Women in Victorian Novels
Women in Victorian Novels
The ideas and standards that are set with being a proper Victorian woman are starting to become questioned. Through these novels there are subtle hints portrayed throughout the book of women being able to make their own choices and finally have their own independence. Some women choose to take the opportunity and have a say while others still abide by the Victorian way.
Louis J Boyle
Victorian Writers
30 April 2013
Women in Victorian Novels Women play a very important role in book or novel. They serve as symbols for change or stability. In the novels Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell, and Dracula by Bram Stoker there are women characters that portray and represents the ideologies of the Victorian time. Through these women were able to capture a glimpse of what life was like for the Victorian woman and what was expected of them. These women in these novels either conform or go against the standards that society has made for them. They are living in a society where the men are the dominant figures and the women have little to no say in any of the matters. The women in these novels are faced with the reality of the expectations of being the proper Victorian woman and the idea of them becoming a independent woman, who makes decisions for herself. Most were lower class women who were unable to exist on the pittance they earned from their jobs as seamstresses, factory workers, educators, maids, etc. Middle-class society almost exclusively looked down upon a woman for working – leaving her proper place, the sanctity of the home— yet like today, the reality of most middle and lower class lives required a woman to help support her family. Women were expected to stay in the home and live a modest life style. Ester in Mary Barton is indeed a fallen woman because she is a prostitute. Even
The ideas and standards that are set with being a proper Victorian woman are starting to become questioned. Through these novels there are subtle hints portrayed throughout the book of women being able to make their own choices and finally have their own independence. Some women choose to take the opportunity and have a say while others still abide by the Victorian way.
Louis J Boyle
Victorian Writers
30 April 2013
Women in Victorian Novels Women play a very important role in book or novel. They serve as symbols for change or stability. In the novels Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell, and Dracula by Bram Stoker there are women characters that portray and represents the ideologies of the Victorian time. Through these women were able to capture a glimpse of what life was like for the Victorian woman and what was expected of them. These women in these novels either conform or go against the standards that society has made for them. They are living in a society where the men are the dominant figures and the women have little to no say in any of the matters. The women in these novels are faced with the reality of the expectations of being the proper Victorian woman and the idea of them becoming a independent woman, who makes decisions for herself. Most were lower class women who were unable to exist on the pittance they earned from their jobs as seamstresses, factory workers, educators, maids, etc. Middle-class society almost exclusively looked down upon a woman for working – leaving her proper place, the sanctity of the home— yet like today, the reality of most middle and lower class lives required a woman to help support her family. Women were expected to stay in the home and live a modest life style. Ester in Mary Barton is indeed a fallen woman because she is a prostitute. Even
Cited: Calder, Jenni. Women and Marriage in Victorian Fiction. New York: Oxford UP, 1976. Print. Cunningham, Gail. The New Woman and the Victorian Novel. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1978 Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2001. Print. Foster, Shirley. Victorian Women 's Fiction: Marriage, Freedom, and the Individual. Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble, 1985 Spencer, Kathleen L. “Purity and Danger: Dracula, the Urban Gothic, and the Late Victorian Degeneracy Crisis.” ELH 59.1 (1992): 197-225. Stoker, Bram, and Tudor Humphries. Dracula. New York: DK Pub., 1997. Print. Thompson, Nicola Diane. Reviewing Sex: Gender and the Reception of Victorian Novels. Washington Square, NY: New York UP, 1996