The Victorian Novel - 1830-1900

The Victorian Novel

Victorian Prose, as well as Poetry, reflected the spiritual uncertainty, the economic ills, and the moral problems of the day.
a) The historical and social background
In 1829, Catholics were admitted to Parliament; and in 1832, the Reform Act enfranchised thousands of men and so allowed them to make themselves heard in Parliament. Scientific discoveries resulted in further unemployment. As a consequence, the gulf between the few rich and the many poor was widened. Factory production caused human exploitation, child labour, and mass misery. Women often worked 14 or 16 hours a day in the coal mines, crawling on their hands and knees in the narrow passages, like beast of burden, drawing their loaded cars.
b) The reaction against the social evil
1. Laws were passed for the protection of women and children
2. A poor law was voted to assist the unemployed, and workshops were created
3. A philanthropic movement spread throughout the country in favour of the poor and the destitute
4. Writers denounced the evils of the day and pictured the lives of the humbles, thus creating the social novel
5. Chief novelists of the period are: Charles Dickens, W.M. Thackeray, Charles Kingsley, Mrs Gaskell, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, George Eliot, George Meredith and to some extent Thomas Hardy.
The plot of the novels was generally very long and complicated by many sub-plots: the writer also wanted to give a marked impression of reality so that he presented not only the adventures of the main characters, but also those of the secondary ones.

Thackeray does not call forth bursts of rollicking laughter, like Dickens; nor does he open so wide the gates of tears. But his gentle and kindly satire is exquisitely humorous, and simple, direct pathos of extraordinary power.
Dickens's pathos, find her origin in a heart-felt sympathy for all the wronged, for all the victims of life; neither can he sternest-minded reader remain unperturbed by his high spirits and inexhaustible humour, everywhere present and always delightfully blended in the writings of Dickens
The peculiar charm of Miss Brontë's works arise from a passionate sincerity of feeling combined with great directness and beauty of expression. Her characters are drawn from life; in fact all her novels are more or less autobiographical.
George Eliot delights in painting plain and ordinary characters. Her descriptions of the farmers and lower middle-class people of the Midlands glow with humorous realism, and are pervaded with a sense of generous and gentle humanity.
Meredith is a master of humour and pathos, and, to a larger extent perhaps than any other English novelist, a poet in prose. Many critics consider him as the greatest novelist of his age.