Victorian novel

Victorian era was corresponding roughly with the reign of Queen Victoria (1837 – 1901) and was a synonym for extensive development. London became the most influential city of western civilization and transformed into the British Empire. British colonies eventually covered 1/3 of the world which had a great influence on literature, society and attitudes.

It was flourishing period for periodical journals, public libraries and public readings since more people could read and were aware of what other people were writing about. Literature was published in periodicals; novels published in instalments and poetry in illustrated annuals. Victorian periodical were for sophisticated middle-class readership and length and structure of the novel had something to do with the way they were published – in instalments as episodic novels. The predominant stream was critical realism which reflected situation of Victorian Britain. Unlike Romanticism, Victorian writers were critical observers of society. However, these writers came from middle class end even though they dedicated their books to issues of working class, workers were illiterate so only middle-class people could read it.

Queen Victoria´s society was very hypocritical. People did not act as they spoke and had two faces (public x private). This schizophrenic splitting motif runs in Victorian literature. There was a wide gap between social classes and even between men and women since women were not included in the public life and were more like domestic slaves for raising children and household work. Another hypocritical phenomenon were houses of pleasures that were publically despised but in reality they were even more spread then today. The main interest of upper class was to sustain their respectability, public image and an appearance of being gentlemen.

CHARLES DICKENS was a representative of literature of a big city (mainly London, at that time the capital of the world) and the best representative of the life and society of his time. He criticized social issues, situation of the poor, especially children. He was the first great writer to tackle the problem of urban civilization since he was forced to start working in a factory at the age of 12. Financial problems in the family inspired him and gave him sympathy with the sufferings of children. He created unforgettable characters and almost all his books were made into films. He was Realist but influenced by Romanticism so his books are realistic but also sentimental, ending happily, usually with some fortunate inheritance. This aspect was not realistic but Dickens tried to portray a nice human fate.

In his earlier writings London is a city of contrasts but it can still be escaped like in The Pickwick Papers (humorous sequence of Pickwick's adventures) and Oliver Twist (about an orphaned boy in a workhouse who is kind-hearted but naive). In his later fiction London is weary with not much hope. Hard Times is his sharpest novel, set in a fictitious Victorian industrial town; other works include David Copperfield (very autobiographical), A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations (about an orphan who traces his life from childhood to adulthood) and Bleak House (about an orphaned girl).

  

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY is a realist but compared to Dickens not sentimental at all and rather dry and sober. While Dickens was interested in lower classes, Thackeray scope was upper-middle class. His philosophy was that everybody is a snob; people always try to look better or pretend that their social position is better. His writing based on this philosophy is The Book of Snobs popularizing this word in English and showing various kinds of snobbism in England. He is very critical about it, demonstrating hypocrisy.

Vanity Fair is more realistic plot where slightly cynical narrator constantly questions the reader. Its title refers to a never-ending fair held in a town called Vanity which represents man’s sinful attachment to material things.

BRONTË SISTERS lived a detached life in Yorkshire Moors so their writing is very different. They are not pure realists, rather a mixture of autobiography, gothic elements and sentimentality.

CHARLOTTE BRONTË was the oldest of the three sisters. Her Jane Eyre created a sensation because it had the power of the narrative, political relevance and female emancipation. She presented a new kind of heroine - a virtuous independent woman who is admired for her abilities. This concept changed the conventions of female characters in literature. Villette is partly autobiographical with novelist’s own experience as a teacher in Brussels. The heroine has to struggle as much as Jane Eyre but she is denied the true fulfilment.

EMILY BRONTË had a deep attachment to the high moorlands where she spent her life with her family. Her style was different from a typical Victorian novel since she penetrated the human soul with imagination and wild passion, depicting revenge, religion and prejudice in Wuthering Heights.

ANNE BRONTË was the youngest sister. She was often depressed and homesick but also very spiritual and passionate. Her The Tenant of Wildfell Hall provides an impressive range of characters and seems to have been modelled after her brother, an exemplary feminist work of courage and hope. Agnes Grey is based on her own experience as a governess, describing precarious positions of a governess and how it can effect a young woman.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON was a Scottish writer, influenced by reading adventurous novels as a child and he is still enjoyed as a master of adventure fiction like in his Treasure Island about piracy and a buried treasure since he took fiction as an escape to ordinary trivial life. He also wrote fantastic short stories like one about a man who invented a machine making huge diamonds but stayed poor because nobody could afford them.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is called the best guidebook of Victorian society revealing all its negative aspects that mainstream authors ignored, though he intended to write it just as a gothic story based on his opium dream.

John Utterson, a lawyer, is on his walk with his relative, who tells him of an encounter he had. The tale describes a sinister Mr. Edward Hyde who tramples a young girl and pays off her relatives with a cheque. Encountering Hyde, Utterson is amazed by how ugly the man seems as if deformed and meets also Dr. Henry Jekyll who tells Utterson not to concern himself with the matter of Hyde. One night, a servant girl witnesses Hyde beat a client of Utterson to death. Utterson again visits Jekyll, who now claims to have ended all relations with Hyde. Jekyll shows Utterson a note written to Jekyll by Hyde, apologizing for the trouble. However, Utterson’s clerk points out that Hyde’s handwriting bears a remarkable similarity to Jekyll’s. Dr. Lanyon dies of shock after receiving information relating to Jekyll. Before his death, Lanyon gives Utterson a letter, with instructions not to open it until Jekyll's death. Jekyll’s butler visits Utterson and explains that Jekyll has closed himself in his laboratory. They find the body of Hyde, wearing Jekyll’s clothes and apparently dead. Lanyon’s letter reveals that his death was caused by the shock of seeing Mr Hyde drink a potion and as a result metamorphose into Dr Jekyll. Jekyll, seeking to separate his good side from his darker impulses, discovered a way to transform himself periodically into a creature free of conscience Mr Hyde.

At first, Jekyll was delighted in becoming Hyde because of the moral freedom but eventually he found that he was turning into Hyde involuntarily in his sleep, even without taking the potion. Jekyll resolved to cease becoming Hyde, however, the urge gripped him. Jekyll finds that he has to take even larger doses of potion in order to reverse. Eventually, the potion began to run out. Jekyll learns that the most necessary ingredient was in the first instance of his experiments dirtied but his subsequent supplies are pure and thus lacking the quality that makes the potion successful. Jekyll writes a letter knowing that he will soon become Hyde permanently and wonders if Hyde will face execution for his crimes or choose suicide. He closes the letter saying "I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end." and the novel ends.

Dr. Jekyll – a fine model gentleman with a high quality of his speech, well educated, good-mannered, civilised, tall and strong man with perfect health and morally firm. Nevertheless, all his life he had uncontrollable desire he was forced to repress by society and it chemically produces Mr Hyde. Mr Hyde – short, ugly, hairy, emotional, disgusting but it is not described what exactly makes him that way so we can´t completely trust it since he might be hideous only according to society standard and compared to excellent Jekyll. He just enjoys life without limitations and his only aim is to fulfil his desires. His name Hyde means being hidden inside of Jekyll. Hyde killed Carew because the extremely gentlemen manner the MP behaves was repulsive to him since it reminds him of the world he escaped from.

When Jekyll walks though the London, he sees only his clients, friends and another gentlemen, members of upper middle class (doctors, lawyers, traders - bourgeoisie) that was growing in number in that period. Hyde moves in dark alleys of the night but still it is the same street Jekyll walks - just seen by two different characters. And middle class ignored the poor, though; they all shared the same street. Jekyll´s house has clean and spotless facade but there are dirty mysterious door in the back that everybody ignores and it leads to laboratory where Hyde is born. However, it´s the same house, even though nobody thinks of it that way, so it shows another split. Servants still serve their master Jekyll even though they know he does diabolical practices and forbidden experiments.

There are two women in the story and both shows a stereotypical view Victorians had since they are presented as feeble creatures less than human and overly emotional. One girl is tramples upon by Hyde and presented as helpless and passive and represented that men trampled upon women. Another servant girl is shown as hysterical and faint as she witnesses the murder. Victorian age also flourished British imperialism that was colonising and imposing British culture and Christian religion on native populations. Natives are presented as primitive, inferior, animalistic, barbarian equal to animals that “needed us to civilise them” so the British believed their mission was rightful. This is also reflected in the text. Mr Hyde as a hairy man resembles animals and represents a native element. However, he isn´t a separate character and creates a mirror since natives are inside of British national and historical identity.

GEORGE ELIOT was a pseudonym of MARY EVANS which she adopted to be taken seriously. She was a realist but focuses on morality and puts individual morality in contrast with mortality of the society, depicting how these two types cannot coexist without conflict. She developed a religion of humanity = morality on basis in humanity. Middlemarch is about a young girl, who cannot achieve anything significant in her life by herself, only through a man. She believes in the Victorian self-denial but she is a very passionate person. She marries an elderly, educated man and her choice proves to be wrong in the end.

THOMAS HARDY was interested in transformation from rural to urban society, attitude to femininity and the issue of social mobility. While Dickinson had optimistic endings, Hardy ends on tragic note. His writing connected with Wessex of his childhood = he is a regional novelist, deeply attached to the rural customs and ways of life. Fatalism presented in his novels as characters are manipulated by coincidences. He was also a good short-story writer and a poet!

Tess of the D’Urbervilles (about the ache of modern era), Far From the Madding Crowd (about young girl rejects her suitor because she has higher aspirations), Jude the Obscure (banned since it presented direct treatment of sex and failure marriages but a Victorian marriage should end happily).

LEWIS CAROLL was a successful mathematician but he is remembered as the author of a famous children book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking Glass. He was acquainted with a family with three daughters who inspired him and he even took their naked pictures of girls so nowadays we would call him a paedophile but in that era it was normal with parent permission. Alice contains many nursery thymes (twinkle, twinkle little bat how I wonder what you’re at), invented words, puns (lessons are called lessons because then lessen from day to day), homophonic word plays (not/knot) and wit (when they are wet, then tell themselves dry stories).

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE created a genre of crime fiction with logical reasoning and the famous character of Sherlock Holmes, a detective with a pipe, and his helper Dr. John Watson. The canon contains 56 short stories and 4 novels like The Hound of the Baskervilles and collections The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and The Return of Sherlock Holmes.

BRAM STOKER was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known for his gothic novel Dracula. Stoker spend years researching folklore of vampires. Dracula is an epistolary novel, written as a collection of realistic but completely fictional diary entries, telegrams, letters, ship's logs and newspaper clippings.

JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU was an Irish writer of gothic tales, the leading ghost-story writer. His famous novella Carmilla became a prototype for a lesbian vampire figure.