UNIT 50: THE VICTORIAN NOVEL

1. Introduction
2. Historical Background
3. The Victorian Novel: Main Characteristics
4. Early Victorian Novelists
· Charles Dickens
· William M. Thackeray
5. Women's Voices
· The Brontës
· Elizabeth Gaskell
6. Late Victorian Novelist
· Henry James
7. Colonialist Fiction
· Kipling
· Conrad
8. Conclusion
9. Bibliography and Web References

2. Introduction

· Abstract:

The Victorian era was a period of dramatic change that brought England to its highest point of
development as a world power. The rapid growth of London, from a population of 2 million when Victoria
came to the throne to one of 6.5 million by the time of Victoria's death, indicates the dramatic transition
from a way of life based on the ownership of land to a modern urban economy. England experienced an
enormous increase in wealth, but rapid and unregulated industrialisation brought a host of social and
economic problems which were reflected in contemporary literature.

· Relation to Curriculum: R/W + S/L + Language Awareness + Sociocultural Aspects.

· Legislation: See Unit 4

3. Historical Background

· Victorian Era: 1837 (the year Victoria became Queen) - 1901 (the year of her death). These dates are
sometimes modified slightly: 1830 (end of the Romantic Period in Britain) - 1900 ( the year before Queen
Victoria's death)

· Common perception: Victorians are prudish (delicados), hypocritical and narrow-minded, particularly the
middle-class, increasing both in number and power. Members of middle-class aspired to become nobles,
and felt that acting “properly”, according to the conventions and values of the time, which the Queen
became representative of, was an important step in that direction.
· Large-scale expansion of British imperial power (SECOND BRITISH EMPIRE). The most significant blow to
its power: Revolt of its 13 American colonies. The British empire expanded in many parts of Africa, in
India, in the middle-east and in other parts of Asia; resulting in the increased use of the English language
outside Europe and the increased trade between Europe and distant regions.

· A huge growth in population.

· Significant improvements in technology (INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION). The Victorian era slightly overlaps
with Britain's Industrial Revolution, which saw big changes to the way that people lived, worked, and
travelled. Poor conditions for the working class. The Industrial Revolution led to the distance between the
haves and have-nots. Writers felt obligated to speak out against societal injustices.

· Change in the world views. Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

· Universal male suffrage (1860's) – PM Benjamin Disraeli

4. The Victorian Novel: Main Characteristics

· Victorian period lasted over 63 years, longer than any other British monarch apart from Elizabeth II. It is
logical the period includes a massive variety of literary characteristics appearing often enough to be worth
mentioning:

· Drive for social advancement: financial, as in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations; marrying above one’s
station, as in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre or even intellectual or education-based, typically accompanied by
“proper” behaviour (thus helping to provide the period with its stereotype).

· Rise of notion of “Englishness”, tied to the period’s models for proper behaviour, and England’s imperial
enterprises to “help” or “civilise” native populations in colonised regions. Later Victorian writing meant a
rebellion against such notions, often served as subjects of satire; Oscar Wilde’s plays are an excellent
example.

· The later years: The rise of Aestheticism, the “art for art’s sake” movement, which directly contradicted
the social and political goals of much earlier Victorian literature. Oscar Wilde was the major representative
of the Aesthetic Movement.

· The golden age of the novel. After an initial period of experimentation, the novel had become the art
form most capable of reflecting the increasing complexity of the modern world. It was also the main
source of entertainment for the educated middle classes.

· Novels written in instalments in literary magazines and periodicals; creating a certain type of expectation
in readers, who awaited the following instalment. Thus, the idea of linearity – a story with a beginning,
middle and end – became an important feature of the 19th century novel.

· Most popular genre: 'Bildungsroman' (the novel of formation) which traced the life of the protagonist
from infancy to early adulthood. Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Dickens' David Copperfield and Great
Expectations. Relation of the individual to a society in rapid transition, finding a place in it. Portrayals of
society in a realistic way, denouncing its injustices and iniquities. Plots revolved around questions of
money. However, the main source of this wealth (the British Empire) is rarely mentioned.

· Omniscient narrator: a moral guide and an instrument for analysing the psychology of the characters.
Individuals are increasingly portrayed as alienated and powerless. The character's interior world becomes
more important while their external reality becomes increasingly alienating and mechanical.
· Literature commented on societal, economical, religious, and philosophical ideas. It criticised the
increased industrialisation of the world and the deterioration of the rural lifestyle. Victorian literature
resorted to satire as it criticised the society it entertained. While the middle class increased its political
power over society, the poor had to make due with less. Writers of the Victorian era critiqued this
imbalance of power in their work.

· Victorian literature addressed the burgeoning push for women's rights, in spite of its strong focus on
morality, reflecting thus, the social reform movement called “The Woman Question”. Heroes are often the
oppressed members of society, such as the poor. Characters with good morals were usually rewarded:
Victorian fiction was often written with the intention of teaching a moral lesson to readers. Characters
are often teeming with passion and tempted by evil, but show restraint against their wild emotions, unlike
Romantic writers.

5. Early Victorian Novelists: Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

· Charles Dickens is the first truly urban novelist and probably the most representative literary figure of
the whole Victorian age. He was born in Portsmouth in 1812; notwithstanding, most of his novels are set
in London, and in them he captures the incredible vitality of life in the city, as well as the squalor and
deprivation that many of its inhabitants were forced to endure.

Indeed, Dickens' characters give voice to the whole panorama of social classes and professions which were
emerging in the modern city, of which London was the prime example. This author was extremely
successful in depicting the suffering of the working class during the time of industrialisation.

But as well as celebrating the energy of the city, Dickens is also fiercely critical of certain aspects of the
'Victorian compromise' and the Victorian mindset such as injustice, the hypocrisy of the rich, absurd
bureaucracy, and indifference to the problems of the poor. Some features that will be seen in other
authors’ works such as Oscar Wilde.

OLIVER TWIST (1938)

In this work, Dickens paints a vivid picture of London’s criminal underworld,

a subject he harnesses both to excite the reader and to explore the effects
of social deprivation. Oliver Twist is notable for its unromantic portrayal by
Dickens of criminals and their sordid lives, as well as for exposing the cruel
treatment of the many orphans in London in the mid-19th century.
Poverty is a prominent concern in the novel.

As an orphan without friends, he is routinely despised (despreciado) and

becomes a member of a gang of young thieves led by Mr. Fagin. On the
other hand, Oliver, who has an air of refinement, proves to be of gentle
birth. He struggles to survive in the savage world of the underclass before
finally being rescued by his family.
THACKERAY

William Makepeace Thackeray, like Dickens, began his literary career as a journalist, writing humorous
sketches and satirical pieces. His most important novel is Vanity Fair. Set during the Napoleonic wars, it
tells the story of Becky Sharp, who, despite being a poor orphan, manages to pass for a lady of high
society. Throughout the novel she is contrasted with Amelia Seeley who is rich and spoiled but who has
none of Becky's wit or intelligence. The novel is highly critical of the shallowness of the Victorian world,
which is based on money and appearances.

6. Women's Voices: Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot.

Women's role was 'an angel in the house', meaning an idealized woman who is completely devoted to her
husband and family. Women's rights were extremely restricted. Education of middle-class girls consisted of
accomplishments that would make attractive wives. Yet several of the most important Victorian writers
were women.

The Brontë sisters, particularly Charlotte and Emily, rebelled against Jane Austen's world of order and
restraint. Their novels, which borrowed considerably from the Gothic tradition, were Romantic in spirit and
explored extremes of passion and violence in a way that the novel had not done before. Of the sisters,
Charlotte is the most Victorian in sensibility. In her most famous novel, Jane Eyre, written under the
pseudonym of Currer Bell, the female hero eventually marries, thus fulfilling her female destiny as the good
wife, while the mad, bad Bertha Mason dies in a fire. In Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, Cathy and
Heathcliff, the female and male heroes respectively, are bound together by destructive passions they
cannot control. There is no place for such dangerous, irrational passion in civilised society and they both die
as outsiders.

· Elizabeth Gaskell in novels like Mary Barton provided a valuable study of the way the new industrial
society affected the lower classes. Mary Barton is unique for its time in the fact that all its characters are
working class. Another highly radical Gaskell novel is Ruth, which attempted to portray the so-called
'fallen-women', e.g. Prostitutes, streetwalkers and unmarried mothers, in a more sympathetic light than
Victorian novels normally did. The novel was a condemnation of the ostracism of women who had been
seduced and abandoned by their employers and expressed a belief in the possibility of their moral
rehabilitation. She also wrote North and South: industrial north vs. Pompous south (pompous= self-
important: pretencioso.

7. Late Victorian Novelists: Henry James

Henry James (1843-1916)

Henry James was an American-born writer, gifted with talents in literature, psychology,
and philosophy. He was one of the greatest American novelists and critics, and one of
the founders of its Realism school.

He is also considered as a British writer: he spent most of his adult life in England and
became a British subject shortly before his death.
Main theme: the relationships between Americans and Europeans in terms of power and
moral values: 'the international theme'. Furthermore, other characteristic themes are:
-cross-cultural relationships
-the psychological make-up
-affairs of wealthy characters
-women’s roles in society

These themes reflect his cosmopolitan outlook.

Fascinated with culture and informed by his travels, James wrote a number of novels that show different
cultures and social classes in conflict. The American and Daisy Miller both show young Americans whose
romantic endeavours end poorly because their naive behaviour clashes with society’s expectations.

Among his main works are the following ones:

Daisy Miller (1879)

Daisy Miller is rich and brought up in a high society of New York. She is unsophisticated, naïve, overtly
confident, and also too hoyden (marimacho), from a European point of view. There was a difference
between the American and European society.

Daisy is on a European tour with her mother. In Switzerland, she meets a man named Winterbourne who
finds her a simple girl. Daisy goes on a trip alone with Winterbourne. Then, Winterbourne’s aunt
disapproves of the Millers.

Daisy and her family’s reputations are scandalised in Europe. Winterbourne tells Daisy to be a little
conscious about what people are thinking and that she is the talk of the town because of her boldness. She
eventually catches Malaria and becomes severely sick. She hands over a message to her mother to pass on
to Winterbourne. He then realises that Daisy really cared about him, and that he had made a great
mistake in understanding Daisy.

Daisy Miller has been acknowledged as the first international novel. The greater theme is the unlived life.
Rather than knowing Daisy’s heart which is impregnated with innocence, Winterbourne had been
constantly looking at what Daisy wears or where she goes. This novel addresses Winterbourne’s inability to
understand Daisy’s innocence.

The Portrait of a Lady (1881)

It is considered one of his masterpieces. It tells the story of an attractive young girl, Isabel, who is obliged
to move to England from the USA. She inherits a large amount of money and subsequently becomes the
victim of Machiavellian scheming by two American expatriates. The free-spirited Isabel loses her
freedom, despite suddenly coming into a great deal of money.
8. Colonialist Fiction: Ruyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad

· In the major novels of the Victorian period there is little mention of Britain's colonies. Occasionally they
appear at the margins of the plot.

JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)

He was born Polish but he would become renowned for his English short stories and novels. By 1866 he
was given British citizenship. The writer that Faulker (Lost Generation) most sought to beat was none other
than Joseph Conrad. Faulkner was fascinated by Conrad’s ability to juggles narrative layers in his fiction,
concealing a story with a story within a story ( as in Heart of Darkness).

Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella about a voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State, in the
heart of Africa, by the story's narrator Charles Marlow, as an agent for "the Company," a Belgian ivory
(marfil) trading firm. Marlow tells his story to 3 friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames,
London, England. This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the ivory trader
Kurtz, which enables Conrad to create a parallel between London and Africa as places of darkness.

Central to Conrad's work is the idea that there is little difference between so-called civilised people and
those described as savages; Heart of Darkness raises questions about imperialism and racism.

Marlow realizes that the Africans are kept as slaves, and many are dying from the brutality of the
conditions.

He also starts hearing tell of a mysterious figure named Kurtz, a mad agent who's rumored to have become
both a prisoner and revered as a god by the indigenous population living further down the Congo. In fact,
the more he hears about Kurtz, the more obsessed Marlow becomes. Who is this Kurtz? Why is he such a
powerful figure? Why does everyone seem to either idolize him or loathe him?

Marlow eventually met him but Kurtz died quite soon since he was ill.

When he returns to Europe, Marlow is disillusioned with both "The Company" and Europe in general.

RUDYARD KIPLING (Nobel Prize for Literature 1907) (1865-1936)

The Jungle Book (1894) is a collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the
characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the
boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, who is raised in the jungle by wolves. Bagheera is a black panther who serves as
friend, protector and mentor to the "man-cub" Mowgli. The stories are set in a forest in India

A major theme in the book is abandonment followed by fostering, as in the life of Mowgli, echoing
Kipling's own childhood.

 To foster sth: promover; albergar, acoger. Foster parents: padres de acogida

Another important theme is of law and freedom; the stories are not about animal behaviour, still less
about the Darwinian struggle for survival, but about human archetypes in animal form. They teach respect
for authority, obedience, and knowing one's place in society with "the law of the jungle", but the stories
also illustrate the freedom to move between different worlds, such as when Mowgli moves between the
jungle and the village. Critics have also noted the essential wildness and lawless energies in the stories,
reflecting the irresponsible side of human nature.

The Jungle Book has remained popular, partly through its many adaptations for film and other media.
Kipling’s writing was inseparable from his social and political views. He generally supported the colonialist
view that the Indians and other colonised peoples were incapable of surviving without the help of
Europeans.

9. Conclusion

· This work aims at describing not only one of the most important times in the history of British literature,
but also, to bring the greatest novelists closer, briefly narrating their most celebrated works. It is of vital
importance to introduce readers into analysing the context where a piece of writing unfolds and the
historical events to better understand the motifs that have led to his / her work. That is why a concise
revision of the Victorian times has been offered, underpinned by the Industrial Revolution. This period in
literature serves as a link between the Romantic and the 20th century literature.