Although this was only my first time reading Pride and Prejudice, I can honestly say it has been added to my list of favorites! I somehow have managed to avoid all of the movies and the novel until this point in my life, but I am glad I finally read it! As illustrated by some of my peers’ blog posts, Jane Austen tackles many different aspects of the expectations placed upon women in the 1800’s. One of these reoccurring themes in Pride and Prejudice that greatly impacts Elizabeth as well as the other women around her is the presence, emphasis, and importance of a woman’s reputation.

It is absolutely no secret that women played a much different role in society in this time period than they do today. Although expectations and reputations do still catch up with women nowadays, it was even more important in the time of the novel for women to remain inside their respective roles. Breaking societal norms could entirely make or break a woman’s chance of participating important things such as marriage, and it could bring shame to the entire family. Never marrying would forever burden the family financially and shame could ruin every aspect of their lives. Reputation in terms of social class is also important for marriage prospects. By marrying someone with more money, the reputation of the woman, as well as her family, would increase. But with a poor reputation, this would be impossible to achieve, and the woman’s social class would remain the same or even fall.

The strong impact of a woman’s reputation is illustrated through Lydia’s decision to go with Wickham. When Lydia elopes and lives with Wickham out of wedlock, Austen emphasizes how catastrophic this is for not only Lydia but as well as the other Bennet sisters and the entire family. Elizabeth condemns Lydia’s choice, and she goes as far as to say that “she is lost forever” if she does not marry Wickham. Jane writes to Elizabeth, “Imprudent as a marriage between Mr. Wickham and our poor Lydia would be, we are now anxious to be assured it has taken place, for there is but too much reason to fear they are not gone to Scotland.” Jane wishes for the wedding because it looks a lot worse for Lydia and Wickham to run off unmarried than it does for them to run off married. Jane is conscious of how this decision will impact her and Elizabeth’s futures if the marriage has not happened. By not marrying Wickham and living with him, Lydia challenges social norms, but in a straightforward manner that is not accepted by society at all. It is fine for Elizabeth to challenge female expectations in little ways such as dirtying her skirt or being vocal situations where women normally would be silent, but Lydia’s decision has the potential to create a huge mark on the family reputation. This may not seem like a big deal from today’s viewpoint, but this decision could have pulled the entire family down. A woman truly was as valued as her reputation would allow, and Austen illustrates the weight reputation played on women perfectly. If Darcy had not paid Wickham the money for the wedding, Elizabeth would have been plagued by her sister’s decision, unable to marry well due to the shame it would bring, and the novel would probably have an entirely different ending.

Although I was planning on responding to this prompt before the trip occurred, I am glad I decided to save this response for after our return. The trip heightened my appreciation for Dickens’ works, and with the added knowledge from our tours, visits, and sessions, I think this response will be more whole than it ever could have ever possibly been before.

Dickens rarely shies away from touching on social themes in his fictional works. He develops characters and fictional plots to represent real injustices and horrors of those living in his time. Although these characters can sometimes come off as flat, they are still effective at illuminating the conditions of the lower classes to the often ignorant upper classes. One common theme he focuses on in two of his most famous works, “A Christmas Carol” and Oliver Twist, is social injustice, specifically towards children. In the time of his texts, lower class children often found themselves trapped by their parents’ debts and were forced to work. This exact thing happened to Charles Dickens due to the debts of his father, John Dickens. Due to Charles Dickens experiences with poverty and child labor, I think it is safe to say he had a particular soft spot in his heart for children trapped in these positions, and his own experiences strongly influenced his choice to focus on these subjects. For this reason, he represented social injustices towards children, and he created ignorant characters of upper class citizens to represent what he saw happening.

In “A Christmas Carol,” Scrooge is not condemned for being a miserable member of society, but rather he is condemned for ignoring the poor, refusing to help, and caring only about his own wellbeing. In one of the most famous scenes of the text, Scrooge denies charity collectors.

“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.

“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”

“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”

This scene speaks to the position of the upper social classes towards the poor. To them, the issue of poverty was not one they were involved in nor obligated to assist in relieving. From here, Dickens later uses these exact words against Scrooge as the Spirit of Christmas Present illuminates the insensitivity of his comments while showing him suffering children. Scrooge asks, “Have they no refuge or resource?” The Spirit responses only with Scrooges own inhumane responses from before. These two scenes particularly work well at drawing the connections between the insensitivity of the upper class and the unjust conditions of poor children at the time.

In Oliver Twist, Dickens similarly presents injustices towards children in poverty by members of the upper classes. Child labor in the workhouse is one of the main focuses of Oliver Twist. Dickens illustrates the dark, unbearable conditions children were forced to endure all throughout the novel. Mr. Bumble represents the larger population of people running the workhouses as well as larger populations involved in the mistreatment of children. Although Mr. Bumble is a working man, he cannot comprehend the situations the children below his power are in. He is ignnorant to their suffering entirely. Mr. Bumble threatens all different kinds of cruel punishments on Oliver for asking for more food. Mr. Bumble expects for Oliver and other victims of the workhouse to be delinquents and unworthy of better treatment. These misconceptions have been fed to people of the upper classes as well as to the enforcers of the unjust rules. At the end of the novel, Mr. Bumble ironically meets his fate by being forced to live in the workhouse he used to rule over. By presenting this twist of fate, Dickens show what he thinks justice would be. By ending Mr. Bumble’s role in the story in this way, Dickens implies that the horror that has been placed upon these vulnerable children will come back to haunt those that enforced the cruel treatments. This also includes the bystanders who did nothing to help. I cannot imagine a more just ending for Mr. Bumble’s storyline as it perfectly places him with what he deserves.

Mr. Bumble’s fate is a bit harsher than Scrooge’s fate, but this is because of Mr. Bumble being unable to realize the truth about the poor. Scrooge is able to change his stance when faced with the suffering children and help part of the poor population, while Mr. Bumble continues to agonize the children. Both “A Christmas Carol” and Oliver Twist work to present the mistreatment of the poor and illustrate the role of upper class ignorance in the injustices.

Although I do not particularly consider myself a Charles Dickens fan, Oliver Twist is one of the most impactful novels I have ever read. I can vividly remember being horrified the first time I read it in high school. Dickens powerfully describes some of the most gruesome conditions faced by the poor in nineteenth-century London, and by doing so, his novel provides modern-day readers at a glimpse of how dehumanized the lower classes were in England at the time. Dickens develops a realistic tale, and through his vivid descriptions, the horrific results of extreme social stratification are highlighted as a key theme.

The representations presented in Oliver Twist substantially relate to the British Poor Laws of the nineteenth-century. These laws forced families in poverty into workhouses, which were comparable to prisons. Despite a decent size of the English population experiencing poverty, the general gap between classes created a lack of understanding which created the laws of the time. Dickens is sure to create a bold distinction between the classes through his characters. As represented in the novel, Dickens believed workhouses amplified the worst attributes in people of power. This is illustrated by characters like Sowerberry and Mr. Bumble. The power is used by them to hold the lower classes hostage. Descriptions of Sowerberry do not necessarily paint him as inherently evil, but rather as a character who is insensitive to people grieving and he does nothing to help those who he watches to suffer. This makes him a very human character and relates him to many readers of both then and now. Sowerberry thinks of Oliver in terms of profit rather than thinking of what would best help Oliver. Mr. Bumble likes power and outwardly uses it to manipulate people. As he reigns over the workhouses, he does so in an inhumane way. He meets his fate at the end of the novel, but he ultimately represents the hypocritical “charitable” institutes.

In contrast, Dickens paints a more sympathetic image of those experiencing poverty and those who have no other choice, this is mainly developed through Oliver. Oliver’s spirit remains although he is forced to live on unsustainable amounts of food and sleep in shameful sleeping quarters. Dickens highlights Oliver’s spirit and innocence in a manner that illustrates the good nature of the poor, despite the cruel treatment from the other classes. When Oliver is born, the narrator says he could be the “the child of a nobleman or a beggar.” When the authorities intervene and wrap him in the identity-erasing parish clothes he is “badged and ticketed, and fell into his place at once—a parish child—the orphan of a workhouse.” This illustrates clearly that Oliver had no chance against the authorities, and they stepped in when he was vulnerable to force him into a life where he has no other choice. Oliver develops into a realistic symbol for those suffering in poverty at the time, and he serves as a symbol of nineteenth-century poverty for modern-day readers.

Dickens also does not glorify the conditions the boys in Oliver Twist are forced through, rather he describes them for what they were: filthy and miserable. This keeps poverty from looking desirable, and it shows the desperate need for change, pulling on the hearts of nineteenth-century readers. From the beginning of the book, readers are set with the conditions when they read about how the children are treated. Dickens writes parish children

“had contrived to exist upon the smallest possible portion of the weakest possible food, it did perversely happen in eight and a half cases out of ten, either that it sickened from want and cold, or fell into the fire from neglect, or got half-smothered by accident; in any one of which cases, the miserable little being was usually summoned into another world.”

Although this is only one of the many descriptions Dickens provides of the conditions in Oliver Twist, and it speaks to the nature of poverty in London at the time. Dickens does not shy away from showing the grueling nature of these conditions, highlighting the raw reality of poverty through his use of characters representing social classes and grueling descriptions of workhouse conditions.

Works Referenced:

Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. 1838.  <http://literatureproject.com/oliver-twist/index.htm>.

Richardson, Ruth. Oliver Twist and the Workhouse. 2014. Web. <https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/oliver-twist-and-the-workhouse>.

B5: Wordsworth’s Representation of London in “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge”

“Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” by William Wordsworth depicts a sleeping and arising London in the early morning. The narrator appears to be in awe of the city and the new nature the morning brings. It focuses on the beauty of the city, and a small second of the narrator’s life in which everything seems perfectly in place. This poem attributes value to the moments in life when everything slows down, and to the peace that comes as a result of these moments.

Based off of how glorified Wordsworth’s poem is, it is safe to conclude that he has positive relationship with London overall. The narrator in “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge” sounds like a traveler experiencing the scenic quality of the city for the first time or a person who being shocked back to an understanding of life just by passing over the Westminster Bridge. If Wordsworth had lived in London all his life, he most likely would have already been accustomed to the scene, and he would not have perceived this scene in the same sense. Since he is looking at the city with fresh eyes, he reproduces the city as a beautiful world. Wordsworth’s word choice reflects his impressed response. He uses words such as beautiful, majesty, and fair to describe the city, and his reaction to the scene is described as an unmatchable deep calm feeling. He goes as far to say that people who do not recognize the beauty are “dull.” Wordsworth’s awe and appreciation for London could not be any more explicitly stated.

The structure of the poem also works to emphasize the glory of London by drawing attention to the elaborate descriptions. The poem is structured as a Petrarchan sonnet, consisting of fourteen lines divided into two unequal sections. The first half of the poem, differentiates the beauty of the scene from anything else the narrator has ever experienced. It also describes the scene, and creates a foundation for the reader for the second half of the poem which looks at the effect of London on the narrator. By using this structure, Wordsworth successfully illustrates both the scene of London and the Thames from the bridge while emphasizing the unparalleled calming nature of the experience.

This poem draws out the idea of cities being just as beautiful and inspirational as rural areas and nature. The final line of the poem reflects this theme. The line, “And all that mighty heart is lying still!” is a paradox by itself. But, it connects London to existing as a metaphorical, majestic heart of the country. In the early morning, when London is still, the peace the beauty provokes is comparable to the feeling being surrounded by nature can induce. Since a lot of Wordsworth’s other works focus on nature, this comparison is justified as he speaks about London in a comparable way.

Personally, I related this poem to my own previous travels. As a visitor in any new area, I often feel similarly astonished by scenes with immense beauty. The first time I ever traveled to New York City, I can remember passing over the bridges entering the city, and being entirely in awe, especially since I was used to rural America. Yet, the people in the city, although very proud to be New Yorkers, seem to be so accustomed to life there that the wonder is gone. Wordsworth represents his relationship to the city in a manner relatable to any traveler or visitor to a new area, and his stylistic choices further emphasize the overwhelming calmness of these serene moments.

B3: “Close Reading” of Poverty in Gustave Dore’s Art

For a bit of practice doing “close readings” on images, I decided to analyze a photo from Gustave Dore’s London: A Pilgrimage collection for this blog post. The image I selected is titled ‘A City Thoroughfare.’ For reference, I attached a link to the image.  The first thing I noticed when looking at the image is that a lot is happening; it is a chaotic scene. People are in carriages side-by-side, the street is filled with other people on foot, and the two rows of buildings on either side frame all that is happening. Everyone is trapped on this one street. The style is very shadowed; the lines between individuals are not distinct. Shading is heavily used. It appears to be blended and blurred on purpose. No individual looks like the center of the piece. Rather, it appears that the chaos is spotlighted over the individual. Only lower-class citizens are presented. Identifiable people in the image are all working class. Identifiable individuals include policemen, men moving large boxes, carriage drivers, and children crammed into the top of a carriage. The rest of the people seem to just be a mass, stretching the whole way to the end of the view.

The image is very dark in physical composition and tone. The sketch has no ray of light or any type of hope presented. It is only dark. For the most part, the individual is unidentifiable; it is just the mass of people presented. This represents the lower-class as a group rather than as individual people, showing the dehumanization of this social class. On the right side of the image, the faces that can be seen are crammed into small areas, and although their expressions are not entirely present, the ones that are presented appear to be in disgust or pain. The hustling street does not look like somewhere glorified, rather it appears stifling and painful. No one looks like they want to be there, and nothing about it is comfortable. This is the dark side of London that tourists and the upper-classes avoid.

The depiction serves as a raw look at lower-class lives, and it shows these people as an indistinguishable group on a busy street. The chaos shows how the lower-class was forced to live uncomfortably, in pain, and was valued less than the upper-class citizens who would never dare to be trapped in such a congested street. The image evokes feelings of disorientation as there are not very many people who stand out in the image, nor are there very many ways to determine the location of this street in relation to the rest of London. It looks at London in a very realistic and unglorified manner. If anything, it shows the extreme side of poverty in London. The dark nature demonstrations how the social hierarchy erased the individual in mid-Victorian London, and it places the viewer in an uncomfortable position of viewing the lower-class’ suffering.

Dore, Gustave. London: A Pilgrimage: ‘A City Thoroughfare’. British Library, London. Web. <https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/london-illustrations-by-gustave-dor>.