Social Inequality In The Victorian Age

England under the Victorian Era was a fascinating place to live. The streets of London were filled with horse-drawn carriages and tightly spaced flats. Along with those, the streets were also a place for theft, sickness, and musk from the local factories. Crime was present throughout the cities. Drug use and prostitution were the highest forms of criminal behavior (Garside). Arthur Conan Doyle’s beloved and well-known character, Sherlock Holmes, emerged from the Victorian Era. The people of London came to love the weekly stories that were published about the great detective and were extremely excited to hear the next short tale (Clausen). As the city of London began to change and the people gained more wealth, the social statuses of the citizens began to change as well. The most prospered groups were the Upper Class the Middle Class. In the Victorian Era, the Middle Class flourished because of the development of industrialization. Factories opened up creating new jobs for the Lower Class and provided supplies for many.

“There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully” (Chopin 129). One can interpret this to mean that parents in the 1800s (and to some extent today) desired a higher marital status for their daughters, so they could be well positioned for a stable life. As discussed in class, social status still exists in modern America which can significantly attract many candidates who want to marry a person for social status but not necessarily for love. These attitudes that continue to dominate America today stem from the aristocratic Old South as a means to achieve control of wealth for the few at the expense of impoverishing the masses.

Queen Victoria 's reign saw a great change in industrialisation alongside social change which affected a variety of people and classes.

labor. Unlike the upper middle class, they did not employ domestic servants. For the upper working class, these people were very class conscious and had distinctive behavior to divide themselves from the lower ranks. Families valued saving money regularly, and worried about education for their children. But most of all, they valued exceptional housing. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, these classes most likely would not have acquired housing like during this time.

The difference in class structures of Victorian England was dependent on the lifestyles and jobs of individuals. The Victorian era of England lasted from 1837 to 1901. The Victorian England hierarchy was divided into three different classes; the upper, middle, and lower class and was reliant of occupational differences. The hierarchy was very rigid and there was little social mobility, because of the fact that normally a person was born into their class and even their future career. In Great Expectations, Charles Dickens displays the model of class structure through the character Pip Pirrup. Pip struggles to find his place within the hierarchy. Throughout the novel, Dickens writes about the different classes in England. Pip belongs the working class due to his family and is set to be a blacksmith, but finds himself in the societal shift that occurred in England in the nineteenth century. Pip wants to achieve his great expectations and change the path that his life was going on. He wants create a better life for himself than what he would have had if he followed in the footsteps of his family. Dickens also creates various characters in the different classes to expose the relationship between each class. An individual’s class was a dominant factor in creating an identity. People of the upper classes thought very little of the people “below” them. Throughout his journey, Pip reveals information about how the different social classes lived and how members of each

Victorian Era England Lifestyles were quite diverse depending on where you lived and how much money you had. The rich were well off while the poor were complete opposites. Although the rich had great lives, I would not wish to live in that time period.

In conclusion, Victorian England was divided into classes, with different subcategories. There was the upper class, middle class, working class, and underclass. This idea transferred into the working field. There were different jobs for different social classes. The victorian era was the reason for the industrial revolution, creating many manufactured products available to, even, the underclass. All in all, this era was a time of changing in

The upper classes had all of the political power, and the middle and lower classes had absolutely none. There was also a group below the working class called the sunken class. They lived in poverty and struggled immensely in their daily lives. While the lower class people were working for a living, the rich were living glamorously. They had large houses, plots of land, and maids and butlers. Even with all of these amenities, the upper class paid no taxes. The citizens under the aristocrats paid nearly all of the taxes, even though they worked for pennies a day. This created hostility towards the upper class, and made the class disparity even more severe. In A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, Ebenezer Scrooge was a wealthy, upper-class man. He did not do anything to help the poor or the lower-class society. Meanwhile, Bob Cratchit had a sizable family that lived in a cramped house, and struggled to make ends meet. Scrooge treated Bob Cratchit, his employee, poorly, and said multiple times that the poor should be able to work their way out of poverty. He was incredibly disconnected from the lower classes, and this showed in his treatment of them. He was unaware of the struggles of the poor, and he was unwilling to learn until he was forced to. This is one very apparent example in fiction of the class disparities of Victorian

Ever wonder how the Victorian era class system worked?There were 3 classes,The class system was what kind of jobs and living you had.There were 3 classes Working class,Middle class, and Elite class.Once you were in a class it was near impossible to move up or down the classes.The working class never dreamed of moving up into a new class or leaving a class in any way shape or form(4).The Elite class was the rich and royalty,The middle class was the middle of the road and wasn’t laborious this was the most common class,The lowest class of the three is the working class the people who were on this class were the hardest workers in society.This was factory work and things of that nature(3).

Wealthy and poor women in Victorian England ate lunch only, since the men were out at work. While the men were out, the women drank “unladylike” things such as beer, ale, and cider with their food at bars. After more industries were introduced to England, the working class men got jobs at factories. These factories were further from home, so the men worked longer, stayed up later, and ate dinner later. The wealthy men and women also got home late to eat dinner, but it was not because they were out working, but because they were out partying. Gas lamps soon came out, and this helped the wealthy to stay up even later than they already did. Others followed their examples, so dinner was pushed back again to eight or nine at

The Victorian era was around the mid to late 1800s and was named after Queen Victoria, who took the crown at age eighteen in 1837. This era provided women with more rights, though they still had very few, and many women’s rights movements started happening towards the end of the era. The sexualization of the female body became a common thing, and women often used their bodies to get men, which did have a downfall because rape was not uncommon. Colonization became more popular during this time, which increased the use of the English language. Slavery becoming abolished and Darwin becoming well known, which caused the rise of science versus religion, are other examples of major changes that occurred during this time period. The writings

Victorian-era Londoners were very rich or very poor - there was no “in-between”. These class distinctions are shown in many ways throughout the book, this includes: ‘ Hell’ ( east side ) vs. ‘Heaven’ ( West Side ), Jekyll Vs. Hyde, and Jekyll’s home.

The Victorian Era was a great time of prosperity for England, but not for everyone. During this time period in England, the lower classed suffered. The Industrial Revolution had many positive effect for society in general, but caused the lower class to suffer. Men’s wages declined, as a result women and children had to work to help support their families.

The class had two categories. The working and elite. Some of the occupations they held include: medicine, law, bankers, retail, trade, etc. Families and/or individuals who earned over £150 were able to afford and hire domestic help. Women during this time were servants, maids, cooks, etc.

During Victoria’s reign there were changes of great importance economically, socially, and technologically. London had a rapid growth from a 2 million to a 6.5 million population by the time of Queen Victoria’s death, due to a significant change. As a result of the industrialization, instead of a life based on ownership of lands, England was transformed to a modern economy. Based on trade and manufacturing they changed from an agrarian society in 1800’s with 75% rural to an industrial society by the 1900’s with a 75% modern urban economy. Socially, there were extreme discriminations especially between men and women. Consequently, women were not eligible for a higher education, employment and were denied the right to vote. Gradually and by the end of Victoria’s reign, women won significant political and legal rights. These included a greater access to education, the custody of children, economic independence and were able to work under fair conditions. Definitely, the Victorian Period was an era of dramatic changes that highly developed England’s power and