Upload
jerome-burke
View
222
Download
4
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
THE VICTORIAN NOVEL
DEAN CRISTINA &
ZANABONI FEDERICA
5A
THE VICTORIAN AGE. TRENDS
PURITANISM
UTILITARIANISM
DARWINISM
Progress
Wealth
Scientific approach
Main themes of the Victorian novel
• The birth of a new class: the working class• Poverty • The industrial system of production • The clash between classes• The desire to rise and the fear of falling down the
social ladder• The growth of towns• The struggle for democracy • Education and children• Middle class family life
The reading public was predominantly middle class and in particular lower middle class.
Characteristic elements in Victorian fiction:
REALISM derived from the 18th century narratives
The exaggeration of the tones
PATHOSTHE GROTESQUE
SettingThe Victorian novel is generally set in an anonymous city
Charactersthey give shape to anonymous masses so that they are recognizable
They are considered real
Each chapter was anxiously awaited
Literature becomes an object of mass consumption (of industrial production)
Everything we have said applies perfectly to Charles Dickens.
OLIVER TWIST
TITLE
CHARACTERIZATION
SETTING
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE
THEME/S
READER’S POSITION
PUBLISHING AND ITS RELATION TO THE NOVEL
MESSAGE
STORY LINE
Analysis of an extract from…
Children, poverty, hypocrisy of Victorian society
Dinning hall of the work house, an institution for poor people
Actions and words
Third person omniscient narrator, telling and showing
Oliver and his companions can only eat small rations of food and they are hungry. Oliver asks for more and all are stupefied
It is the name of the protagonist
The reader is not free because of the narrator’s filter
The creation of a tragic-comic vision of the Victorian world through irony and exaggeration
It is an extract from chapter 2, published in 1837-38
NICHOLAS NICKLEBYTITLE
CHARACTERIZATION
SETTING
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE
THEME/S
READER’S POSITION
PUBLISHING AND ITS RELATION TO THE NOVEL
MESSAGE
STORY LINE
Analysis of an extract from…
Children, poverty, education, hypocrisy of the Victorian society
Dotheboys Hall, a school for boys in Yorkshire
Actions, words and thoughts
Third person omniscient narrator, telling and showing
After breakfast the boys go to their class. Nicholas Nickleby is ready for his first teaching day. Mr Squeers shows him his modes of education
It is the name of the protagonist
The reader is not free because of the narrator’s filter
The creation of a tragic-comic vision of the educational institutions of the Victorian period through irony and exaggeration
It is from one of the early chapters, published in 1838-39
HARD TIMESTITLE
CHARACTERIZATION
SETTING
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE
THEME/S
READER’S POSITION
PUBLISHING AND ITS RELATION TO THE NOVEL
MESSAGE
STORY LINE
Analysis of an extract from…
Industrialization, utilitarianism and poverty
Coketown
Narrator’s description and Bounderby’s words
Third person omniscient narrator, telling and showing
Mr Bounderby is described in his physical aspect, personality and his life. He is now a rich man and he is proud to be a self-made man. He is speaking with Mrs Gradgrind
The reader is not totally free because of the narrator’s filter
An example of self-made man who rises the social ladder, according to the Puritan ethic
It is from the first book (chapter 4), published in 1854
It refers to the difficult period in which the story takes place
To conclude …
presence of the typical themes of the Victorian Novel.
themes from the ill-treatment of children to the problems of industrialization
use of pathos and the grotesque.
memorable characters
Dickens wants to condemn
the social injustices of his time