The Victorian era Essay Example for Free

The Victorian era Essay The Victorian era which lasted sixty-four years has been one of the most influential periods of history. Today, more than a century later, it is still one of the most unforgettable pasts that has left its imprints everywhere in the world. The controversial issue on gender roles, particularly of women, allegedly began to surface and to be seriously dealt with during that very colorful past age. Women repression, which seems to have taken root and heightened somewhere around this era, was also greatly criticized by the major reformist thinkers of those days. As a result, women’s rights were upgraded and women began to participate in areas they could never have put a finger on before. The Victorian culture, which dominated the world in the seventeenth to the eighteenth century, has been a world power that brought its influence to cultures remotely infiltrated by the British empire. For its influence all over the world, it may arguably be partly blamed for the on-going repression of women in different parts of the world. Up to this point, there is still very weak showing that this social problem of gender inequality has been completely resolved, despite the evident strong participation of a good number of women in different fields of endeavor such as commerce, politics, and industry. There is not still a definite conclusion that equality of the sexes has been established; nor is there a clear-cut definition of the unique gender roles of men and women in the democratic world. Today, women all over the earth are still struggling to shell out its â€Å"weaker sex† reputation in the hearts and minds of their male counterparts. The New Lexicon Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language defines culture as the training and development of the mind; the refinement of taste and manners acquired by such training; the social and religious structures, and intellectual and artistic manifestation that characterize a society. Everyone who is part of any community may most readily agree that the culture of any society is the hardest thing to eradicate. General psychology tells us that this culture creates social attitudes, beliefs, feelings and tendencies in people (Gaerlan, Limpingco, Tria Birion, 152). These attitudes or concepts teach us to classify people in many ways, such as age or, most frequently, sex. There is no explanation where a certain culture originates. It comes naturally as a product of years; a sum-total of experiences that produce generalities about life. Culture, somehow, solidifies society. It is the collective integrity and identity of a certain group of people. Nevertheless, its unifying force for many may be the same force that brings about the â€Å"repellants† of society. In a certain degree, human beings’ innate uniqueness has caused them to struggle with the norms of culture which they have to comply with. The most safe and convenient way is to achieve peace and balance by conformance. But there are also those who take up the challenge to challenge whatever wrong they find. They speak out in the hope of making a difference; despite the risk of clashing against the established advocates of the time-honored culture of the land. The Victorian culture, though superior and imposing to the rest of the world, was one that never escaped this challenge. Its rise raised up independent brilliant thinkers who thought, read, spoke and wrote, and catalyzed its downfall. This ironic truth brings about much attention and attraction to this bygone age. The famous Victorian culture came to be called Victorianism. Javines (246) explained that it is a word referring to a conservative system of values. It connotes a keen concern and preoccupation with propriety, rigorous correctness and conformity to certain Puritanical standards of behavior. Although Queen Victoria’s monarchy itself was a model of uprightness, conservatism and domestic virtues (McDonnell, Nakadate, Pfordresher Shoemate 360), Javines said that the reign of Queen Victoria had little to do with the â€Å"phenomenon of Victorianism†. He added that it is in fact a result of the ascendancy of the puritan middle-class during that era. McDonnell et al. (360) confirmed that this class was made up of self-made men and women who dominated England commercially. They were strictly disciplined and intensely religious, and believed their success was a result of God’s favor. Rising to power gave these middle-classes a share in governance, where they were able to advance the tested principles which they believed would stabilize society. These principles, considered as Victorianism, were made up of moral and cultural values that were appropriate to their aspirations, and were basically puritan ideals. But this was only the onset of a trend that was assimilated into the culture of the era and had taken many twists and turns beyond expectations. Somehow, along the way, Victorianism became a culture that took a toll on the role and rights of women in society. An offshoot of this culture was a law that trespassed on the woman as a person. Thomas (1) researched and described for us the place of women in the Victorian society: A woman’s place was in the home; marriage was the only respectable career they could go for. In the hope of a man who would either fall in love with her or would be gracious enough to ask for her hand in marriage, every girl was groomed to be the ideal wife and mother of a preferably large and comfortable household. Aside from skills in home economics, the talents she was expected to have were singing, playing an instrument, and speaking a little French and Italian. Whether married or single all Victorian women were expected to be weak and helpless, a fragile delicate flower incapable of making decisions beyond selecting the menu and ensuring her many children were taught moral values. She was to be a gentlewoman who ensured that the home was a place of comfort for her husband and family from the stresses of Industrial Britain. She was not expected to have political opinions; rather she was to be skillful in household affairs saving her husband from worrying over domestic concerns. He was to assume that his house was being run smoothly so that he could go on making money. She was to be biddable, virtuous, innocent, dutiful, and able to teach moral values to her children. A wealthy wife’s daily duties usually consisted of spending time reading, sewing, receiving guests, going visiting, letter writing, seeing to the servants and dressing for the part as her husbands social representative. She was expected to be faithful to her husband, though the latter may have his mistress. If he did, it was no shock to the public. Any unmarried woman could become a mistress to any man and it was acceptable to society. It was a flaunting of masculinity. A woman, however, with an adulterous affair was cut off from humanity as immoral. Moreover, a divorced woman had no chance of acceptance from society again; and rights of access to her children were removed. This type of cultural milieu triggered many, especially writers, to revolt through their writings and brand this period as the â€Å"hypocritical period†. To name a few, Ruskin, Arnold, Butler, Dickens, and Kipling, were some of the writers who never ceased to din into the ears of their fellow citizens that there was something deeply wrong in their civilization. Adjectives like â€Å"barbarian,† â€Å"Philistine,† and â€Å"ignorant† were designated to the British aristocracy, the middle class, and the working class, respectively (Javines 247). In his essay â€Å"The Subjection of Women† (as featured in England in Literature, 436-438), John Stuart Mill bashed on the prevailing social relations between the two sexes—the legal subordination of one sex over the other. He pointed out that this inequality had no sensible grounds, owing to the fact that women’s muscular inferiority to men was idiotically converted into a legal right in favor of men. He compared it to the relations between a slave and a master; women were entirely at the mercy of men. All the moralities tell them that it is the duty of women†¦it is their nature to live for others; to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life but in their affections†¦those the men with whom they are connected, or to the children who constitute an additional and indefeasible tie between them and a man†¦every privilege or pleasure she has being either his gift, or depending entirely on his will†¦that the principal object of human pursuit, consideration, and all objects of social ambition, can in general be sought or obtained by her only through him. Stuart called this condition an artificial thing, a forced repression and an unnatural stimulation made for the pleasure of their masters. Charlotte Bronte, one of the leading novelists of the day, created a tragic heroine that embodied this picture given by this essay. The novel Villete which was written in 1853 tells about Lucy Snowe, a woman who aspires for freedom and happiness in the only way she knows—the love of a man. In the final part of the novel, her affections for a schoolmaster bid her to wait upon his arrival, their reunion, where she expects to finally give her hand in marriage. However, a storm interrupts this gap of waiting, and ends the narration. We, the readers, are left to decide whether she ends up happy or grieving over his death. Beyond the romance, Bronte drew for us a reality that leaves us thinking. There could have been so many women in those days as intelligent and promising as Lucy Snowe, yet their future had to wholly reside upon the love of a man because there was neither other greener pasture nor honor left for a woman. The uncanny way of leaving the ending to hands of the readers as â€Å"fate-directors† creates a tragic effect on Lucy Snowe’s plight. No matter how much she was worth as a good governess and schoolmaster, everything she held on to in life, both romantically and socially, was fully dependent on a man, her redeemer. Mill called this inhuman because it brought women to a much lower position compared to men. To agree with Mill, one mysterious thing is how this woman repression came to be such a powerful force and how the supposedly sacred love between a man and a woman bonded by marriage become so artificial and tainted. Though many rationalize it as a puritan or Biblical discipline, this may well be called pure heresy. Though the Bible strongly commands the leadership of men over the home, it never teaches to place women in the level of a material possession or a housemaid. This may be proved in the following Biblical lines: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (New International Version, Eph 5:25,)†¦Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the [physically] weaker partner (NIV 1 Pe 3:7)†¦For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be united to his wife, and they will be one flesh (NIV Gen2:24). Biblically, men ought to treat women as they treat their own body. Moreover, Jesus Christ, the God of Christianity, in several occasions went out of his way to rescue some women (Mary Magdalene before the crowd of stoners) and have conversations with them (the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well). It is common knowledge that the Bible recounts about Christ’s friendship with women like Mary and Martha of Bethany, Mary his mother, etc. Recognizing this, Mill posited in his essay that the unjust perception towards women in those days were ungrounded; and, to this critic, un-puritan and certainly un-Christlike. He also added that in truth the differences in the roles of men and women are very difficult to identify. Spending so much effort as trying to differentiate every gender’s responsibility would be like slicing a strand of hair into two†¦ This is, an analytic study of the most important department of psychology, the laws of the influence of circumstance on character. This is a very cunning line that implies there may really be no differences between men and women; circumstances are what make human beings who they are. Mill furthered that even if medical practitioners can ascertain the differences in the bodily constitutions of men and women, medical practitioners are not psychologists who can tell the mental characteristics of women. Psychologists themselves, however, have never made any reliable observations in this area. If they do, the branch and essence of psychology itself would prevent us from making any conclusions; psychology is made up of endless, theoretical and inconclusive studies of the human mind. This must be because it is very hard to make generalizations about any human being and what he/she is capable of. This leaves everyone no excuse to repress, manipulate, or control or place prejudices on anyone regardless of gender. The endless possibilities about the woman’s psyche were given life in the many celebrated women characters created by the authors of the most powerful genre of literature in the Victorian era, the novel. Taking advantage of people’s addiction to reading novels, our great Victorian novelists endeavored to pen stories that tell of charismatic unconventional women, to revolt against women-subjugation. Two of these powerful fictional personas are Lucy Snowe, the pitiful and tragic woman in Charlotte Bronte’s Villete; and Sue Bridehead, the illicit and incestuous lover of Jude in Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure (1895). These were women plagued by two different predicaments yet both showed a strong-willed passion to have what they wanted. While Lucy Snowe was the typical Victorian woman who loved and wanted to marry a man, Sue was the rebellious type who struggled to break away from her marriage bonds with a husband she never loved, to consummate an illicit and incestuous love affair with her cousin, Jude Fawley. Together they have two children with another young boy from Jude’s last marriage. We see the eager determination of a mother and a lover in Sue as she follows her heart despite the harms posted by an intensely religious and moralistic society. What words could describe the pitiful existence of these women? Perhaps Jude Fawley’s words in the final chapter of part sixth of the novel which were also borrowed from the litany of Job can best suffice description: Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man-child conceived†¦ Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? For now should I have lain still†¦ It must have been as if all the meaning of life is purged out from within you simply because of the inhumane precepts that society incongruously called â€Å"law†. Yet in these words of Jude, we find that not only women had to suffer from the cruelties of Victorian culture. Men who did not embrace the conventions of the time doubly struggled in their existence. Hardy gives us a closer look into the life of men who had to respond to the high callings of a gentleman: a steady household, a dignified reputation, and a good financial standing. Jude was one of those we can brand as self-made man who strove with all his strength to do well, yet to no avail. From the onset of the novel, we see him as a boy, teachable and ambitious. Yet, being exposed to the kind of world he was in led him to confront the bitter contradictions of life. Today in an advancing humanistic society, a man of this account will most likely elicit an element of attraction and exaltation. Jude, however, lived in a time and place where men of his caste fell into obscurity.