Notes of May, 2nd 2012

The Victorian Novel

The Victorian novel is a sort of container of everything regarding the social life, especially its problems related to all the changes and phenomena ( such as the urbanisation) happened because of the Industrial Revolution.

The possibility of lost the position in the society was a rooted fear  during the Victorian Age also because it based on three strong trends of thought: Utilitarianism, Darwinism and Puritanism. In the novel these trends of thought found their expression.

There were no social institution that could take care of the people.

The narrator was an omniscient one, who filters reader's opinions and ideas. According to the Manichean philosophy, the intelligent reader is aware of the fact that episodes are told by the narrator in a particular way in order to make the reader ally with one character ( seen as a good person) instead that another ( considered a bad person). 

The Victorian idea of family was a father's centred one: the role of the woman was to generate children and to look after them.