The Victorian Period: the age of paradox

1
The Victorian Period the age of paradox

• 1837-1901
• Queen Victorias Reign

2
Age of Prosperity

• British Empire gained profits abroad
• Colonization of Africa, India for trade
• Industrial Revolution produced affordable goods
• Middle class developed
• Education increased
• Social mores revitalized
• Period of peace, known as the Pax Britannica
• Population doubled move to the cities
• Advances in science, medicine, engineering

3
Introduction of the factory
4
Age of Buried Suffering

• Industrial Rev. caused working class to suffer
  (child labor and sweat shops)
• Colonization caused foreign conflict xenophobia
  and racism
• Clash of ideals with French Revolution
• Social mores oppressed women and Others
  (monstrosities)
• Population increase meant more poor and sick
• Fear of scientific discoveries and medicinal
  advancements
• Religious strife and moral bias
• Life of excessimmoral vs. pragmaticism and
  asceticismmoral (unreal expectationsfailure)

5
(No Transcript)
6
Victorian Identity (upper class) Women

• Change in arranged marriage created some stress
• Career was Angel of the House wife, mother,
  daughter
• Should be artistically trained, talented,
  charming, pure, demure, humble, beautiful,
  classically educated, dutiful, weak, helpless,
  emotional to compete with other women
• Sexism hysteria comes from the root hyst, or
  uterus (Freud)
• 1887 the Married Woman's Property Act
• Until 1887, women could not own property, even if
  inherited
• If/when separated from husband, she forfeited
  property and had no rights to her children she
  would be ostracized

7
The Victorian Woman
8
Victorian Identity Sexuality

• Prudery and repression of animalistic desires
• Freud (id, ego, superego)
• Marriage and purity
• Courtship dowries double standards, love vs.
  class
• Euphemisms
• limb for leg expecting for pregnant
• Rampant prostitution

9
Victorian Identity Poor

• Poor Law (Social Welfare) 1832
• Dangerous/difficult working conditions
• Workhouses and Unions
• Living wage (min wage) 30 shillings a week
• Anti-Poor Law Movement
• Orphans and Orphanages
• Debtors prisons
• Prostitution
• Education
• Introduction of ragged schools (free schools)

10
Medicine and Science

• Hypnosis 1841
• Ether 1846
• Anesthetized
• surgery 1840s
• Plaster casts 1852
• Cocaine 1856
• Darwins Origin of Species 1869
• Freud and psychoanalysis 1880s

11
Industrialism and Innovation

• Steam Locomotive1802
• Daguerreotype Photography 1824
• Telegraph 1838
• Electric lights used in public 1846
• Sewing Machine 1851
• Refrigeration 1859
• Motion Pictures 1890

12
Victorian Art and Aesthetics

• Literature/poetry consider impractical lies
• Victorian industrialist was pragmatic and
  efficient
• The search for objective beauty perfect form
• Realism truth to nature
• Photography, representationalism, portraits
• Rebellious Pre-Raphaelites art for arts sake

13
Victorian Religious Conflict

• Evangelicals (middle class ethos) vs.
  objective, scientific thought
• Happiness earned through hard work and
  self-denial
• Conformity
• Darwin crisis

14
Darwinism and Society

• Survival of the fittest
• Originate from ape? Animalistic nature?
• Social Darwinismwork harder?
• 1872 Origin of Species
• 1886 Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case
• 1891 Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

15
Literature Timeline

• 1813 Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
• 1818 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
• 1843 Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
• 1847 Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
• 1865 Lewis CarrolI, Alice in Wonderland
• 1883 Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island
• 1891 Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
  Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock
  Holmes
• 1895 Oscar Wilde, The Importance
• 1886 Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case
• 1897 Bram Stoker, Dracula
• 1902 Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness