The Complexities of the Victorian Age: An Era of Contradictions, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica The Complexities of the Victorian Age: An Era of Contradictions e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! THE VICTORIAN AGE INTRODUCTION The Romantic Age ends when Queen Victoria ascends the throne of England in 1837. She reigned from 1837 to 1901 (the year of her death), so her reign lasted 64 years: longest reign before Elizabeth. Queen Victoria was considered such an important sovereign of England that she gave the name to an era. The Victorian age must be considered a very complex age, it is called the AGE OF CONTRADICTIONS: -economic stability and prosperity, very rich country: the most powerful in the world; social reforms, scientific progress and discoveries, improvement of life conditions, big rise of the middle classes. -but at the same time: unprecedented conditions of poverty; society was clearly divided into two groups: the rich and the poor. Age of 2 sides in all fields of human activities: for every positive side there is its negative counterpart. On one hand there is scientific progress, on the other there is denial of scientific progress through some political and social choices, also embodied by the queen. There is DARWINISM, but also But at the same time she had 9 children. «Queen Victoria married PRINCE ALBERT: he was a man of deep culture and he was also very rich. He played an important role both in the private and in public life of the queen: he influenced the first part of the V.A. and he was the major advisor of the queen, because at the age of 18 she wasn't very expert in politics. He contributed to making England the leading country in the world by encouraging the growth of England in terms of economy and in culture. As a matter of fact when he died, the queen went through a long phase of depression and when she decided to reappear in public she always wore black clothes as as a sign of mourning. They wanted to set up a good example of the IDEAL FAMILY, to show off how a good and respectable family lite should be like: love and respect between a husband and a wife contributed forming a strong family where there were strong bonds among the members. They were an example of RESPECTABILITY: there was a series of features that gave a family respectability: wealth, moral standards, respect, love between a husband and a wife and love for their children. So a good victorian mother was the angel of the house, and she had to look after her children and the house. But on the other hand the victorian age is the age when PROSTITUTION became a social plague: it was in contrast because if a man lead a respectable life, then he wouldn't encourage prostitution. But this respectability was just appearance: actually there were a lot of social problems concerning the poor, who were confined to some areas of London, which were secluded from the rest of the city by gates, to prevent them going around the respectable parts of the city and also to prevent visitors to reach those poor parts. These parts were called slums, where houses were in very bad conditions, they didn't have running water and a good hygiene, so epidemics were pretty ordinary. -On one hand the victorian age sees a rise in the middle classes, an improvement in richness, in wealth and it introduces many reforms, the growth of cities and the expansion of the economy. But, at the same time, there is a kind of attitude to poverty: there was a real gap between richness and poverty, a real cut division between the rich and the poor. The middle classes rose, they improved richness: the real middle classes disappeared during the victorian age and so there was no middle ground. «the VICTORIAN COMPROMISE: is an agreement made to find a solution which can make the majority of people happy. lt was the attitude shown by the upper classes of pretending to give solutions to social problems, but actually they only found solutions for a few people. An example is the institution of workhouses -WORKHOUSES were buildings built for the purpose of housing the poor for free. They offered housing and food to the poor, to avoid them spoiling the urban landscape of cities. If a family was admitted there, it was immediately split up. The rooms were crowded, there was no running water and hygiene problems, so people died of diseases. In workhouses life was hard: the kind of food that people were offered was very poor quality, the people who where admitted to workhouses were abandoned children, the mentally sick, the disabled and unmarried mothers. A workhouses provide: a place to live, to work and earn money, food and education for children, even though they were often exploited for work. -VICTORIAN SCHOOLS: The schools for the poor offered very poor quality education and the schools were in really bad conditions. Classrooms were overcrowded with children and they were sit in wooden desks. They were sad and angry because they were punished corporal and psychological very often. They didn't use pencils or pens, but they used slates. Most of the learning was based on copying from the blackboard in order to learn a way to write by hand. -AGE OF REFORMS: Social reforms were introduced by the government during the victorian age: Great Reform Act: the right to vote and the right to vote was gradually extended to the middle classes, and later on to the working classes. Factory Act: law that limited the working time for children, because child labour was a social problem. They continued to be exploited, but the government apparently passed laws and acts to protect their rights. -Inventions during the Victorian era: photography, postage stamps, the first Christmas cards, the Morse Code, rubber tyres, tarmac, the sewing machine, concrete, the post boxes, petrol, ice cream, the first public flushing toilet, steel, oil, bicycle, telephone, electric camera...etc. Not all of these inventions took place in England but most of them did. -IRISH POTATO FAMINE: potato crops went really bad, there was a kind of disease attacking plants. In Ireland the potato crops failed, which were the major form of revenue for Irish people, their economy was based on them. Because of this famine a lot of people died and raised the number of poor. But the English government didn't do so much to help Ireland. -Queen Victoria was the only sovereign in England to have a double crown: she was queen of England and Empress of India. It was an important colony that gave England raw materials, gold and precious stones. But Indian people were submitted bu English people. -THE GREAT EXHIBITION: it was like a great expo set up by Prince Albert. lt was made to show off the progress, the power, the economy and wealth that England had made to the rest of the world. -important scientists theories were published: Charles Darwin published 2 fundamental theories: -THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION: he carried out studies showing that is the nature the one who decides which forms of lives become more weak and then die. Victorian politicians applied Darwin’s theory to society. —) SOCIAL DARWINISM: a phenomenon