Throughout this time period, men were superior to women. According to an article by Yildirim, “Victorian Britain, with its rigid gender roles, was a strictly patriarchal society where discrimination against women was a dogmatic practice” (46). Queen Victoria widely influenced this …show more content…
The upper class was the highest class of the social hierarchy. The men and women had distinct roles in the upper class. The upper class men had workers to do all the hard labor for them, so the only responsibility they had was to have a lot of manners. The upper class having the greatest amount of manners acts as a role model for all classes below them. Because the upper class men (and women) were so courteous and mannerly, and everyone wanted to be like the upper class, they were all encouraged to continue their etiquette ways. Upper class men had no manual work to do because the lower classes did it for them. Under the upper class was the middle …show more content…
The contemporary author, Robert Louis Stevenson, detailed the era through his writings, the most influential of which was a novella called Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a great example of how people in the Victorian Era tolerated the strictness of this time period. The main characters are the experimental chemist Dr. Jekyll and the evil Dr. Hyde, who are the same person. Dr. Jekyll tries separating his two opposing natures but ultimately ends up going mad and Hyde takes over. Hyde’s physical description as being ugly represents his ugliness in morals and ethics that isolate him from the “perfect” society in the Victorian