THE ENGLISH NOVEL IN THE 19TH CENTURY
Historical Background
Queen Victoria took throne in 1837 (at 18)
Long reign, died in 1901 (at 82)
England became wealthiest nation
British Empire expansion
“The sun never sets on England.”
Queen-empress over 200 million people living outside Great Britain
India, North America, South Pacific, etc.
Industrial Revolution
Created new towns, goods, wealth, jobs for people climbing through middle class
Social & economic changes expressed in gradual political reforms
First Reform Bill in 1832 extended vote to all men who owned property worth 10 lbs
Second Reform Act in 1867 gave the right to vote to working-class men (except agricultural workers)
Women for suffrage - did not succeed until 1918 (30 & over)
Universal adult suffrage 1928 extended vote to women at age 21
Factory Acts - limited child & women labour
State supported schools est. in 1870; compulsory in 1880; free in 1891
Literacy rate increased from 40% to 90% from 1840-1900.
Paradox of progress
Victorian - synonym for prude; extreme repression; even furniture legs had to be concealed under heavy cloth not to be “suggestive”
New ideas discussed & debated by large segment of society
Voracious readers
Intellectual growth, change and adjustment
Decorum & Authority - Victorians saw themselves progressing morally & intellectually
Powerful middle-class obsessed with “gentility, decorum” = prudery/Victorianism
Censorship of writers: no mention of “sex, birth, or death”
Decorum - powerful ideas about authority
Victorian private lives - autocratic father figure
Women - subject to male authority
Middle-class women expected to marry & make home a “refuge” for husband
Women had few occupations open to them
Unmarried women often portrayed by comedy by male writers
Intellectual Progress
Understanding of earth, its creatures & natural laws (geology, Darwin - theory of evolution)
Industrialization of England depended on and supported science and technology
Trust in transcendental power gave way to uncertainty & spiritual doubt.
Late Victorian writers turned to a pessimistic exploration of the human struggle against indifferent natural forces
Victorian writing reflects the dangers and benefits to rapid industrialization, while encouraging readers to examine closely their own understanding of the era's progress.
The development of the English novel in the 19th century
The novel is the dominant form of fiction in the Victorian Period.
Characteristic features: realism, didacticism, omniscient and intrusive narrator, complex multiple linear plots, sentimentality;
its themes are the individual in the social world.
The novelists rather than poets became the spokesmen of the age; `three-decker novels';
Division
(1) Pre-Victorian novel: Jane Austen, Walter Scott;
(2) High Victorian Period: Charles Dickens,William Makepeace Thackeray, Emily and Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot;
(3) Late Victorian Period: Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Oscar Wilde
Jane Austen
With Jane Austen, the English novel takes on its modern character. It depicts everyday life situations in a realistic way. Jane Austen created the comedy-of-manners novels which revealed the unremarkable lives of common landed gentry of her time.
Her novels, Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), Northanger Abbey (1818), and Persuasion (1818) show the lives of minor landed gentry. The author never mentions the current historic events but masterly depicts characters and human situations.
Sense and Sensibility
Elinor - (sense), self-control; prudence, discretion; conceals her emotions;
Marianne - (sensibility), enthusiastic, romantic; openly demonstrates her emotions;
John Willoughby - pathetic fortune hunter;
Edward Ferrers - an honest but shy young man;
Colonel Brandon - an old family friend, loves Marianne
Written in 1796 and published in 1811, depicts the fates of two impoverished sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, who after the loss of their father, are left in strained circumstances because the estate they lived in passes to their father's stepson, John Dashwood, a selfish individual. The three daughters and mother retire to a cottage in Devonshire. However, prior to their departure to the new home, Elinor and Edward Ferrers, the brother of Mrs John Dashwood, are mutually attracted.
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice is a novel of manners. It reflects many ways of life of contemporary society. It is also a moving story about the search for happiness.
The title of the novel refers, amongst others, to the ways in which Elizabeth and Darcy, the main characters, initially view each other with prejudice which later is transformed into mutual attraction and love. The highly-spirited Elizabeth was Jane Austen's favourite character.
The Victorian Novel
The dominant features: realism, didacticism, omniscient and intrusive narrator, complex, multiple linear plots, sentimentality; `three-decker novels'; Jane Austen: novel of manners; psychological portraits of women; Pride and Prejudice Mr and Mrs Bennett with their five daughters: Elizabeth Jane, Lydia, etc. Darcy, Charles Bingley, Wickham, William Collins, Charlotte Lucas, Lady Catherine de Bourgh; first important woman novelist, showed the everyday lives of well-to-do provincial families; little action, witty and natural dialogues, slight ironical humour; marriage is an important social institution;
The Brontë Sisters
Charlotte Brontë (1816-55), Emily (1818-48) and Anne (1820-49) were three sisters who had a literary talent. They lived in Haworth, Yorkshire, where their father was made curate there.
Charlotte's finest novel is Jane Eyre
(1847), which describes the life of a
poor governess. It has many
autobiographical elements. Her
other novels, Shirley (1849), Villette
(1853) and The Professor (1857) are
also based on autobiographical
experience.
Wuthering Heights
The story begins when a Yorkshire gentleman farmer brings home a raggedy gypsy boy, Heathcliff, and raises him as his son. The boy grows to love his stepsister Catherine, with catastrophic results
The novel is different from the Victorian
realistic novels in many aspects. Firstly,
its plot does not develop linearly. It
starts as if at the end of the story, when
Mr Lockwood, the first-person narrator, and the
tenant of the Thrushcross Grange, learns from
Nelly Dean, the housekeeper of the Earnshaw
family, about a passionate and tragic love
between Heathcliff, a foundling raised at
Wuthering Heights and Catherine Earnshaw.
tragedy of romantic love, hatred and revenge; Catherine desires two men simultaneously;Characters are not very realistic; symbolism and realism; the role of wild nature; Catherine Earnshaw, Heathcliff, Edgar, Linton, Cathy Hareton, Nell Dean, Mr Lockwood; Trusscross Grange; the problem of the absent mother in WH; gender and class identity: relationships between men and women, masters and servants; the technique of flashback;two narrators;