18th and 19th Century Novels: Gothic, Manners, Romantic, Social, Appunti di Inglese

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THE NOVELS OF 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES ➢ there’s always an happy ending ● The Gothic novel (Frankenstein): - mid 18th - atmosphere = gloomy, dark and sinister - suspense and mystery - characters = the villain (evil), a beautiful young woman (heroine, persecuted by the villain), her lover - supernatural (ghosts, monsters and vampires) - setting = isolated castles, woods or old abbeys; also Catholic countries like Italy or Spain, they were more evil than the protestant ones (a critic) - time = night, lightning and thunders ● The novel of manners (“romanzo di costume”, Pride and Prejudice): - 19th century - picture of society of that particular period of history, when wealth and influence were passing from the aristocracy to the newly successful middle classes - middle and upper classes (some of the upper class women had a dowry = money) - it deals with how these classes behaved in everyday situations and describe their codes of conduct (visits, balls and teas). It deals with personal relationships, class distinctions and the influence of money and property on the way people treat each other - themes = marriage and complications of love and friendship. Marriage was fundamental for a woman survival → they were rarely chosen for love, but for economic deals - third-person narrator employed (omniscient) - dialogues are witty, through which we understand the characters - use of irony - passions and emotions are not expressed directly but more subtly - Jane Austen is the undisputed master of it, she’s not interested in the historical backgrounds but in the facts of society and the social behaviour of people ● The romantic novel (Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights): - love contrasted by social class, inferiority of women = obstacles - Jane Eyre, modern and self-confident ≠ Catherine Earnshaw, a role model for middle class women ( she’s madly in love → eternal!) ● The social novel (Oliver Twist): - he’s considered the “Victorian novelist” (Victorian Age = 1831-1901) - he shows poverty, crime and absence of education - he denounces the social problems of his time ● The anti-victorian novel (The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Mrs Warren’s Profession): - the victorian values are questioned = respectability, honor and good behaviour FRANKENSTEIN OR THE MODERN PROMETHEUS - published in 1818 (bestselling novel) - gothic novel elements: sinister and gloomy atmosphere, strange events, fear and terror, isolated places - it can also be considered as a scientific novel (science-fiction) → Mary was interested in science - this is the only famous poem of Mary Shelley ⇓ She was born in 1797. She was raised by her father William Gowdin with a liberal education (he was a communist, an anarchist and philosopher). Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was one of the first feminists with very liberal ideas, she died after childbirth. She met Coleridge and Shelley, whom she fell in love with. They fled to France and lived in Switzerland and then Geneva, they had children. They met Byron and in 1816 Mary began to write the novel. After his husband's death, she returned to England and she died in 1851. - Prometheus: in Greek mythology, he was a giant who stole the fire from the gods and gave it to men. He is punished and enchained to a stone, the birds ate his liver, but during the night it was recreated. He challenged divine authority, so he is an overreacher (overcome human limits), just like Dr Frankenstein, who thinks he can give life to a human being on his own. He didn’t follow the natural course of life, so even he will be punished. Captain Walton is the alter ego of Dr Frankenstein, he’s the captain of a ship that set off on an expedition to the North Pole trying to discover new routes by sea. This expedition is dangerous, but he takes with him all the crew. The captain is not punished because, when he meets Dr Frankenstein and the monster, who will tell him their story, he understands that he’s doing something wrong. ➢ NARRATIVE STRUCTURE: - elevated narrative technique - the order of the story is not chronological Darcy’s arrogant aunt. Bingley comes back and becomes engaged to Jane, so the novel ends with the happy marriages of the two couples. ➢ CHARACTERS: ● Elizabeth Bennet = the 2nd daughter of Mr. and Mrs.Bennet (middle class) and most beautiful of the five Bennet's sisters, intelligent and sensible, well-read and quick-witted, independent; she presents impertinence but without being offensive; she doesn’t hesitate to act against social expectations and conventions. (round character) ● Mr Darcy = he’s Lord of Pemberley (an aristocrat, wealthy), he seems arrogant, an unapproachable and unfriendly demeanor, he’s mysterious and charming; he has a sister, Georgiana, who adores him. His character develops during the story. (round character) ➢ they both show an imperfect understanding of themselves and each other and they feel contradictory emotions for each other. She accuses him of pride and he accuses her of prejudice, but also she is proud, and her pride blinds her to his virtues; he is prejudiced by his upbringing and is disgusted by the vulgar behaviour of Elizabeth’s mother and sisters. Some of the minor characters are almost caricatures, like Lady Catherine and Mrs Bennet; others are rather flat (Jane) or objects of ridicule, like Mr Collins, the clergyman who, after Elizabeth’s refusal, proposes the next day to her best friend, Charlotte Lucas. ● Jane Bennet = kind, considerate and intelligent, innocent and naïve, the eldest sister; the most beautiful amongst the Bennet sisters. ● Mr Bingley = wealthy young man, handsome and friendly, easy manners; he’s a contrast to Mr. Darcy. ● Mrs Bennet = she lacks self-awareness, she’s all surface and no substance, she strongly wants to get her daughters married and Jane is her favourite. ● Mr Bennet = an intelligent and sarcastic man, he doesn’t care about social conventions and he’s intellectual (contrary to his wife). Elizabeth is his favourite. ➢ THEMES: ● pride: it blinds Elizabeth and Darcy to their true feelings about each other. ● prejudice: both Darcy and Elizabeth are prejudiced towards each other’s social condition ● love: different kinds of love = love between sisters, convenient love, true love. Social connections interfere with the workings of love. For Jane Austen, if someone wants true love, they have to overlook social conventions. ● class: class was extremely important because it determined the way someone was perceived by society. ● gender: in the 19th century gender roles were very strict. Some of the female characters of this novel are very independent, because they want to marry for love and not for convenience. ● marriage: it was an economic contract between families and it wasn’t usually based on love. ● reputation: men and women were expected to behave in certain ways to preserve their reputation. To maintain it the characters never express their passions and emotions directly. ● family: family shapes the characters’ decisions and perspectives. ➢ STYLE: ● use of witty dialogues ● the author uses an omniscient third-person narrator ● use of irony ● inability of the characters to express their feelings ● differences between the descriptions of the characters who lack self-awareness and self-knowledge and those who don’t JANE EYRE - published in 1847 → early Victorian Age → Victorian people were dominated by moral rules in their behaviour and the role of women was minimal, they had to follow a certain code of respectability. Lots of women loved writing, but they wrote under a pseudonym because it was not considered yet a profession for women to be writers (in fact, they didn’t work) → also the Brontë sisters had a pseudonym. - it is a coming-of-age novel (romanzo di formazione) - it was written by Charlotte Brontë, partly autobiographical ⇓ Charlotte, Emily and Anne were three sisters, daughters of a clergyman of Irish origin. Their father had an important influence on their life, in fact the Bronte sisters spent most of their time in isolation in Yorkshire. They didn’t receive a formal education but they were mainly self-educated, for example by reading books of their father’s library or drawing and taking inspiration from the periodicals. All of them had an intellectual creativity, and they began to represent this creativity by writing chronicles of imaginary countries and as the other female writers, they started using pseudonyms (Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell). Charlotte was born on April 21st 1816, she was the third of six children. She is orphaned by a mother at the age of five. She attended a school for the daughters of clergymen together with his sisters, but unfortunately, the poor hygienic conditions and the lack of food caused the death of the older sisters. When they returned home, they wrote with their brother fantastic adventures. Charlotte worked as a governess for some aristocratic families. In 1842 she went to Brussels, with her sister Emily, to study French. She fell in love, not reciprocated, with his teacher already married. The bitterness was so deep that she wrote two books on this subject. She returned home in 1844 and wrote novels with her sisters. Charlotte wrote “The Professor” which was rejected, while “Jane Eyre” was immediately published under the pseudonym Currer Bell. She published other novels such as “Shirley” and “Violette”. In June 1854 Charlotte married the Reverend Nicholls. Finally, she died on March 31th 1855 while expecting a child. ➢ PLOT: Jane is a penniless (senza soldi) orphan, brought up at Gateshead by her cold and hostile aunt, Mrs Reed. Jane is then sent to Lowood School, a very strict school (boarding school) where she is not given enough food and clothing. Here, people use physical and verbal violence on the girls, so they also died for various diseases. When she grows up, she becomes a teacher there, but finally she decides to accept a job as a governess at Thornfield Hall (she’ll be in charge of Adele, the young daughter), where she soon falls in love with Mr Rochester, its owner. Her stay at the Hall is disturbed by strange noises and frightening events. After spending some time at her aunt’s deathbed, Jane returns to Thornfield and Rochester proposes to her (he falls in love with her soul). She agrees to marry him, but two nights before the wedding she wakes up and sees a figure standing by her bed and her wedding veil torn into two pieces. The wedding is interrupted by a stranger who declares that Rochester already has a wife, Bertha Mason, a madwoman he married in the West Indies and who lived in the attic of the house, looked after by Grace Poole. He was actually forced into this marriage for economic reasons, but then he discovers that her wife is mentally unstable. Rochester asks Jane to stay with him, but she cannot accept so she leaves Thornfiel and goes to live with her cousins at Moor House. There she meets St John Rivers, a religious man who plans to become a missionary and proposes to her, Jane refuses and one night she hears Rochester’s voice calling her. She returns to Thornfield Hall, but the house has been destroyed by a fire caused by Bertha, who then threw herself downstairs and died. Mr Rochester lost his sight and a hand in the attempt to save his wife from the fire. He now lives in Ferndean, where Jane visits him and agrees to marry him. He finally recovers his sight when their first child is born. ➢ CHARACTERS: ● Jane Eyre: the protagonist and first narrator, she’s a very modern, intense, rebellious and passionate heroine and has something in common with the writer herself; even if she had a difficult life, she always stood for her moral values and rights in which she believed strongly; she's independent morally and financially. ● Mr Rochester: he has the quality of a Byronic hero, he then becomes a lost nobleman of passion who is attracted to Jane’s soul and personality rather than to her physical appearance.