Victorian morality refers to the values and beliefs held by the people of the Victorian era, which lasted from 1837 to 1901. During this time, Victorian society was characterized by strict codes of conduct, particularly in regards to personal behavior and relationships. These codes were influenced by a variety of factors, including the influence of the Church, the rise of the middle class, and the Victorian gender roles that dictated how men and women were expected to behave.
In literature, Victorian morality is often depicted through the characters and their actions. In many Victorian novels, characters are judged based on their adherence to the societal norms of the time. For example, in "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens, the character of Estella is considered a highly desirable match for the protagonist, Pip, because she is well-mannered, educated, and beautiful. On the other hand, the character of Magwitch, a former convict, is shunned by society due to his criminal past and is seen as an outcast.
Victorian morality also dictated strict codes of conduct in relationships, particularly between men and women. In literature, this is often depicted through the relationship between the hero and the heroine. The hero was expected to be brave, chivalrous, and noble, while the heroine was expected to be pure, virtuous, and submissive. This is exemplified in the novel "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen, in which the main character, Elizabeth Bennet, is praised for her wit and intelligence, but is also expected to marry a wealthy and suitable husband in order to maintain her social status.
Victorian morality also played a role in the way that people expressed their emotions. Emotions were seen as a sign of weakness and were generally suppressed, particularly in public. In literature, this is often depicted through the use of restraint and decorum in the way that characters express their feelings. For example, in "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë, the characters often struggle to express their emotions due to the strict codes of conduct that they must follow.
Overall, Victorian morality played a significant role in the literature of the time, influencing the way that characters were depicted and the themes that were explored. It shaped the expectations and behaviors of the characters, and serves as a reflection of the values and beliefs of Victorian society.
(DOC) Victorianism: An overview on the morality, society and literature of the 19th century England (1837
The term prudish is used very much in reference to this point in time. As a result, the church required obedience to God, submissiveness, and acceptance with the objective of making people more acquiescent to the will of the Church. If anything, along with reminding the readers the essentially proper way to life our lives, these novels are teaching us that the Victorians lived in dual worlds without true knowledge of morality. In the last years of the Victorian era, women were allowed to participate in the paid workforce. Before the steel pen points were invented, writers would use quills, reeds or still brushes as pens.
Victorian literature: Depiction of women, About Their Fashion, Education and Others
There were rules for proper correspondence, encompassing everything from acceptable shades of paper and ink to penmanship, wax seals, and conditions under which a woman must write in the third person. In the upper and middle class, women were expected to have no sexual relations before marriage. Their anger at the contradiction between the conditions on the ground for children of the poor and the middle-class notion of childhood as a time of innocence led to the first campaigns for the imposition of legal protection for children. These ideas of moral decline through economical and political class tensions, sexual liberation, narcotics and disease highlighted the predominant social fears whilst the studies of criminology were largely anthropological and focused upon physiognomy, theories on evolutionary regression and crime as a product of a neurosis. He was in effect a self-made man who worked diligently and prolifically to produce exactly what the public wanted; often reacting to the public taste and changing the plot direction of his stories between monthly installments. Education and fashion in Victorian Literature Women were not allowed to seek education, they were expected to marry and perform household and motherly duties. As such, their structure was patriarchal, the father as the head, and everyone in the family fulfilling a specific role.
Morality in Victorian and Neo
These views on moral decline centred on the urban environment as the main cause and this was due to how the city landscape worked as a metaphorical personification of the monstrous Gothic. How were letters sent in the Victorian era? Jean-Michel Papillon In 1675, a Frenchman and engraver named Jean-Michel Papillon made the first repeating designs that matched on both sides. Explain how Victorian values related to work, charity, respectability, and family were violated by the widely accepted practice of child labor. External links All links retrieved May 8, 2020. Turner, Reckoning with the Beast: Animals, Pain, and Humanity in the Victorian Mind 2000 p 39. The guidelines of how to treat a woman were probably the same as the ones used on how to treat a servant or animal.
Ethics During the Victorian Era
The Canadian film Pontypool McDonald 2008 revolves around the emergence of infected zombie-like creatures in the small Canadian town of Pontypool, Ontario. Before that, they used whatever was handy — sticks, leaves, corn cobs, bits of cloth, their hands. A History of Modern Europe; From the French Revolution to the Present New York, London: W. The Victorian era is seen as an era of contradiction. Within the boundaries thus delimited, scholarship has diverged into three paths: 1 work on what were at their own times defined as transgressive or 2 normative sexualities, and 3 work on pornography, pedophilia, and other particular areas of sexual practice. They believed that a child must know right from wrong in order to adhere to the strict moral code as an adult. Consequently, it was often overlooked that women from the lower classes turned to prostitution for money.
