Social Change in Two Novels Essay

Fay Weldon’s ‘Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen’ (1984) through the form of an epistolic novel, serves to enrich a heightened understanding of the contemporary issues of Jane Austen’s cultural context. In doing so, the responder is inspired to adopt a more holistic appreciation of the roles of women inherent in Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (1813). Due to the examination of the shift of attitudes and values between the Regency era and the 1980s, the reader comes to better understanding of the conventions of marriage for a women and the role education had in increasing one’s marriage prospects. Weldon’s critical discussion of these issues transforms a modern responder’s understanding of the role of a woman during the 19th century.

Victorian society was balance of reputation, activism, polite facades, and moral questioning. Upper and middle class families were very concerned with their image. Image and reputation was critical to success in Victorian society, and should one lose their good

The short story, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”, by Joyce Oates, (1966), and the poem, “What it’s Like to Be a Black Girl”, by Patricia Smith, (1991), are both about the coming of age of young girls and the conflicts that they encounter. The two pieces explore issues that most young girls have with their bodies and others during their puberty years. The literary elements that will be compared in this essay is imagery and symbolism. The main conflict in both pieces that will be explored is individual versus self. These literary elements and conflict will help us to explore the issues that these two individual young girls

Though Jane is well educated and possesses the etiquette and training of a person in upper class society, social prejudices limit her because she is simply a paid servant, in their eyes. While at Thornfield, Jane falls desperately in love with the owner of Thornfield Hall, Mr. Rochester. Jane is Mr. Rochester’s intellectual contemporary, but her social status prevents her from being his true equal. In the novel, Jane proclaims, “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!—I have as much soul as you,—and full as much heart!” (Bronte 637). After Mr. Rochester finally proposes, Jane is hesitant to marry him because she feels as if he would be lowering himself to marry her. This feeling greatly increases after Jane discovers he is married to Bertha Mason, and that he keeps her locked away in Thornfield’s attic due to her insanity. Mr. Rochester proposes that Jane becomes his mistress, which, according to Victorian society, would be more fitting since Jane is a plain governess. Jane realizes that she can never compromise her morals that way and leaves Thornfield. While on her own, Jane still strives to gain independence, discovers new kin, and learns she has a wealthy uncle who has left her a large inheritance. After her loneliness and longing for Mr. Rochester becomes too great, she returns to Thornfield. Jane is

In the period of the 1920’s, there was a certain status of wealth that was difficult to achieve. There were two societal classes consisting of those with wealth from prior generations, and those who worked to earn it themselves. Tom, Daisy, and Nick, who represented the old money society did not have to work hard, unlike Gatsby which he represented the new money and they had to work to earn money. People like Gatsby, who gained their wealth on their own often fought for the approval from the upper class who inherited their wealth. Rather than having new money and old money, people who tried achieving the American Dream and ended up in failure usually they end up like George and Myrtle Wilson In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the notion that social norms in the upper class depict the idea that being apart of it was impossible unless they were born in it was expressed through Daisy’s rejection of Gatsby because of the corrupt way in which he gained his wealth, making his American Dream unattainable.

Wilde’s novel is an obvious evidence of the pervasiveness of main values of Victorian society. According to Wilde, “Aesthetic tendencies have to be taken with prudence and have reasonable limits that imply moral responsibility.” According to the critic Alex Ross, “ Wilde’s aestheticism, his fanatical cult of beauty, was the deepest and most lasting of his passions, and it is now the most radical about him” (Ross 2011).

The world around is constantly growing, changing, and evolving before our very eyes. This statement is very true for the world of literature. With this being said, not all things have changed. There are three different stories that the class read over this semester that show both sides of how literature has and has not changed over the years. Readers today can judge literature to a certain degree with the cultural and contemporary values that are set forth in modern society.

Nineteenth century European society was characterized by organized religion and a rigid class system. Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice use satire to reveal faults in these elements of society. Many of Wilde’s criticisms of society are provoked by his closeted homosexuality. He portrays religion as a restricting, meaningless convention and depicts the aristocratic class as a hypocritical and unempathetic lot. Austen similarly finds faults in these areas of society, but her opinions stem from her experiences as a nineteenth century woman. Her criticisms of religion are directed toward the clergyman and she declares the aristocratic class to be both egotistical and image obsessed. Both authors satirize the same systems and traditions of society to raise awareness of faults within each area, but their critiques of each feature is different. Additionally, Wilde uses various literary techniques as methods of satirization while Austen only uses her characters as sources of criticism.

Thackeray’s portrayal of Jane Osborne in Vanity Fair is very troubling to the reader of the twentieth century. Grown to be a woman who is stuck under her tyrannical father’s roof, her life appears to be very confining and menial. Her sister snubs her, her nephew mocks her behind her back, her father mocks her to her face, and her main role in life seems to be as her father’s housekeeper. However, Thackeray’s portrayal would have had a very different effect on the Victorian reader. While all of these things which affronted us would have been equally awful to them, Thackeray uses another key phrase which has lost its effect on our modern minds: "that unfortunate and now middle-aged young lady" (448). Jane Osborne’s

“The secret to change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new” - Socrates. By this, Socrates means that people should not focus on the past, but instead focus on changing the future. Nonfiction literature often talks about change. The definition of change, as stated by Dictionary.com, is “the act of changing.” Some synonyms of change are, “alter”, “switch”, and “refine”. Some antonyms are, “stabilize”, “freeze”, and “fixation”. Without change people would still be stuck in the early ages. An example of change is women getting the right to vote. A non-example of change would be schools still being segregated. Authors of nonfiction literature often talk about change. Malala Yousafzi sparked change when she was shot in the head for speaking out against the Taliban for women’s education. She wrote a book about her experience titled, I am Malala. The Little Rock Nine are a group of African American students from Little Rock, Arkansas who were the first to integrate into the all white Central High. Diane Guerrero is an American actress whose parents were undocumented and were deported back to Colombia. She wrote a book outlining her experience called In the Country We Love: My Family Divided. Now, she is trying to make it easier for undocumented immigrants to become citizens. These authors use nonfiction literature to persuade their readers to be agents of change.

Through this conversation, Miss Bingley is implying Elizabeth and her family have nothing to offer. They are not wealthy, or judges like Darcy’s great uncle or even on the same social level. She also suggests that if Elizabeth is noticed by a wealthy man, her sisters may get the impression that they have a chance with well to do men. The intertwinement of wealthy and unwealthy people will create relationships that are unimaginable. Needless to say, there are immense amounts of tension between classes indirectly and directly.

“Yes, this is Vanity Fair, not a moral place certainly, nor a merry one, though very noisy.” (Thackeray xviii) It is here, in Vanity Fair that its most insidious resident, selfishness,-veiled with alluring guises-has shrewdly thrived among its citizens, invading, without exception, even the most heroic characters and living so unheeded that it has managed to breed monsters of them. There are those in Vanity Fair, however, who have heeded the vicious selfishness, and, though not having lived unaffected by it, were still able to point out its many evils. One such man is William Makepeace Thackeray who exposed this truth in his novel Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero which was published in 1848. Thackeray draws upon the work of a fellow

Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte explore social class in a number of different ways throughout their novels Pride and the Prejudice and Jane Eyre. They do this through the use of stylistic devices which in turn appeals to their different audiences. Both Jane and Charlotte are notable writers for their remarkable texts. Jane Austen is known for playing a revolutionary role in the generation of English female literature, which was counteracted by this piece- and Charlotte Bronte also developed her feminist thoughts, which have been displayed throughout her novels. By analysing social class in Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre this essay will compare these two women writers’ texts and display how social class is presented

`The Europeans' by Henry James and `Tess of the D'Urbervilles' by Thomas Hardy, although written at different stages of the Victorian era (James's work was written earlier), both reflect some of the same attitudes and mentalities of their time. In the first phase of `Tess' and the first two chapters of `The Europeans' the ideas of marriage and attitudes to women, class boundaries and family connections in Victorian life and society are portrayed. As the similarities between the novels show, the values continue to be held in society from the beginning of the era to the end, demonstrating how entrenched they were. They even cross the Atlantic to America as illustrated in Henry James' novel. Although there are similarities between the

In Victorian England, “the bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation” (Engels). This upper middle class, the bourgeois, was divided into separate spheres determined by their “natural characteristics” such as being male or female (Gender 1). The bourgeois society’s main concern was their outward appearance and materialism while gaining respectability among their social class. A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, criticizes Victorian bourgeois society and their strict adherence to gender roles. As Nora Helmer walked away from her family, she generated a “door slam heard around the world” (“A Doll’s House” 1).