Victorian America

Since its inception in the late eighteenth century, the Gothic movement has been fascinated with female bodies. This is especially true of Gothic poems of the Victorian Era, such as Robert Browning’s dramatic monologue Porphyria’s Lover (first published as Porphyria, 1836) and Christina Rossetti’s disturbing children’s fable Goblin Market (composed 1859, published 1862). Each poem demonstrates that, due to societal attitudes, a woman’s body has the potential to be dangerous to her, while also…

The essay will begin looking at the medieval period to start and how childhood did not exist during this era including the gender barriers used and how childhood then progressed into the Victorian era where historians and scholars believed this was where childhood had started, then looking into how childhood is seen in today’s societies. The concept of childhood in relation to medieval society shows us that “child” is a word that was used in common speech such as today’s generation using the…

In Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde uses satire to ridicule the strict expectations of marriage and the Victorian aristocracy. He breaks from what is socially acceptable by creating extravagant situations and including eccentric characters. With its outlandish scenarios, “Wilde now uses, as plot, a purely farcical intrigue” (135 Roditi). The play involves changing of identity, misunderstanding lovers, and unexpected surprises. Each act leads to the events of the next act…

Robert Browning and Christina Rossetti illustrate women’s oppression by men in Victorian society within their poems, “My Last Duchess” and “Goblin Market.” The Duchess, Laura, and Lizzie all act against the expectations set for them with varying ramifications. The poets use different narrative perspectives and careful word choice in order to depict the subjugation of these women, their rebellion against it, and the punishment they face for rebelling, calling public attention to the mistreatment…

The definition of women’s beauty throughout the Victorian era in Britain is diversified and indeterminate as it was tightly linked with common notions of suitable female behavior in society as well as her physical appearance. The beauty was an essential element in nineteenth-century female integrity, while a relevant degree of concern with female beauty was supposed to be a constitutive part of her status within society. Meanwhile,…

mode could also be seen as a written dialogue between two characters. In particular, it can be detailed further that the mode is that of a Victorian novel. This can be seen by the social cues in the dialogue. For example, the formality of the way the characters addresses each other as “Miss Eyre” and “Mr Rochester”, this was an essential part of polite Victorian society. Furthermore there is the over flourish of words in the discourse which was common during this period. For example, when Mr…

In “The True and Real Thing”, Susan Ostrov Weisser, an English professor at Adelphi University, compares modern- and Victorian-era definitions of love focusing especially on the expectation and perspective of women’s love. Most people assume that through feminist movements, 21st century women are treated with more respect as equals and do not need to prove themselves compared to the 1940s and 1950s. Weisser critiques this idea by stating that even though women’s identity is not entirely framed…

There are many authors who used religion as a way to either escape from what was happening in the world, or used that faith as a guiding factor to be able to survive a time that they thought they were all doomed. Starting in the Victorian Period there were many changes happening; science was being more predominant and new discoveries were made that scared a lot of people. Everything was moving so quickly that many felt they couldn’t keep up, so they used their faith as something that was…

prospects in Victorian Britain. The Victorian era failed to make room for sexual candidness and gender distortion, and these ideologies are challenged in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Both novels were based around the Victorian era and both explore gender fluidity. The patriarchal views of the Victorian society imposed authority and domination of men over women and through these two texts; it is shown that the Victorian ideologies…

clear. He proposes to the honorable lady Gwendolyn Fairfax and, through leading a double life, ultimately demonstrates his conformity to the Victorian ethical and social standards. Jack, same as other main characters in Wilde 's play, is a less realistic character and more of an instrument to highlighting a set of ideas and attitudes. As a known upper-class Victorian, Jack became respected by the society only because of his adopted father 's fortune this made him familiar about all the rules of…