Different between rich and poor people in Victorian Age

Different between rich and poor people in Victorian Age

There was a big different between rich and poor people. So there were many class conflicts and the main social reforms of the age were:
• 1834 factory act that said how many hours people had to work;
• 1864 mines act that said that children and women couldn’t work in mines;
• 1870 elementary education act that guaranteed primary education level to everyone;
• 1875 public health act that improved public health.
Literacy increased significantly in the period. The most significant development in publishing was the growth of the periodical. Novels and long works were in fact published in serial form.

In this period there were many philosopical movements:
• respectabilty, charity, philantropy;
• liberalism, utilitarism (only things usefull had to be considered).
This was also the period of imperialism. Britain was the greatest empire ever, in fact in 1914 ¼ of the world belonged to Britain. [Imperialism became a mission because British people wanted to spread christianity.]

Pride and prejudice

Jane Austen in Pride and prejudice used a 3th personal narrator, who is omniscient. There’s also a shifting point of view, because there are more than one points of view. Furthermore Austen used letters, the work in fact a sort of epistolary novel, mixed with descriptions and dialogues, used to characterize characters. The novel was publishied in 1830, in a full romantic period. It was also the period of the industrial revolution, but Austen set the novel in the countrygentry, without mentioning the real contest of the age.