence in the plot and content, the attitudes of the Victorian Era make some impact on the story, and the novel is considered not only a form of entertainment but also a means of analyzing and offering solutions to social and political problems. Brontё may not highlight the social aspects in the novel, nevertheless the indications of Victorian society’s...
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...as a Familiar Feature of Victorian Writing Victorian social conventions placed the female inside the male domain, a domestically cultivated flower rather than a wild one, uncontrollable and free to roam. Woman was idealised: the angel in the house, the wife complementing her husband, the helpmate of man. Social conditions offered the Victorian woman little in occupation so her aim in life was to secure a husband, succumbing to the political propaganda. As Foster states: Because so much importance was attached to the roles of wifehood and motherhood, marriage was deemed the apotheosis of womanly fulfilment, alternatives to which were regarded as pitiable or unnatural.( Foster 1985: 6) In this role of wife, woman's great function is to praise her husband and, in return, she shall be praised for ruling inside the home where she can be 'incapable of error' (Ruskin 1865: 149) In Ruskin's lecture his view is that a husband is a chivalric knight guarding his wife from the 'peril and trial' he encounters. For the 'noble' woman, her true place is in the home, an 'incorruptibly good household nun', praised for choosing 'self-renunciation' over 'self-development'(D'Amico 1992: 69). This could also be viewed as oppression. Rather than the female 'complementing' the male, she is oppressed by him, and the praise offered by Ruskin could be viewed as a weapon, lulling the female into a false consciousness, trapping her inside the home. For the Victorian woman, serving man's desire...
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...The Style of Victorian Novels The Victorian Age is marked roughly by the reign of Queen Victoria of England from 1837-1901. The Victorian reading public firmly established the novel as the dominant literary form of the era. The novel is the most distinctive and lasting literary achievement of Victorian literature . The publication of novels in monthly installments enabled even the poor to purchase them .The Victorian novel featured several developments in narrative technique , full description and exposition , authorial essays and multi plotting featuring several central characters . Furthermore, the practice of issuing novels in serial installments led novelists to become adept at sub climaxes . Dickens was the most successful of the English Victorian novelists, a master of sentiment and a militant reformer . The literature of the Victorian age entered in a new period after the romantic revival. The literature of this era expressed the fusion of pure romance to gross realism. Though, the Victorian Age produced great poets, the age is also remarkable for the excellence of its prose . Literature of this age tends to come closer to daily life which reflects its practical problems and interests . Moral purpose : The Victorian literature seems to deviate from "art for art's sake" and asserts its moral purpose . Idealism : It is often considered as an age of doubt and pessimism. The influence of science is felt here. The whole age seems to be caught in the conception...
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...Dickens’ Oliver Twist was written and published during the Victorian era, 1838. Dickens’ use of language successfully denotes contextual issues and narrative concepts, an important social commentator who used fiction effectively to highlight the contextual issues of society and class and criminality. The narrative techniques Dickens uses, unified with the context in which he wrote the novel, exemplify his ideas throughout the text. The use of good literature adds to an audience’s understanding of life during those times. It embodies thought and feeling on matters of human importance. Dickens uses the characters and situations in the novel to make a deliberate statement of his personal views of society and class about the poor laws and the criminal system. Society in Oliver Twist is hugely divided. While the upper classes live in their comfortable large houses, the lower class are seen to lead wretched lives, driven to crime by hunger and deprivation. At times Dickens steps out of the novel and addresses the reader directly using indirect speech. The opening of the book, the detached narrator impresses upon the reader that Oliver was only seen as a burden upon the parish, and also highlights the injustice of falling into a predestined social class. “The parish authorities resolved that Oliver should be ‘farmed’... be despatched to a branch workhouse where juvenile offenders against the poor-laws… ‘. He uses shifting narrative voice throughout Oliver Twist to provoke and discern...
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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...
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...Sketches by Boz “The Streets - Morning” The Victorian London streets is a familiar setting of Dicken's works with “Oliver Twist” and “A Christmas Carol” being some his most memorable works. In this passage Dickens offers the reader an alternative London, one without the energetic crowds but instead a much more disquieting place where the streets are dull and lifeless. We are met with a silent neighbourhood before the sun has risen and through the use of characters, setting and comparisons the reader receives a rich picture of the sunless streets. The passage begins with the introduction of the Victorian London scene on a summer morning. The reader is taken by surprise by the opening sentence where “The streets of London on a summer's morning” are described to be “most striking”. Dickens' interesting choice of words places the pre-dawn London scene in the summer, a time of warmth and sun, however we are offered a nineteenth century London that is typically portrayed with a bleak, grey backdrop. Few people roam this neighbourhood apart from those “whose unfortunate pursuits of pleasure, or scarcely less unfortunate pursuits of business, cause them to be well acquainted with the scene.” This leads to the belief that each summer's morning starts off like this, colourless and melancholy; the people who happen to be awake at this dreary hour are the rogues who remain. Each just as depressed as the other, and both's search for something more than the blind acceptance of a morose...
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... | Discuss any two fictional texts studied in the light of fin de siècle theories of degeneration. The era of the Victorian fin de siècle ‘…from the 1880s to the end of the century…generated an enormous amount of scientific and cultural debate concerning the future civilisation and the human race itself.’[1] It was an era of technical progress, Imperial gain, and a nation at the pinnacle of progress. ‘…bolstered by Darwin’s theory of evolution, Victorians regarded themselves and their society as the acme of human development.’[2] However, it was an era that balanced on the age of a new century that seemed to accentuate and highlight numerous anxieties. Ledger and Luckhurst (2000) further state that this was an ambivalent period; with major progress in science and technology but also a time of real decline, in which Britain’s global economic power was rivalled by Germany and America. This ambivalence at the turn of the century created fears and anxieties concerning the decline of the British race. A crucial influence on British anxieties of decline was underpinned by scientific and medical knowledge known as Theories of Degeneration. Ledger and Luckhurst (2000) state, at this time, that ‘…degeneration was one defining structure which can be traced across many disciplines…’[3] These theories of degeneration impacted over many discourses within Victorian culture including race, class, sexuality and morality, and envisaged ‘…a “primitive” lost world or degenerate “after world”...
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...Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The Duality of Human Nature Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde centers upon a conception of humanity as dual in nature, although the theme does not emerge fully until the last chapter, when the complete story of the Jekyll-Hyde relationship is revealed. Therefore, we confront the theory of a dual human nature explicitly only after having witnessed all of the events of the novel, including Hyde’s crimes and his ultimate eclipsing of Jekyll. The text not only posits the duality of human nature as its central theme but forces us to ponder the properties of this duality and to consider each of the novel’s episodes as we weigh various theories. Jekyll asserts that “man is not truly one, but truly two,” and he imagines the human soul as the battleground for an “angel” and a “fiend,” each struggling for mastery. But his potion, which he hoped would separate and purify each element, succeeds only in bringing the dark side into being—Hyde emerges, but he has no angelic counterpart. Once unleashed, Hyde slowly takes over, until Jekyll ceases to exist. If man is half angel and half fiend, one wonders what happens to the “angel” at the end of the novel. Perhaps the angel gives way permanently to Jekyll’s devil. Or perhaps Jekyll is simply mistaken: man is not “truly two” but is first and foremost the primitive creature embodied in Hyde, brought under tentative control by civilization, law, and conscience. According...
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...Discuss how far Pride and Prejudice challenges the generic conventions of the realist novel Realist novel through divide in class. Generic convetions are romance, comedy (of manners) and drama. Austen details marriage throughout and this will reflect the society at the time of writing. The pragmatism is the need to be married. The novel employs narrative technique of free indirect speech. Narrative – 3rd person, effect on genre. Romance is represented through characters being kept apart. Misconceptions, miscommunication and quick judgements are key facts. Mr Darcy the alpha male who takes charge of the situation. The heroin must be saved, clear convention however she is not the typical as she is not in phycial danger but instead her families place in society is (impotant theme during time). The relationships between characters, especially the main of Elizabeth and Darcy. ‘In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you’ – Elizabeth. (Detail of relationship, tone and language). Argument - being microcosm of society and money. There is a lot of sexual tension and potential love affair – only a device. Elizabeth as a character is not completely romantic. She’s witty and changes her heart. Question of the novel being a moral tale and there is the consideration of ramifications of reckless behavior. Is it a true consequence of folly? Comedy is evident. Austen pokes fun at society...
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