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Victorian Literature, Culture, and Power, 51gfHNvZWlL, GUEST_c5f63714-f163…
Victorian Literature, Culture, and Power
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Empire by Nathan Hensley
- explains how the British viewed their colonies as being part of an empire
- the word empire is one that has a connotation of power especially of people or a territory
-Empire to them meant the land had now become part of Britain due to the creation of a treaty or by conquest
- brought about the "white savior" complex
- Britain felt it was their duty to help these "uncivilized" countries modernize
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- Ayesha rules over her empire through power
- her power comes to her from the torture she subjects people to such as the Amahagger men
- when explaining the methods of torture to Holly Ayesha states that the torture ensures the Amahagger remain in line keeping them fearful of the power she has over them
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While mainly being an adventure story, She also incorporated romantic relationships
- Ustane develops an immediate attraction and love for Leo and Ustane's love for Leo
-The attraction comes from Leo's physical appearance
- Her attraction to Leo is a very deep attraction
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Jane finds her freedom of individuality while receving the love, care and acceptance she desires through the connections she makes with Helen and Ms. Temple
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However, as much as Jane wants her freedom she faces the dilemma of domestic servitude side of herself and instead must learn to find a balance between her yearn for freedom and societies expectations of domesticity
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Early on in the story, Margaret Hale begins to present qualities of independency and difference compared to most victorian women when modeling shawls for Aunt Shaw’s and the guest
has more amusement in the reaction and interest the women have for the shawls than the shawls themselves
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Throughout the story Margarett challenges what the ideal woman would be taking on the role of the head of the house when her family moves
Margarett continues to take on the burdens of others which is both typical and non typical of women during the time
women were expected to be emotional scape goats for their husbands, always listening to the problems but never speaking their mind, Margarett however takes on the emotion burdens of those around her while also make decisions for them and providing advice
Connects to Jayne Eyre in certain ways such as Jayne developing her own thoughts and beliefs but still having somewhat of the more traditional victorian woman values of servitude
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During the Victorian Era women were not able to voice their thoughts and opinions and were forced to suppress them leaving women in the background of men's lives "repression operated as a sentence to disappear, but also as an injunction to silence, an affirmation of non existence" (Foucalt, 4).
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Margaret, although coming from a lower class in the countryside, lives in the upper-middle-class with her extended family; because of this she was able to learn upper-class manners and values allowing her to be more widely accepted
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Although Margarett does not entirely identify with the upper class, due to the money she inherits towards the end of the novels she now has a type of individualism and freedom in her life choices that she would not have had in the lower class
"Victorian domesticity was proverbially a refuge from the rough and tumble of a newly volatile economy, but the ideal was itself a marker of material success--it required income sufficient to exempt a woman from paid labor--and at the same time could not seal off a host of social anxieties" (Adams, 51)
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Indian Ink by Susan Meyer
- in one instance touches on the connection between femininity and race in Jane Eyre
- Bertha is described as being a "native subject" by Jane
-Meyer states that this description puts Bertha as being in between a human and an animal
- This takes away Bertha's humanity and femininity
The amount of femininity a woman possessed or presented played a large role in how she was perceived in society. Victorian novels meant for women tried to encourage this femininity through marriage plots and domestic life
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The Woman Question by Ellis and Ruskin touches on this concept through the lens of Jayne in Jayne Eyre
- reading points out how Jayne is frustrated with how society paints women and the way a woman should act
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Male Novels
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Primitive, allowed men to show how manly they were
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Free-spirited and independent, educated and uninterested in marriage and children, the figure of the New Woman threatened conventional ideas about ideal Victorian womanhood.
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the "New Woman" wanted to create her own path in life allowing her to be independent both financially and socially. She did not like the idea of having to rely on a man to sustain her way of life
"But the new lovers will both work and will be the happier for both working" (Kains-Jackson, 57)
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Both Basil and Ustane develop deep emotional attractions for other people due to their physical appearances
Basil is then influence by Dorian so much he is changed as a painter “He is all my art to me now.” Basil is so in love with Dorian that he worships him and his best painting is a portrait of Dorian
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FEMININITY
"Female writing--writing that was considered appropriate for or could be written by women-- in fact designated itself as feminine, which meant that other writing, as implication, was understood as male" (Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel, Armstrong, 470).
"In the burgeoning empire of the Victorian Britain, 'femininity' was a category of race as well as gender..." (Everywhere and Nowhere: Sexuality in the Victorian Novel, Dever, 161).
Victorian Novels, such as Jane Eyre and Her, incorporated topics of colonialism into their plots in order to touch on the events that were happening during the time period
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Indian Ink by Susan Meyer
- During the time of writing Jane Eyre British colonies in the West Indies were beginning to fail
- Through characters such as Bertha Meyer believes Bronte was hoping to bring to light a critique of Britains history with both slavery and colonialism
However, when groups did fight back, instead of aid from others they received backlash and hate for not accepting the "help" and "resources" the colonizers were providing them with
"Only if we appreciate just how genuinely many Britons believed that they and their country were performing a nobly duty can we begin to make sense of the feelings of outraged surprise and betrayal...that erupted when subjugated peoples periodically rose up against British control" (Rudyard Kipling, 1638).
White Savior Complex
"In the words of Frantz Fanon, among the first thinkers rigorously to interrogate the place of culture in colonial societies: 'The colonial world is a Manichean world. It is not enough for the settler to delimit physically, that is to say with the help of the army and the police force, the place of the native. As if to show the totalitarian character of colonial exploitation the settler paints the native as a sort of quintessence of evil' (Canon Schmitt, 10).
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"Hundred of thousands of workers had migrated to industrial towns, where they lived in horribly crowded, unsanitary housing and labored very long hours-- fourteen a day or more-- at very low wages. Employers often preferred to hire women and chidlren, who worked for en less money than men" (Industrialism: Progress or Decline, 1556)
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"The Leaders of Industry, if Industry is ever to be led, are virtually the Captains of the World; if there be no nobleness in them, there will never be an Aristocracy more" (Carlyle, 4).
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"As a rule, inverts had no desire to be different from what they are..." (Ellis, 329).
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