The Victorian Of Victorian Literature Essay

The world today consists of children roaming the streets, technology taking over the world, and being able to work wherever you'd like but, could you imagine a life without all these things? Believe it or not there was a time in life where these things were very uncommon to see. This would be known as the victorian era. This time period was between 1837 and 1901. Daily life was very different from now. Health, social classes, and fashion are just three examples of how daily life was different in the victorian era.

The novel, like many other classics, paints the society and time period in which the author lives through. Victorian England, which is the basis of Dickens setting, was a time where social principles were focused on the hierarchy and human nature. The

Dickens’ experiences of living in abandonment and working in Warren’s Blacking Factory, coupled with his

INTRODUCTION: Charles Dickens is said to be one of the greatest writers that has ever lived. Before we read one of his works in class, I would like you to spend some time getting to know this man and learning what the world was like as he knew it.

Charles Dickens was a well known, celebrated author of the Victorian Era. Though he was successful, he faced many setbacks in his difficult life. His father was hurled into debtors’ prison when Dickens was young (Bragg 5) and he was left with his mother and six siblings (Rooke 1). Dickens, being the oldest male of the family (Rooke 1), had to go work in a factory during his formative years. Dickens’ rough childhood made him insensitive. (Bragg 1) When Dickens came of age, he began to show interest in writing novels and short stories (Bragg 2). His mother, however, was unsupportive of his endeavors (Bragg 2), and was often after him for his money (Bragg 2). He was said to have lived a depressing, lonely adulthood (Bragg 1) and people used to

During the 1800s, Charles Dickens was one of the most acclaimed writers of his time. He did not just write books but he was a journalist, and play write. Many of his experiences and people in his life influenced his books. Because of this he was known as not just a writer but a writer for “the people”. He wrote about the workhouse, poverty, disabilities, social class, and so much more that effected his era.

Charles Dickens was not only a powerful writer but a voice for the woman, children, and some social classes in his time. But was Charles Dickens writing was enough for the Victorian England public? in this essay, i will give you details and facts about how Charles Dickens attempts to change and help the people of Victorian England through his writing.

Though Dickens’ beliefs may not have been traditional in his time or the modern era of today, he proved to be morally strong and stood out as a passionate social reformer. Dickens' views on society were established at a young age. Beginning at age 12, Dickens was forced to work at a shoe-blacking factory due to his father’s imprisonment in

Charles Dickens is one of the most renowned British writers with well-known and widespread work. Dickens was born in England in 1812 and died in 1870. During this time, Victorian England experienced an Industrial Revolution, which impacted his life tremendously. New factories and industrial machinery changed many lives of the lower class citizens. The family grew up impoverished and struggled to maintain a good lifestyle. The family’s financial situation was strained as John Dickens, Charles’s father, spent money that the family didn’t have. These societal factors were influential in Charles Dickens’s life, and the same themes present themselves in his works. When an author creates a work, frequently themes of their life events are incorporated into the theme of the book, consciously or unconsciously. Victorian Age industrial-influenced strife was a common theme in Dickens’s life and presented itself throughout Dickens’s books.

Dickens was born into a middle-class family in England. John, Dicken’s father, had a steady job working as a clerk in the Navy Post Office. But, John was never a good steward of his money. When Dickens was ten years old, he and his family moved to different places in London, until they finally settled down at one place when he was twelve years old. These movings especially took a lot of money from them. One time, the debt mounted so high for his family, that Dickens couldn’t attend school for a month. Dicken’s cousin heard about the struggle in the family and decides to offer to hire Charles to work at the blacking factory. His family gladly accepted the offer. He has torn away from school, and forced to work six days a week, and walk three miles there and back to the factory. Dickens expressed his sadness and humiliation through his novels, but one of most famous quotes is: “No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into the companionship of common men and boys. The deep remembrance of the sense I had of being utterly neglected and hopeless.” Unfortunately, working in the factory didn’t help at all for the family. Dicken’s father is sent to jail for failing to pay his debt. In an attempt to bail John out, the family is stripped of all they have. Finally, the family is forced to move into prison with their father, except for Dickens and fanny, his sister. Finally, Dickens is

The existence of a “dark double” abounds in many literary works of the Victorian Era. These

great prosperity in Great Britain's literature. The Victorian Age produced a variety of changes. Political and social reform produced a variety of reading among all classes. The lower-class became more self-conscious, the middle class more powerful and the rich became more vulnerable. The novels of Charles Dickens, the poems of Alfred,

Charles Dickens is one of the most influential writers in history and was “born in Landport, now part of Portsmouth, on February 7th, 1812”(Priestly 5). Despite being the successful writer that he was in life, Dickens had very humble beginnings and because his Father, John Huffman Dickens, “lacked the money to support his family adequetly” , Dickens lived in poverty through out most of his childhood (Collins). Matters only got worse, however, when Dickens’s Father had to “spen[d] time in prison for debt” causing Dickens to have to “work in a London factory pasting labels on bottles of shoe polish” (Collins). It was a horrible experience for him, but it also helped him to no doubt feel pity for the poor, which is

The line between nineteenth-century psychology and fiction is almost nonexistent. Based upon the contemporary scientific, medical, and public discourses, the topic of mental illness was examined across all fields. The mutability of this term, mental illness, draws the question of what made it so changeable in the nineteenth century. It is the aim of this dissertation to show the treatment of social and medical discourse in Victorian literature by exploring Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). Roger Smith’s essay on psychology in periodical literature was the main inspiration for this dissertation. His statement inspired this research to explore how the medical discourse sparked public debate. Although his focus is on the discourse of different sciences, his research also inspired this dissertation’s attempt to prove a connection between academic fields, specifically literature and science. Smith’s articulation of his research is presented in such a way that helps provide a beneficial understanding of the discourse of nineteenth-century England.

For this essay I will be focusing on the opening chapters of Great Expectations, a novel written by Charles Dickens. I am going to consider the Victorian society at the time and dickens’ use of language to express themes, settings and characters.