Social Class In Jane Eyre And The Victorian Novels
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Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre novel
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Social Class and the Victorian Novels Social class is one of the prominent issues that took a high place within the Victorian novels. Differences and inequalities in social class have been discussed and criticized in all novels that we have been studied so far; Jane Eyre, Emma, and even Oliver Twist. It seems that those differences caused sufferance and oppression to a plenty of people during the Victorian era. In Jane Eyre, the heroine was an orphan poor woman from a low social class, who fell in love with a man who is exactly the opposite of her in all standards. Rochester, a rich man belongs to a high class. The lovers in this novels will live a love story that is filled with obstacles due to the social class, religion and principles, and independence that Jane looked for. Although all those obstacles they will marry in the end of the novel, but after a long self-journey of education, independence, wealth and high class that Jane will acquire later. As we can see, she couldn’t marry him until she became the same of him. Before that,
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In The Awakening, Kate Chopin’s protagonist Edna Pontellier possesses “that outward existence which conforms, the inward life that questions.” Similarly, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and its titular character obeys social norms of the time period, while questioning those social norms as she grows up in a middle to upperclassmen-like society in 1830’s England. Jane Eyre conforms and adapts to society while inwardly questioning it in the many periods in her life, including her childhood with the Reeds, her education at Lowood, and her relationship with Rochester at Thornfield, teaching her important values in life as she progresses and grows in the novel. In the beginning of the novel, readers are shown that Jane Eyre has a very critical viewpoint
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In Pride and Prejudice, social classes divided the country of England into wealthy and poor, and each class was to abide by certain social rules. Usually, the poor and the wealthy were not meant to intertwine in marriage but they could speak and dance at balls that were hosted. In the famous English romance novel by Jane Austen, five girls must marry off before their father dies and lose their house to their cousin, Mr. Collins. The plot of the novel is set between the second-born daughter, Elizabeth Bennet and a wealthy man by the name of Mr. Darcy. Both of them come off as prejudicial to each other at the beginning, with Mr. Darcy telling Mr. Bingley that he won’t dance with a woman that has been eyed by another man.
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In addition, class is complex, it is a way to label everyone. Class is portrayed in this novel by the wealth and standing one were in at this time there were the high class and the middle class standings. The difference between these social classes creates tension and prejudice. Those in the same social classes would interact and soon get married. They kept their boundarie, while families in the middle class could communicate with those in the higher class but would not be treated with the same respect as those of the higher class.
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Social Class Social class assumed a significant part in the general public portrayed in Charles Dickens ' Great Expectations. Social class decided the way in which an individual was dealt with and their right to gain entrance to instruction. Yet, social class did not characterize the character of the single person. Numerous characters were dealt with contrastingly on account of their social class in Great Expectations. Seeing the difference between how the poor and the rich were dealt with will give a clearer understanding of the amount of social class mattered.
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