Scarica Queen Victoria's Reign: Balance and Reforms in 19th Century England e più Dispense in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! Queen Victoria's was the second longest reign in the history of England. She was a symbol of balance and austerity for her subjects who shared her values of honour, respectability and family. She supported reforms to improve the workers' conditions like the Ten hours Act (1847). During her reign the UK developed its powerful empire and its economic growth was unprecedented. The symbol of that was the Great Exhibition of 1851. The two political parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals, alternated in the government of the country. Their main political fight was about the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. The Conservatives, who defended the rich landowners, had passed the Corn Laws to keep the price of the corn very high. The Liberals wanted to change this situation to help people to spend less for food. Victoria's balance saves England the Revolutions that went on in Europe in 1848. The main protest in England was that of Chartism. A group of workers drew the People's Charter, a document asking for better condition and the vote for all male adults. The Commons rejected the Chart and the movement died out. England defended its commercial interests in China, India and in the Crimean War. The industrial development brought about the creation of big industrial towns and people coming from the countryside to work in the factories. Slums were The place where the poor people lives, that weresqualid, polluted and this resulted in lack of hygiene, illnesses like cholera and tuberculosis, alcoholism and high mortality, especially children. The government tried to improve these people's life conditions the Lodging houses Act of 1851. New working-class houses were built along with sewages, public lighting, streets, hospitals, schools, parks and shops. The Victorian compromise The Victorian age was characterized by positive elements like progress, economic growth, social reforms and negative elements like poverty, injustice. The coexistence or balance between positive and negative elements was called Victorian compromise. Rich and respectable people based their life on values like; moral,money,respectability,religion. Rich people had The obsession for respectability extended to the family, rigidly patriarchal, in which women must stay at home looking after their children. The Victorian novel Victorian novels were realistic because they depicted contemporary society as it was, and analyzed the changes of the Industrial Revolution and problems and injustice. An important feature of the Victorian novel is that most readers were women and many writers were women as well because they spent most of their time at home. On the other hand female novelists had to publish their books using a male pseudonym for were published without problems. The writer coincided with the omniscient narrator who knew all about the past, present and future. The narrator stopped the narration for to express his criticism and opinions about the characters' actions. the setting of the novels (time and place), was usually contemporary industrial English towns; the plot was quite long with minor subplots linked with the main narration; respect to XVIII century fiction, Victorian characters were analysed at a deeper psychological level. Many novels ended with a sort of reward for the good characters and a punishment for the wicked ones. This feature was called poetical justice. In this way, the writers, as if they were God, gave good example of behaviour for the readers to follow.
