1.

the victorian novel features this little caricature of the father deciding what his daughter will
have to read and being outraged the world will be there and takes her innocence.
2. Pride and Prejudice
a. 1813: strictly speaking, it is a 17th century novel but it doesn’t fit in to that niche of
Victorian Novel which is first and foremost, classified according to the duration of the
Queen Victoria who came to the throne in 1837.
b. The novel itself is a very typical of a 17th century novel.
c. The novel is referred to as a early Victorian novel or a Georgian Novel.
3. Novel is a construct continually evolving. The English Novel started to form in 18th century
and continues to exist today.
4. Austen is so central to the argument of women in society, the feminist ideology of 19th
century which gives rise to the first wave feminism. She is an integral part of that whole
argument.
5. Romanticism sorta follows into the 19th century and formulates the predominant mindset of
the early 19th century.
6. In the 19th century, people are beginning to live longer yet the majority are not. Death is
always imminent in nearly industrialised Britain. Therefore, people who were alive when
Victoria came to the throne, certainly, most of them did not see her ending her reign. There
would have been perhaps two or more generations that had passed who had no one but
Victoria in their lives.for them she was the absolute meaning of the age.
7. Victorian age is a very staunch period. It had a principle of life that existed and manipulated
in every aspect of the individuals’ lives. Principles regarding the concept of women, the
working classes, class as a whole, God, Christian values etc.; everything is given a value and
you are ordered as an individual to live your life according to these values.
8. The key terms need looking up and their corresponding issues in the 19th century since these
terms give the vocabulary to analyse these novels. The central issues are them.
9. The middle class throughout the 18th centurey were developing and initially they were
merchantilists, traders or buyers and they make the beginnings of capitalism. In the 18th
century capitalism is not necessarily that more dangerous statement than it becomes in the
19th century.
10. Bourgeoisie is the definition of middle classes which comes from French. With that definition
comes much better understanding of the depths of the manipulation that the middle classes
now command not only of the working classes and those groups less powerful than
themselves. There is a self-governing mechanism within the middle class that is as reductive
to the individual as to those all classes outside of itself. You know, the bourgoisie mentality is
that what the neighbours will do or think, we must keep everythin g hidden, we must not
show our true self to everyone else; it is a middle class mentality.
11. There is a differentiation between nouveau riche (new middle classes, new source of wealth,
divided into two) and new rich and old money (the aristocrasy who historically had power,
wealth and status that come lands from the generations of the landowners which commands
the people on their own land.
12. Those individuals from haute bourgeoisie who are giving direction and investment and
production on the streets. By mankers we mean “merchant banking” whose bankers finance
the great financial entrepeneurs who borrow money to take ships to other countries to sell
or bring back goods.
13. The artisans are painters, sculptures who have a particular ability
14. The working classes were those people who had no worth and particular skill and seen
existing in a mass and having no individual worth or value.
15. The terms crass, showy, materialistic: concerned with propriety, looks and how they appear
to people that exists today.
16. The protectonism was created around the middle class that sought stability and were
terrified about what came about in French Revolution whose mentality would affect Britain.
This need for stability within Britain brough about the whole mentality of Victoriawn Era
which is controlling everything, keeping everyone on a leash, they don’t have the luxury,
when they are happy and kept battling to survive the day, to demand they be equal to their
masters.
17. Every area or individual is a great area in themselves. No binary opposition in life. If you are a
ruling community and want to control people around you, you simplify the world, the order
like i have control and you will be controlled. That mentality was operative within Victorian
society and its novels. By systematic binary opposition, we mean positive and negative, the
divide between man and woman that can’t be linked to one another and no equal to one
another. The divide between the middle class and the working class wasn’t simply a divide of
money on one side or no money on the other, position on one side and no position on the
other. It was a moral order that they said was dictated even through the biology of the world
like the brain size comparison between women and men. It is called arbitrary law, a man-
made law that was made to become something innate to nature, organic life, God, Christian
values in order to convince people and protect the middle class interests.
18. The Victorian Period has a new God that is Science. People are becoming less than less
devout, going to church less, the bible and god getting decentralised. Scientific discoveries
are the focal points of the society. It is called God because victorians didn’t necessarily
control, understand or understand the mechanics of science. It is like a belief. It is a
problematic approach to the lives of women which were condemned as hysteric beings and
even they believed what they said without needing proof.
19. In the victorian age people considered that women were special, brainless, can’t think, need
protecting. The age actually made women objects, less humanbeings, less people, more
object. That argument itself is hypocrite. Women actually were abused by the victorian in
every way possible. As in the case of children (5-6 years old) who were no person till the
adulthood since they would sweep chimneys, be sent to mines to make the machines thread
work properly.
20. We owe our modern world to the 19th century. The processes created during the age are still
used today at the price of liberty, freedom, equality. And it led people to question these
notions.
21. The agrarian revolution opens the path of Industrial revolution.
22. The novel genre is subversive, born of society, it reflects seemingly society but it is also
innately, strategically, genetically subversive at the same time. For a novel to function as a
genre, it cannot be simply be a mirror of what exists outside of itself, it has to be a mirror to
life outside to which the subtext, the narrative reacts against. So it is always subversive.
Because the victorian period was a time of stability, straight order, control, these notions
were depicted in the 19th century novels. However, you find in the midcentury the
reactionary movement kicks in. It is the opposite of what 18th century novels tried to do. It
tries to portray the innate chaos in the mid 19th century, showing the inequality.
23. Her family controlled the way she was perceived by the reading public, even the literary
institutes as well. For example, her nephew wrote her a biography that he shaped an image
of Jane Austen to be this redundant woman that almost lived a secluded life yet there is a
great disparity between them. You feel that jane austen we know from her novels, adamant,
political voice we have was lost in translation when you come to look at this very biography.
24. When she died, her older sister Cassandra took most of the letters and journals Jane Austen
produced and burned them all. The reason why she did this was to protect the reputation of
her sister, unmarried, unsullied, pure, innocent, virginal lady who died at the age of 42. All
the details of gossips, jokes were destroyed.
25. Her language seems very obivous to us with hints of daily life language used in her works.
The first thing we latch onto with Austen is the modernism wtihin her argument concerning
women.
26. When you read her works, the thoughts in your head is shaped to be intimate with someone
you talk. Rather than Richardson, she liked the romance of Scott even though Austen wrote
in a rational manner.
27. The development of 19th century novel is the development of characterisation over plot.
Within the development of characterisation, we have the psycohological detail entering the
novel. This makes a sophisticated argument in the 19th century novel.
28. Plot is the most important aspect of the novel.
29. We understand the society by prejudices thoughts actions of her characters. Compared to
the novels mentioned, they are not people travelling around, they are the people
miscommunicating in one place vice versa.
30. She didn’t believe in adhering to the society.
31. Jane austen is portrayed in this lesson as a protofeminist given her limited voice. She lived a
domestic, quite restrained middle class life. They were truly frightened of being overtaken by
France, by violence.
32. Take into the change of Wordsworth after his going to and from France. His writing style
changed overnight because of bloodshed in French Revolution.
33. We don’t really know the physical characteristics of her characters throughout the novel
thanks to Austen’s cancelling out the objectification of women.
34. She develops her characters individuality in such a way that they are able to cope with
society telling them women must behave in certain ways etc. they are resilient in themselves.
For example, when elizabeth bennet is speaking with Lady Catherine who is a pompous,
snobbish woman trying to humiliate her making her feel insignificant in her own household,
Elizabeth has completely control over herself, she speaks she shares hor opoinions and ideas
that I believe this to be true. Lady is shocked saying she is opiniated for a young girl. That is
all that is needed in order for the female to retain her integrity, idemtity within society; no
need for shouting, screaming, rebellion etc. she is able to coexist with society.
35. The problem in the 19th century was that women were placed upon a pedestal, said to be
the queen of her domestic realm etc. yet these were all lie leading her into a cage seperating
her from active life.
36. Austen does not create society in her novels through instituitional bodies. She creates people
that reflects the teachings of the society.
37. She regards social convention as limitation.
38. People in Dickens’ novels describes themselves according to the way they dress, what they
have around them, their objects, artifacts, carriages, environmental factors whereas Austen’s
people does this through their ideas, what they say, how they express themselves.
39. Marriage is a very important, basic construct of the society.
40. When the refer to love, the are not just talking about the love between a man and a woman.
The subtext of t heir reference to love is it is a symbol for and analogy of community or
society whose basic unit is a union between two people whether it be heterosexual,
homosexual, parent/child etc.
41. The novel is not just about two people falling in love, Austen is writing about the balance
between men and women in society, how they can come together how we can have a social
principle along coherent lines where men and women are equal to one another, then their
alliance to one another mean healthy society. the love union has greater meaning behind it.
42. She show society can be different and reworked by having equals connect each other with
men and women b eing equal to one another so that they will be able to escape the
controlling impulses of the society.
43. The novel begins with a social dictate and then it is deconstructed through the process of
novel and reconstructed upon human individual needs for partnership and warmth of love
and humane compatibility.
44. All the marriages we see whether it be an absolute show or by implication are all that
unequal, flawed marriages. There is only one true marriage in the novel.