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PROSE CONTEXT, Female Health Marie Stopes - Advocates for Birth…

PROSE CONTEXT

DALLOWAY

Women in society

Suffrage Movement→(ette - meaning little)

Voting rights→1918 - Over 30, 1928 - Over 21

Literary→The Vindication for the Rights of Women -  1792 by Mary Wollstonecraft - argues for the vote and that women are not inferior, just lacked education.

New Woman Movement - 1890s

  - proposed women should be free to live their lives with the same freedom as men 
  - A Woman who Did - Grant Allen (1895) book following woman who refuses to marry
  - A Dolls House - Ibsen 1879 - marriage.

During War→many women employed in factories - given wage and a degree of independence.

Class in Society

The Married woman property act of 1870→gives women legal rights to be legal owners of their own property and inheritance,

Elementary education act 1870→all children to be educated between ages of 5 - 12.

Education Act of 1918→compulsory for all to be educated until age of 14

Literary Context→Lady Chatterly's Love - D.H.Lawrence 1928 and Ulysses - Joyce 1922

Social system quote→to criticise the social system, to show it at work, at it’s most intense"

Wealth→Two thirds of the wealth of the country remained in the ownership of 1% of the population.

War/Post War Attitudes

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First World War→1914-1918
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Russia→Russian Revolution of 1917 - Marxist ideas

Spanish Flu→indicated by mentions of illness in the text - major loss of life.

Conservatism→Post War Conservatism, idea of returning to life as normal.

Younger Generation→lost many or felt guilt at being too young to go

Benefit→for manufacturers and suppliers of goods needed for war

Modernism

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Cubism→artists e.g. Picasso
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Technology→First birth control, radios

Modernist Literature→change and complexity - departure from structure

Religion→Many questioned how there could be a God during War.

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Darwinism→still thriving in society
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Woolf 1910 quote→Dec 1910 - 'On or about December 1910 human character changed' - some think refers to expressionism art exhibition.

Woolf - 1924 Mr Bennet and Mrs Brown Essay→"all human relations have shifted ... and when human relations change, there is at the same time a change in religion, conduct, politics and literature".

The Golden Bough→Sir James Frazer 1890 - depicts ancient mythology and gathering of religious systems historically in an anthropological study.

Bloomsbury Group

Group of Writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists, come from highly educated, upper class backgrounds - however wanted to change - can be seen as radicals/liberals

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HMS Dreadnaught Spoof.
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Unpopular opinions against military figures - such as Nelson, Gordon, Havelock, mentioned in the novel.

Life of Virginia Woolf

Childhood of Woolf

  - Father was literary figure historian and author of Dictionary of National Biography
  - Parents encouraged free thinking, literature and connection.
  - Talland House - Summer house in St Ives where she holidayed until 13 (Burton?)

Education

  - Studied at KCL (Greek, German and Latin)
  - Remained educated at home while brothers were at Cambridge.

Mental Illness

  - Woolf reported to hear birds singing in Greek after one of her early suicide attempts where she jumped from a window
  - PTSD - blanket diagnosis at the time - Woolf was probably suffering trauma from sexual abuse
  - Woolf - sexually abused by half brothers - institutionalised after death of her father in 1904. Drowned herself in 1941.

Hogarth Press→established with Leonard Woolf - published Freud and Eliot.

Personal Life→Affair with Vita Sackville-West in 1922 - two remained friends after end of Romantic affair.

Politics

  - 1929 - A Room of One's Own - explores role of women's role in in literature

Big Thinkers

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Freudian (psychoanalytical view)
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Woolf praised Sterne and Austen for having being interesting 'things themselves; in character itself; in the book itself'

Stream of Consciousness↓

Joyce and Proust's understanding of time

Forgoes traditional victorian structure and style.

Economy

1925 Gold Standard kept interest rates high from reintroduction by Churchill - keeping interest rates high and UK exports expendive

Coal resources depleted after the war -  Britain importing more coal than it was mining.

Lack of investment in new industry - Period of depression, deflation caused decline in the monarchy - created deeper contrast between classes

Mid 1920s - unemployment over 2 million.

Other female writers of the time

Mary Cholmondeley→Red Pottage (1899) - Mocks religious hypocrisy and narrowness of country life, was denounced from London Pulpit as Immoral.

Edith Wharton→Women endured happiness as a result from their limited positions in society and inadequacy of their marriages - known for her unhappy women

TESS

Religion

Clergy Responsibility→Funds village schools.

Clergy level of education→University, sometimes considered as removed from the lives of their parishioners

Dissatisfaction with the Anglican Church (official state church)→new religious movements began, particularly in the lower classes.

Life→Parishes were the centre of life, all would have recognised Christian religions and morals

Angel's Father→Thought to be modelled on Rev. Henry Moule of Fordingham- sons went to cambridge and influenced Hardy

Angel's Brothers→Examples of high churchmen, receive little sympathy from Hardy

Language of the Church→Most victorian authors heavily influenced by the King Hames Bible and Book of Common Prayer.

Rise of Evangelicalism→emphasis on piety and hard work - embraced by the middle class

Growth of Doubt

  - Philosophical ideas→viewed the world as being controlled by impersonal forces or no forces at all 
  - Growth of agnostics and atheist→in highly educated classes, seen as villainous
  - New liberal theological ideas→from Germany which challenged traditional beliefs about the Bible and Christ - in humanist terms
  - Geological Discoveries→made by Christian ministers - indicates world is much older than Bible suggests
  - Darwin→Growing acceptance of Darwin's Theory of Evolution 1859

Society

Social divisions of rural society

  - Lifeholders Law→Had land security as long as they lived. Seen in The Woodlanders for fortune reversal
  - Upwards/Downward Movement→Tess family downwardly mobile (see Great Depression) Alec Family upwardly due to economic boom and victorian industrialisation creating new money.
  - Modernism→Evident with the Crystal Palace in 1851 to exhibit the Words of Industry of all Nations

Education

  - Act of 1870 - created compulsory education between 5-13

Brazil

  - Immigration→intensified 71,000 Europeans emigrated to Brazil each year between 1877-1903 
  - Reasons for movement→Britain's demographic crisis due to population increase
  - Slavery→Abolished in 1850 created economic crisis with demand for agricultural workers.

Mechanisation of Farming

  - Began in 1790s→with invention of the threshing machine
  - Negative impact→on manual labour
  - The Poor Law Amendment Act→1834 relief of the poor through workhouses e.g. Tolpuddle near Hardy's home.
  - Dairy farms→Prospered as a result of the mechanisation of railways
  - Work contracts→became increasingly seasonal and temporary.

Modernisation

  - Hardy Authorial Voice→Aware of this historical setting and modernising audience
  - Movement→increasing movement of people looking for employment
  - Dispossession→of country people

Marriage

  - Intermarriage between classes→not easy or socially acceptable. Hardy married Emma above his social class, neither family accepted.

Female Prospects

  - Teaching→Could improve social and economic position

Authorial Context - Hardy

Public Hanging→Witnessed at 18 hanging of Elizabeth Martha Brown - working class women who murdered her violent husband in 1856 (banned in 1868)

Life

  - Origin→Raised in small rural village in Dorset
  - Mother→Educated Hardy until the age of 8
  - Marriage→Married Emma Gifford in 1874 then after her death Florence Dugdale in 1914.

Religion

  - Poem - The Dynasts→about Napoleonic wars making frequent philosophical comments - mentioning ideas of Fate and Destiny
  - Philosophical Ideas→Through London learnt about these new ideas, others from reading Literature
  - Own faith→States himself as a Christian who became an agnostic
  - National Mood→Optimistic against Hardy's pessimism due to the growth of the English Empire, History of industrial pre-eminence and belief in evolution and science. 
  - Dover Beach→Matthew Arnold's poem illustrates similar loss of the path of doubt. 
  - Paganism Hardy→"appropriate way to comprehend existence - but it is powerless against the encroachment of civilisation. 
  - Hardy describing his religion→churchy; not in an intellectual sense, but insofar as instincts and emotions ruled"
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Wessex

Two Valleys→Blackmoor vale and Frome valley - actually named in text - symbolic value.

Hardy's popularity→Came from him being a rural novelist, wanted to prove the humanity and individuality of the country people - unease of traditional against modern.

Dialect→Nuance of Tess in her psychological reasonings is above her level of intelligence, even though Hardy attempts to ratify this.

Quotes from Hardy

Nature Hardy Observations Notebook entry from 1876→“I sometimes look upon all things in inanimate Nature as pensive mutes”

Updated Nature Hardy's updated observations→"In spite of myself I cannot help noticing countenances and tempers in objects of scenery"

Purpose of art→"art is changing of the actual proportions and order of things, so as to bring out more forcibly than might otherwise be done that feature in them which appeals most strongly to the idiosyncrasy of the artist"

Happiness→"this planet does not supply the materials of happiness to higher existences"

Hardy's Literature

Mayor of Casterbridge→1886 - Themes of Regret, guilt, self destructurion, nature and past.

The Woodlanders→1887 criticises a society that values high status over good character and honest emotions.

Poetry

  - The Darkling Thrush→1900 - despair of modern temperament - dying of the old world - cannot replace old with the new. 
  - Wessex's Poems→Hardy's first collection of poems 51 poems set against the Bleak Setting of Dorset Landscape.

Publication history

Serial Form→1981 - in The Graphic (censored and serialised)

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Book form→Three volumes in 1891 
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Women's Rights

1866→First Mass Women's suffrage petition presented to the house of commons, signed by over 1500 people.

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1870→Married Woman's Property Act
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Working women→1871 - 4% of the population employed as servants - most of them women.

Female Health

Marie Stopes

  - Advocates for Birth Control and Contraception, in 1921 founded the UKs first instructional clinic for contraception.
  - Wrote 'Married Love' in 1918 - dealing with sex within marriage and how it works for women.

Educational Reform

Florence Nightingale - advocated for women's education to work as nurses

Harriet Martineau→Social reformer cited as first female sociologist. Educational reform needed for marriage need not be the object in life.

Girton College Cambridge - established 1869

Harriet Taylor Mill (first half of 1800s) - more radical than her husband John Stuart Mill in the degrading effect of women's economic dependence on men.

Time

BST Time Conference→1916 - made use of light

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Greenwich mean time→1884
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Henri Bergson→Pioneered idea of Duree.

Hacceity→Scotus - a property of being a unique and individual thing - Thisness or a nowness of a thing.

Politics

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Stanley Baldwin 1923-24
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Ramsey Macdonald 1924 - First Labour Leader for years

Irony of the novel - the conservative party is about to be replaced by the Labour Party

Early 20th Cent. Feminism and Precursors

Margaret Cavendish→Published under her own name - writing addressed subject of gender - first woman to attend a meeting at the royal society in London in 1667

Mary Wollstonecraft→A vindication on the rights of women 1792 - argues women are not inferior to men, just lack education

Novelists of 19th Cent

  - Jane Austen - views restrictions on middle class women's lives - imposed through marriage
  - Brontes - women's misery and frustration at the social system. Had to write under male pseudonyms.
  - Gaskell→Ruth addresses the issue of the fallen women, and double standards in Victorian era (1853)

Movement/Journeys

The Fiddler of the Reels→short story by Hardy - represents the working class train journey (based around excursions of the 1851 great exhibition) as horrible journeys with limited aspirations and possibilities.

Poor→Cannot travel due to economic injustice, stuck both physically and emotionally e.g. Esther Waters - George Moore

Setting

Time Period→First part of the long depression (1873-1879)

Talbothays→Depicted as ideal Marxist community - juxtaposition of Flintcomb-Ash

Working Class (peasant)

June 1883 The Dorsetshire Labourer→Rare foray into social - nearly political debate - something he avoided for most of his life.

Depression→Agricultural depression in Dorset from 1868-1902

Towns→During nineteenth century Britain became predominantly Urban (cities such as Birmingham, Manchester) Dickens depicts this.

The Life of the Peasantry→Idealised by Hardy - not depicting the society of the time, this historical reflection is juxtaposed by modern political and philosophical ideas.

Social Criticism

Most repeated phrase of social criticism of 19th cent.→"two nations" to describe rural and urban coined by Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli

Historical Context

The Dorsetshire Labourer→1883 an important atricle that showed a rare foray into social, nearly political debate - sets out describe the reality of rural working life as it is vanishing

Depression→Agricultural depression from 1868-1902. Tess represents the tragedy of the English Peasantry against its final struggle with capitalist farming.

Transformation of Landscape→Cities such as Birmingham and Manchester appeared, old cities (London, Liverpool, Bristol) grew majorly. Dickens' depicts these new often squalid urban conditions - Hard Times.

Poor Law Amendment Act→1834 - instigated relief o poor through Workhouses, resulted in example such as Tolpuddle near Hardy's home

Population→Doubled during this period and transitioned from agriculture to secondary, industrial, industry.

Childhood and Education

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Born in June 1840 - Dorset
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Educated by Mother until age of Eight
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Often ill as a child
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Became an apprentice at a local architect due to financial pressures.

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Very successful as an artefact.
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Hardy and His Wife

Emma Hardy - member of London Society for Women's suffrage.

Big Thinkers

Nietzsche - criticisms of traditional European mortality and religion. Often associated with Marx and Freud.

Coleridge/Wordsworth→naturalism owes to meditative style of Romantic lyrics

Bentham→Acknowledged an industrialised society could produce clashes between individuals - suggested a Liberal State.

John Stuart Mill→bridge between classic liberalism and modern liberalism - notion that an individuals actions should always be tolerated - unless it could be demonstrated that these actions would harm others.

Darwin→Evolution - destroyed religious views asserted further by Herbet Spencer.

David Hume→'the mind is nothing but a kind of theatre where perceptions ... lead to extreme scepticism about the unity of the self.

Hardy's Link→"My pages show harmony of view with Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, Comte, Hume, Mill, and others