Victorian Era (1837-1901) How The People and Situation Was

Victorian Era (1837-1901)
How the people and situation was-

 The Victorians were prudish. We see Victorians as stiff, proper, and old
fashioned but that’s not how they saw themselves. they were
on the cutting edge. All the gadgets were always improving. The
Victorians saw them being invented, things like railways, photography,
electricity, and the telegraph.
 In the 19th century, everything seemed bigger and better. London was
crowded, industries were booming, and the British Empire was
expanding to its breaking point.
Characteristics-
1. Serialization-
 the novels were often 800 pages, so it was daunting for the readers. So
many novels were published in parts. The 3-volume form of novels were
popular. There were also monthly, weekly magazines. This was due to
the circulating libraries supporting the 3-volume novel.
 they figured that most people would not invest in buying all three
volumes when they could just trot down to their local circulating library.
 If you get people hooked on a story that will be running for a year or
more, then you're going to sell a lot of magazines.
 This also affected the way the stories were written because with each
piece the story had to be gripping in order for the public to buy the next
one.
 But only in the 1890s did the three-decker finally yield to the modern
single-volume format.
2. Industrialization -
 Victorians were seeing major changes—from manufacturing booms to
the first railways to widespread urbanization. This is often depicted in
the 19th century novels and poems. a whole genre developed around it:
the industrial or social novel (sometimes it is called "the condition of
England" novel).
3. Class –
 The Victorians were status conscious. Between the working class and the
upper crust, there was the catchall "middle class."
 The social status also depended on how much money you inherited or
made, there was also the old system of nobility. These can be seen in
Victorian novels.
4. Science vs religion-
 The Victorians were the first to confront Darwin's theory

of evolution. When his Origin of Species came out in 1859, it sparked a
lot of debate.
 The bible was being questioned if it was literally accurate. Darwin
proposed a new theory for how the earth came to be populated with so
many different species.
 Darwin's theories were applied to the London literary scene. All the
characters seem to be in a real struggle for survival.
5. Progress-
 This was the age of imperialism, and the British colonies stretched as far
away as India and Jamaica.
 Part of Victorian progress was figuring out what to do with all the stuff
Britain had inherited.
 Not only was London outgrowing the old systems, but new cities were
also cropping up in the industrial north.
 The politics was in a tug of war situation. The middle class suddenly
wanted more control (i.e., the vote), and the working class started its
own movement for more rights (a movement known as Chartism).
 Everything was getting regulated—the number of hours you could work
a week, how much control women had over money and property, and,
voting rights.
 Mid-Victorian society was still held together by and large by the cement
of Christian moral teaching and constricted by the triumph of puritan
sexual mores. It laid a particular stress on the virtues of monogamy and
family life, but it was also publicly aware of flagrant moral anomalies
throughout the social system.
 The period which saw the first real stirrings of the modern women’s
movement also received and revered the matronly model provided by
Queen Victoria herself and embodied the stereotype of virtuous
womanhood propagated by many of its novelists and poets.
 In the wake of cholera epidemics and "The Great Stink" of 1858,
Politicians and concerned citizens alike were eager to regulate London's
health.
 Novelists were just as eager to get involved with the cause. Whenever
you read a Victorian novel that takes place in London, you see these
descriptions of the city—from the mazy streets to the mud and fog, to
the most down-and-out of slums.
6. Women’s rights
 The question of what women could (or should) do attracted a lot of
debate in the Victorian era.
 From The Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act to the Married Women's
Property Acts, women were finally getting more control.
 But even with these reforms, the huge female population in Britain did
not have a ton of options. Marriage was still the default, even when
there were not enough men to allow everyone to pair off with as war
had an impact on men to women ratio.
 The other options depended on your class. Working-class women could
go into dressmaking or factory work. Middle-class women, however, did
not have many career paths, besides becoming a governess or author.
Victorian literature-
 The Victorian era saw growth is literature especially fiction and poetry
were popular too especially Tennyson.
 Many Victorians allowed their understanding to be led by thinkers,
poets, and even novelists. . It was an age of conflicting explanations and
theories, of scientific and economic confidence and of social and
spiritual pessimism, of a sharpened awareness of the inevitability of
progress and of deep disquiet as to the nature of the present. Traditional
solutions, universally acknowledged truths, and solutions were generally
discovered to be wanting, and the resultant philosophical and
ideological tensions are evident in the literature of the period. It was an
age both exhilarated and bewildered by growing wealth and power, the
pace of industrial and social change, and by scientific discovery.


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How the people and situation was-

 The Victorians were the first to confront Darwin's theory

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