Victorian literature

Works of literature is the creative expression of the time’s systems. Charles Dickens used many of his writings to reflect his current time period. He used his novel “Great Expectations” to highlight the conflicts of London during the Victorian era. Dickens identified the issues in London’s justice system, treatment of orphans, and education system in “Great Expectations”. One of the conflicts present in both “Great Expectations” and Dickens’ time is the legal system and its values. The court…

During the nineteenth century, the marginalization of women can be seen throughout society. Society was highly regulated by rules and women faced inequality in rights and in their treatment from society. The Awakening by Kate Chopin and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman focused on the control husbands had on their wives, due to the hierarchal position in society. These stories take place right around the same time period, involving female protagonists who are at the mercy of their society…

marry a man of the higher social rank and thus elevate their own social position and secure a comfortable life. It does not seem to be an accident that their happiness is reached through marriage as the possibilities of women in the Regency and the Victorian periods were significantly limited and, essentially, marriage was the only possibility to ensure a life of quality and at least partial freedom. And actually, the personal freedom is the main objective of both heroines. In Mansfield Park,…

The stance most take upon Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre was that, it is in fact, a feminist work of literature. This is based on the behavior of how Jane rebelled against the Victorian view, additionally, the fact that through many scenes does she establish her thirst for justice, and wishes to be equal with men (more specifically with Mr. Rochester), “Do you think I am an automaton? ­ a machine without feelings?...Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless…

In this essay I wish to discuss how Woolf brings history and fiction together in Orlando to reveal the limitations of Victorian historiography and biography. Orlando doesn’t focus on literature’s preoccupation with history but focuses on fiction’s engagement with the discipline of history itself,it illustrates the ways that narrative fiction challenges the authority of information documented by professional historical biography in the twentieth century. The perspective that I have chosen to…

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…

an Hour” was written in 1894 and explores the position of women within the 19th century society. An interesting aspect of this short story is that it is an early example of feminism in literature. Chopin is subtle, but very effective, in criticizing marriage and the role and position of women during the Victorian Era. The purpose of this essay is to make an approach into the mythic constructions of femininity in this Kate Chopin’s story but also to explore how the author influences the reaction…

However, to really understand the documentary we are tasked to review (in the form of a video analysis), one must start at the beginning and try and identify what “Victorian moral/views” refers to, since if this manner of thinking were introduced to us today we would out right shun it and label it as “backwards”. To put it bluntly, the Victorian view on sexuality was limited to procreation and anything outside of it was deemed immoral so homosexuality, birth control, premarital sex among others…

Jane Eyre Motif Analysis (Revision) During the Victorian Era, much of the literature is about struggle and societal problems. This type of writing is seen in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre, the protagonist, is a female orphan who faces many struggles throughout her life in Victorian England. The lack of a paternal figure is just one of these many struggles. Throughout Jane’s life, she encounters many older, more mature, female and male characters. The finding of these paternal…

consequences of the Industrial Revolution in England at that time, in the narrative of a “condition-of-England” as the growing-up storyline (Bildungsroman) would paint, and in the message of challenged traditions as the Victorian girdling had constrained. The pathos of the Victorian novel is mostly based on a foundation-emotion of isolation and detachment, as the main persona Pip in Dickens’ Great Expectations (1861) is an orphan; and the parallel character of the jilted spinster Ms. Havisham…