Scarica L'educazione nella scuola vittoriana e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! THE EDUCATION IN THE VICTORIAN SCHOOL Dickens believed in universal education, he was a supporter of the ragged schools: (free school’s for poor children) but he was also aware of their limitations (especially the lack of qualified teaching staff). He also criticised tthe “object lesson”, for example in the text “the definition of a horse”. He also believed in education extended to an citizens but didn’t ofter strategies for this. He had a compromising attitude, as he criticised abuses but he also talked about positive aspects. Object lesson:a lesson where the subject arises from children’s own experience. LIFE IN THE VICTORIAN TOWN In the 19th century England had a great industrial development, there were a lot of overcrowded cities full of diseases and crime. Also the cities were very polluted. People moved from the country to the cities to work in the factories but there were low wages, lots of working hours and children and women were exploited. The workers had no rights. (bad aspects) (Good aspect) - Modern hospitals were built - Water, gas and lighting were introduced - Paved roads were built - Places of entertaiment were built - In 1829/30 Robert Pell (prime minister) established the metropolitan police - Transport were improved COKETOWN This text is part of “hard times” and talks about the city of coketown, an industrial city, where mr Grandgrind and his friend are working. Coketown is described as a very industrial city, made of red bricks. People are described as robots, they all do the some job and they have no phisical difference. The buildings are all of red bricks, and we can’t understand which building is. The only different building is the new church. In the text there are a lot of words that are used a lot of times: fact, same, tabular statements. These repetitions are used to make the reader understand the boredom of the life in Coketown. The point of view oh this text is of someone who belongs to the middle class. Charles Dickens He belonged to the middle class, when he was a child he worked in a factory, then he became a journalist (he was aware of the problems of his time) and also wrote novels. A lot of novels talks about the problems brought by the industrial revolution and propose paceful solutions. He then became a Parliamentary reporter. He wrote his 1st story in 1833 and in 1836 he started to write articles with the name of Boz. He than wrote the pickwick papers ( umoristic and satirical articles). In 1837 he started Oliver Twist and in 1843 he published a Christmas Carol. Some of his novels were autobiographical. In other novels he talks about social issues ( conditions of poor people and the working class). For example hard times. Oliver Twist Mary was interested in science, expecially chemistry and this is reflected in Frankestain as the monster is a result of a man doing science. Frankestein tries to create a human being without respecting the rules of nature. The philosophical teory behind the history is rousseau’s: he says that man are born good and society makes them evil. Prometeus was a giant who stole fire from gods to give it to man. NARRATIVE STRUCTURE There are different narrators: - Walton, Frankestein and monster. - The novel is epistolary. THEMES - The quest for forbidden knowledge. - Social prejudices. - The overreacher (fr challenged the power of god). - The usurpation of the famale role. - The duble. THE CREATION OF THE MONSTER In this text, the writer talks about the creation of the monster. It’s a dark night of november, there is no light, it is raining. It is 1 in the morning and Dr. Frankestein is waiting for his creature to wake up. He thinks that is creature will be beautiful because he has selected beautiful features but it is a monster. The monster has yellow eyes, yellow skin , black hair and black lips. Frankestein is disappointed because it is a monster and he has worked on his creature for 2 years. After creating the monster, Frankestein decides to go tu bad but he could not sleep because he had a nightmare. He saw Elizabeth but when he was about to kiss her the body was turning into the corpse of the mother who had died. When he waks up the monster is whatching him and tries to detain him but he manages to escape. THE DEFINITION OF A HORSE In this text, Dickens shows a typical lesson in the Victorian school. The teacher, Mr. Grandgrind, is a very strict man, a man of fact and calculations, he always has a rule, a pair of scales and the multiplication table in his pockets. The text talks about Mr. Grandgrind asking a girl, that he calls “girl number 20” what a horse is. The girl is the daughter of a horse rider so she obviously knows what a horse is but she’s shy and afraid of Mr. G. so she doesn’t answer. Mr. G. also criticizes Sissi’s name, saying that Sissy is not a name and that she should be called Cecilia. So Mr. G. ask the some question to Bitzer, another student, and he answers with a full definition that seems to be take in from an encyclopedia. This is what Mr. G. warts, this is what were tought in the Victorian school.
