The Victorian Age and Charles Dickens, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica The Victorian Age and Charles Dickens e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! Queen Victoria’s reign Victoria was born at Kensington Palace, London, on 24 May 1819. She was the only daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III. Her father died shortly after her birth and she became heir to the throne because the three uncles who were ahead of her in the succession had no legitimate children who survived. Queen Victoria’s reign was the longest in the history of England. She came to the throne in 1837 when she was only 18 and died in 1901. She is associated with Britain's great age of industrial expansion, economic progress and, especially, empire. ● Why did the nation identify with the Queen? Her way of life and her behavior made her beloved especially by the middle classes. ● What were the first years of Victoria’s reign like? It was a period of progress, imperial expansion and also one of political developments and social reforms (ten hours act of 1847) that limited working hours to ten a day. ● What made these achievements possible? The merits belong to the queen who reigned constitutionally, avoiding the revolution in Europe. ● The main political parties: the liberals (ex-Whigs) and the conservatives. The Victorian age The Victorian age is a very long period of English history. It begins after Queen Victoria and ends in 1901. The Victorian Age was a period of progress, stability, and great social reforms but at the same time was characterized by poverty and injustice. In fact, there were positive aspects, like a gradual progress in society, science, and economy but also negative aspects, like serious problems in society, pollution due to factory activity and horrible hygienic conditions. The coexistence of positive and negative aspects in society took the name of “Victorian Compromise”, a complex and contradictory era. Positive aspects: - industrial revolution: more people lived in cities - technological advances: building of railways (1854: London underground) - economic progress: greatest economic power in the world; first in manufacturing. - crystal palace: the ‘’Great exhibition’’ of 1851, where goods from all different countries were exhibited. Negative aspects: - pollution: factory activity - horrible hygienic conditions - the ‘’great stink’’: 1858, Epidemics. - building of workhouse: hard work and monotonous diet. - exploitation of children: children were employed in factories working a lot of hours and education was denied. On the economic level, this period is characterized by the building and creation of the British Empire: Britain, in this period, became one of the most important sea powers and economical power in the world. Britain expands its colonies for two reasons: for the raw materials and because it was a way to increase its economic power. There were many negative aspects: owners needed more workhand, so they assumed people who cost less but work more, women and children. So, this caused the exploitation of women and children. Another aspect is the building of Workhouses. The idea was to give a social assistance to workers, but in really, this was a very poor social assistance: Male and female were separated, sanitation was bad, and food was little and not of quality. Life in the Victorian town In the middle of 19th century, London became a nation of town dwellers, because of an important industrial development. In Victorian cities there were a lot of poor people, and the city was overcrowded, there were disease and crime especially in the slum districts. The mortality rate was high and work conditions had a disastrous effect on children’s health because they were forced to work, there were a lot of illnesses, as cholera epidemics and tuberculosis. In this period the Victorians built workhouses, but public buildings and other services, as water, gas, and lighting, were introduced. Coketown ‘’Coketown’’ is an extract from Charles Dickens’s Hard Times written in 1854, it is an industrialized city during the Victorian Age. The text is subdivided into 5 paragraphs and describe cities’ and inhabitants’ situation. The main argument of the extract is “Coke town” that was made up of two words: the first “coke”, a kind of carbon and the second town, a totality of buildings and people. In the first paragraph there is the introduction of Mr. Bounderby and Mr. Gradgrind who were walking through Coke town and there begins the description of the city. The second paragraph describes how Coke town was structured. There is the description of its buildings, that were all identical made up by red bricks. The situation of the city is terrible, there were interminable serpents of smoke, tall chimneys, black canal and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye. Also, the small and big streets were like one another. Dickens to underline this negative and terrible situation used some images: the repetition of red/bricks, or similes “Like the painted face of a savage” (l 6) and “Like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness” (l 12) or metaphors like “Interminable serpents of smoke” (l 7). Also, people were like one another, and they went in and out at the same time, to do the same work and everyday was the same a yesterday and tomorrow. The third paragraph talks about the other buildings. As the streets and the inhabitants’ lifestyle, also the church, the hospitals, the cemetery, and the town-hall look exactly like one another. Every relationship between workman and master, between student and teacher is based on fact; there are no authentic human feelings. The fourth paragraph focuses on the expression “tabular statements”. Everything in Coke town must be supported by concrete facts and proofs. There is also a description of Coke town problems: alcohol, drug and low singing and low dancing from jail. The fifth paragraph is the end of the extract. Here Dickens ended the description of the city and returned to the two protagonists of the beginning: Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby. They were described as “gentlemen”, word that was repeated more times because Dickens wanted to underline their situation, opposite of inhabitants’ one. They wanted to “furnish more tabular statements derived from their own personal experience and illustrated by cases they had known and seen’’. The Victorian Compromise