Victorian compromise and victorian novel

The Age of Reforms

The The 1830s are called the “age of reform” because in this period there are a lot of reforms which regard poor people and workers. The most important reform is:

The poor law amendment act which introduced the creation of workhouses. Workhouses are places in which there are poor people who work in factories and in exchange have food and a place to live. The conditions in these workhouses were so difficult, because they wanted people who lived there to try to improve their own conditions.

In this period also began the building of a network of railways all over the country which connected countries with cities.

The Complexity of the Victorian Era

The Victorian age was so complex because, in this era there is the coexistence of poverty and progress. Bourgeois and nobles practiced the principle of respectability, which is composed by the use of good manners and self-care. This kind of behavior is hypocritical, because they used the excuse of respectability to ignore the abnormal conditions of poor people.
In the Victorian age women were not considered at the same level of men, in fact female chastity was practiced, and single women with a child were considered as “fallen women”. Also sexuality was censored because it doesn't respect the principle of respectability.

The Relationship Between Writer and Reader

The Victorian age starts the relationship between the writer and the reader. Most novels were published in the instalments of periodicals, so the writer has to maintain the interest of the weather in order to keep them buying the periodical. Victorians were more interested in prose than other forms of literature.
In Victorian novels there is always the voice of an omniscient narrator who says what behaviour is wrong and what is right; and in the end of the novel there is the explanation of all the events that are not explained during the narration of the story.

There are many types of novels:

• Novel of manners: it's closer to 19th century models and it describes the situation of a particular class or situation.
• Humanitarian novel: an example are the novels by Charles Dickens who combine humour with Serious themes like the exploitation of children like in Oliver Twist.
• Novel of formation: an example is David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and this type of Novel talks about the development of the character.
• Literary nonsense: It's an example, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll who created a new universe with different social rules and conventions and where time and space lost their real meaning.

The Challenges of Women Writers

Most of the writers and readers were women from the Middle class, because they used to spend a lot of time at home. But for women it was not easy to publish a book because there were disparities. So they used male pseudonyms in order to see their work printed.