Consumerism In Victorian Era

The final epoch within the Victorian Age, sometimes called the “Late Period,” lasted from 1870 to 1901 (“Victorian” 544). For the Victorians who were well-off, the Late Period provided stability and countless opportunities for leisure, tourism, and intellectual and artistic pursuits (544). The city of London, especially, was laden with remarkable sights, cutting-edge technological innovations, and enriching experiences that catered to this demographic, along with an increasing culture of consumerism (544). This upsurge of consumerist thinking was no accident—the people of England were the wealthiest populace in the world at the time, and their relative affluence had resulted in the development of even more wealth, that stayed (primarily) within …show more content…
The speaker lives in the Victorian period, which is notorious for upholding propriety above much—if not, all—else (Goldfarb 20). Even the word “Victorian” has become synonymous with these values, used after the Victorian age to describe something as sanctimonious or repressive. Likewise, it is often “employed in [a] . . . pejorative sense, as prudish or old-fashioned” (“Victorian 536-7). Indeed, the whole era is summed up as silly and pretentious by this usage of the word—but moreover, the word itself is an insult. This suggests the extent to which the subsequent generation disliked the Victorians, or at least their prudish customs; they felt so negatively about these conventions that they characterized the whole era in a disparaging light. However, there is a case to be made that they were correct in what they accused Victorians of being. For example, in the very nature of the literature of the time, there is abundant evidence of the ever-upright attitude of Victorian society. There was a widespread and observable “expectation that literature would not only delight but instruct. . . and that it would illuminate social problems” (“Victorian” 551). “Love among the Ruins,” although it accomplishes this in a nonconformist way, which is atypical of the period, is a recognizable example of this, with the narrator’s call for reform on the prudish values of the Victorian age. Previously, secular literature had not been so widely meant to direct; this was something reserved for sacred texts, such as sermons or hymns, and secular stories and poems were read for celebration, education, or purely for entertainment. Likewise, literature was not always of the most upright nature, and could in fact be quite crude! The Victorians, however, had a seemingly unquenchable thirst for moral instruction, and it permeated into even the areas of