The Victorian Novel

1. The Victorian Novel V^A Nicolò Zentilin Claudia Tomasello

2. The Victorian Age • The Industrial Revolution: Industrialization • The reign of Queen Victoria ( 1837 – 1901 ) • Urbanization • Conflicts between classes: birth of a working class • Working class’s rights: birth of Trade Unions • More education • Development of communication: trades, Colonialism and Imperialism • The doctrine of “laissez-faire” • Utilitarian philosophy, Darwinism, Puritan ethic • Scientific investigation: improvement of life’s conditions • The age of the novels: Richardson, Dickens, Fielding and Defoe

3. The Main Themes of the Victorian Novel • The struggle of democracy • The growth of towns • Poverty • Education and children • The clash between classes • The industrial system of production

4. The Main Aspects • The reader feels partly identified thanks to • The setting is generally the city ALIENATION • Human beings are described like masses the lass of identity PATHOS: Reader’s pity and sadness for characters creates an educative function. GROTTESQUE: Exaggeration deforms the reality and entertains the reader.

5. Oliver Twist • Author: Charles Dickens wrote it from 1837 to 1838. • Extract: it is taken from Chapter 2, at the beginning of the book. • Story-line: the Victorian Novel describes the ill-treatment of children in the workhouses. The plot has lots of adventures and surprises. • Setting: it is the dinning hall of the workhouse. • Characters: Oliver, an orphan brought up in the workhouse, and his master. They express the relationship between poor and rich. • Narrator: there is a third person omniscient narrator. • Techniques used: the Pathos, the Grottesque and irony. • Aim: Dickens wants to criticize the Victorian society.

6. Nicholas Nickelby • Author: Charles Dickens wrote it from 1838 to 1839. • Extract: it is taken from one of the early chapters in the novel. • Story-line: the realistic novel discloses the living condition and teaching methods in the appalling educational institutions of the Victorian Age for the poor. • Setting: it is the classroom where Nicholas is going to work. • Characters: Nicholas who has employed as a teacher by Mr. Squeers (the teacher of the school). The last one feels superior to the children. • Narrator: there is a third person omniscient intrusive narrator. • Techniques used: the Pathos and exaggeration in order to ridicule Mr. Squeers.

7. Hard Time • Author: Charles Dickens wrote it in 1854. • Extract: “Mr Bounderby” is taken from Chapter 4 of the first book. • Story-line: the realistic novel criticizes the social and economical conditions of the Victorian Age. Dickens attacks industrialization and its ills. • Setting: it is the fictional industrial city of Coketown. • Characters: Mr Bounderby, a man born in the dehumanizing industrial system of the period, and Mrs Gradgrind who got married with him (he is more than twice her age). • Narrator: there is a third person omniscient intrusive narrator.

8. Jude the Obscure • Author: Thomas Hardy wrote it some years before 1895. • Extract: it is taken from "Part Sixth Chapter II" of Jude the Obscure. The novel is organised into scenes like modernist works. • Story-line: the extract deals with Jude’s actions at home and the death of Jude and Sue's son. • Setting: events are sat in Jude and Sue’s home on an early morning. • Characters: Jude Fawley who had some children with Sue in an extramarital relationship; a doctor and two helpless women who came to try to restore the children; the dead son who wrote a piece of paper. • Narrator: there is an omniscient external narrator that is impersonal (no judgements, no comments). • Aim: it is an Anti-Victorian novel that wants to show the extramarital relationships of the Victorian society: in this case it has generated too many children.