Chapter 8

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Chapter 8 1118th- and 19th-century Prose and
Novelists

• From An Outline of English Literature by Thornley
  and Roberts

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Daniel Defoe

• No more strange plots and ideas of heroic tragedy
• Turned to reasonable things (p.81)
• Robinson Crusoe (1719)stories of adventure,
  almost a novel.
• Based on a real event, Alexadner Selkirk lived
  alone on the island of Juan Fernandez near Chile
• Moll Flanders (1722)

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Jonathan Swift

• A bitter satirist (p.81)
• A Modest Proposal (1729)
• Contains the suggestion that the poor should sell
  their children to the rich for food
• A kind of satire that accepts the evils of the
  world and show their results

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Jonathan Swift

• Gullivers Travels (1726)(p. 82)
• Written in four books, usually read the first two
• Gullivers voyage to Lilliput (where the people
  are six inches high) and Brobdingnag (where they
  are giants)
• The Lilliputians fight wars which seem foolish
• King of Brobdingnang thinks the people in
  Gullivers country must be the most hateful race
  of creature on the earth

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Gullivers Travels
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Pamela - The First English Novel

• The English novel proper was born about the
  middle of the 18th century (1740).
• Pamela by Samuel Richardson (p.85)
• Written in the form of letters
• Different from stories of adventure examines the
  human heart and shows the effects of human
  character
• The feelings of an English girl, Pamela
• Good girl receives the rewards of virtue

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Pamela, 1941 Edition

• Seehttp//www.umich.edu/ece/student_projects/pam
  ela_illustrated/main.set.editions.htm

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Pamela (1741)

• The illustrations for this edition jump right
  into the action, with Mr. B lurking behind a wall
  as Pamela cries. Mr. B's intrusion into Pamela's
  inner life is a major issue in the novel, as he
  continually eavesdrops on her conversations and
  reads her private correspondence. This scene
  shows him spying on Pamela in her grief.

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Pamela (1741)

• Here, Mrs. Jervis brings Pamela, wearing her
  simple country outfit (rather than the finery
  given to her by her old mistress), to see Mr. B.
  He is, of course, awed by her beauty. The class
  difference between them that the dress makes
  obvious, and that gives Mr. B enormous power over
  Pamela, might also be part of the appeal. Also,
  notice the way Pamela is represented on the
  frontis piece. Although she is proud of her
  humble background, she is presented as mature and
  dressed as an upper-class matron.

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Pamela (1741)

• Believing she is to be returned to her parents'
  house, Pamela departs in a carriage. However,
  while carriage rides may have conferred status at
  the time, this ride proves to be anything but
  pleasant, as Pamela is kidnapped.

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Pamela (1471)

• In despair over her imprisonment and what seems
  to be the imminent loss of her virtue, Pamela
  considers suicide. While she does not go through
  with it, her dress is found in the lake. When it
  is found but Pamela is not, the other servants
  show great concern.

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Pamela (1471)

• Not deterred by her anguish, Mr. B continues his
  plan to seduce Pamela. This time, he hides
  not-so-subtly in her bedroom and watches her
  undress, as he sits in a chair in the corner with
  a sheet over his head.

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Pamela (1471)

• The illustrations now skip ahead, past Pamela's
  coming to an understanding with Mr. B and her
  returning to his home to continue working as his
  servant, to her fathers surprise arrival. In her
  rush to greet her father, Pamela overturns a card
  table, but the faux pas is not held against her
  by those present, who are touched by the
  emotional scene.

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Pamela (1471)

• Now fully reconciled, and with the blessing of
  her parents, Pamela and Mr. B are married. It is
  a small affair, and Pamela's family is not in
  attendance. We have to wonder if the woman by the
  door is looking at the couple with awe, hoping
  that she will one day marry a man as well-off as
  Mr. B, or with disdain, at the spectacle of a
  cross-class union.

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Pamela (1471)

• Rather than being welcomed into the family by her
  sister-in-law, Pamela is ill-treated by Lady
  Davers, who does not approve of the couple. Tired
  of the abuse, Pamela conspires, with the help of
  her now-friend Mrs. Jewkes, to climb out of the
  window. This scene of Pamela's resourcefulness
  and bravery seems to be a favorite of
  illustrators, appearing in several of the
  editions we've looked at.

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Pamela (1471)

• As a newly accepted member of the upper class,
  Pamela enjoys tea with Sir Simon, his wife, and
  her doting husband. Once a servant herself, now
  she is waited on, by the woman pouring tea in the
  corner.

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Pamela (1471)

• In a illustration different in both style and
  layout from the others, the final engraving of
  the edition shows Pamela and Mr. B stopping on a
  stroll to enjoy nature's beauty. Continuing in
  the role of instructor that he takes up even more
  fully after their marriage, Mr. B appears to be
  showing Pamela something she otherwise would not
  have noticed.

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Samuel Richardson

• Clarissa Harlowe (1847-8)
• Clarissa, a beautiful girl, is forced to marry
  someone against her will (p.86)
• Driven to a state of despair and dies an early
  death

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Henry Fielding

• Shamela (1741)a kind of satire on Pamela (p.86)
• Joseph Andrews (1742)
• Tom Jones (1749)
• Appeared in 18 book
• A boys adventures in London

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Laurence Sterne

• Tristam Shandy (1760-7)
• Half of the book is about what happens before the
  hero is born (p.87)
• Sterne leaves the story whenever he likes to give
  opinions and write essays on any subject
• Adds blank pages and rows of stars to confuse his
  readers
• Still can draw clear characters

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19th-Century Novelists

• Jane Austen (p.115)
• Draw calm pictures of society life
• Understood the importance of the family in human
  affairs, brought the novel of family life to its
  highest point of perfection
• Paid little attention to the violence of nations

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Jane Austen

• Elinor and Marianne (1795)
• Sense and Sensibility (1811)
• Pride and Prejudice (1813)
• Mansfield Park (1814)
• Emma (1816)
• Northanger Abbey (1818)
• Persuasion (1818)
• It is a truth universally acknowledged that a
  single man in possession of a good fortune must
  be in want of a wife from Pride and Prejudice

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Mary Shelley

• Frankestein (1818)
• A satire, a ghost story
• The first attempt at science fiction

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Frankenstein

• Mary Shelley's 1818 novel about Victor
  Frankenstein's creation of a "monster" encourages
  discussion of issues from the dangers of
  obsession with the abstractions of science to the
  Romantic temperament (written, as it was, in the
  company of Byron and Shelley, whose poetry, along
  with that of Wordsworth and Coleridge, is
  scattered throughout the text). The novel works
  best, perhaps, as a study of parental
  responsibility, as the creature faces isolation
  in a world where it is the ultimate "Other" and
  where its creator denies it either affection or
  compassion. The text also brings up gender issues
  through Victor's relationship with his cousin
  Elizabeth and the character of Safie, through
  whom the creature indirectly learns about
  language, culture. and love. The original film
  Frankenstein(1931) offers a nice counterpoint, as
  it focuses almost solely on Victor's
  obsessiveness and the creature's destructiveness.

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Charles Dickens

• One of the greatest English novelist (p.120)
• Historical Novel Barnaby Rudge (1841) and A Tale
  of Two Cities (1849)
• A story of the French Revolution and events in
  London
• Written partly with the purpose of improving
  social conditions

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Charles Dickens

• Oliver Twist (1837-8)
• A poor boys cruel treatment and miserable
  adventures (p.120)
• Vivid descriptions of hunger, stealing, murder
  and hanging
• A Christmas Carol (1843) a story of a bad
  character who improves his behavior after a ghost
  tells him the manner of his death (p.121)
• David Copperfield (1849-50) a story based on
  Dickenss own life, the most popular of his
  novels (p.122)

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Charles Dickens

• His prose varies in quality, but always readable.
  (p.122)
• Describes and attacks many kinds of unpleasant
  people and places
• Many of his scenes are terribly unpleasant, but
  he usually keeps the worst descriptions out of
  his books.
• Wanted to raise kindness and goodness in mens
  hearts, and he used tears and laughter to reach
  his aim

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By Charles Dickens

• 1935 DavidCopperfield

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William Makepeace Thackeray

• Studied and described the nobility instead of the
  poor (p.123)
• Vanity Fair (1847-8)
• His most famous book
• The title of the novel comes from Bunyans
  Pilgrims Progress.
• Describes the adventures of two girls of
  different sort Rebecca and Amelia Sedley
• Gives a good picture of English society in the
  eighteen century

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William Makepeace Thackeray

• Not a romantic, wrote as an educated man (p.124)
• produced his characters for the purpose of
  expressing violent feelings
• Describe dstrange qualities in human beings
• Showed lifes cruelties and peoples weakness
• Only conscious of the importance of noble rank
  and good family

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Charlotte Brontë

• Brought up in poor surroundings (p.124)
• Jane Eyre (1847)
• Heroine neither beautiful nor rich (p.124)
• An honest description of strong feelings
• Realistic dialogue and less formal

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Emily Brontë

• Wuthering Heights (1847)
• Show immense and uncontrollable passions (p.125)
• About love and revenge

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George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

• Adam Bede (1859)
• Romola (1863) a historical novel
• Middlemarch (1871-2) set in a provincial town
  where Dorothea Brooke, a girl of noble qualities,
  marries old Mr. Casaubon but the marriage is a
  failure. (p.126)

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Adam Bede

• Adam Bede is a hard-working
• carpenter, with his heart set on marrying his
  sweetheart - pretty dairymaid Hetty Sorrel.
  Unfortunately Hetty's affections are captured by
  the handsome local squire Arthur Donnithorne and
  they start a secret affair. When Adam discovers
  Hetty's infidelity he taunts Arthur into a
  vicious fight, in the wake of which Arthur exiles
  himself to London.
• Hetty subsequently discovers she is pregnant and,
  rather than go through with her marriage to Adam
  she sets off alone in the depths of winter to
  pursue her former lover.

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Oscar Wilde

• The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) -- The novel
  tells of a young man named Dorian Gray, the
  subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward.
  Dorian is selected for his remarkable physical
  beauty, and Basil becomes strongly infatuated
  with Dorian, believing that his beauty is
  responsible for a new mode of art. Talking in
  Basil's garden, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a
  friend of Basil's, and becomes enthralled by Lord
  Henry's world view. Espousing a new kind of
  hedonism, Lord Henry suggests that the only thing
  worth pursuing in life is beauty, and the
  fulfillment of the senses. Realising that one day
  his beauty will fade, Dorian cries out, wishing
  that the portrait Basil has painted of him would
  age rather than himself. Dorian's wish is
  fulfilled, subsequently plunging him into a
  sequence of debauched acts. The portrait serves
  as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his
  soul, each sin being displayed as a new sign of
  aging on the portrait. (from Wikipedia)

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Thomas Hardy

• Nature plays an important part in his novels
  (p.131)
• Set in Wessex (the county of Dorset)
• The past has built up a mass of conditions which
  remain to influence peoples lives
• Blind chance has a very important effect
• The best way of life accept the blows of fate
• Novels human beings struggle against fate or
  chance

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Thomas Hardy

• The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
• Tess of the DUrbervilles (1891)